This blog post is an adapted version of the introduction to the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. It's a companion article to the 33 rebuttals published on Skeptical Science in collaboration with the report's authors.
Getting the U.S. energy system onto an environmentally sustainable track will require rapid and widespread development of wind, solar, and other renewable energy facilities; corresponding storage, transmission, and distribution infrastructure; and timely industry-specific transitions, such as battery electric vehicles replacing their combustion-engine counterparts. Broad public support exists for transformative climate policies, with a June 2023 Pew Research Center survey finding that 67% of U.S. adults prioritize developing renewable energy sources over increased fossil fuel production1. However, “misinformation” and coordinated “disinformation” have at times undermined support for renewable energy projects and electric vehicles2. This report addresses some of the more prevalent and persistent distortions about solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles, with the aim of promoting a more informed discussion3.
While the impact of misinformation and disinformation can be difficult to measure, alarming data has begun to emerge. A Monmouth University poll found, for instance, that support in New Jersey for offshore wind farms had declined from 76% in 2019, to 54% by August 20234. This shift is likely due, in large part, to dubious claims, some of them coming from fossil-fuel funded opposition groups, which have attempted to blame wind farm surveys for recent spikes in whale deaths off the United States’ northeastern coast5. More generally, both nationwide and in communities on the front lines of our energy transition, anecdotal doubts and coordinated disinformation efforts have dampened public enthusiasm for ambitious renewables infrastructure, particularly among concentrated segments of our polarized population. For example, support for offshore wind among New Jersey Republicans dropped from 69% to 28% from 2019 to August 2023, while support among New Jersey Democrats only dropped from 79% to 76%4.
False claims about renewable energy and electric vehicles come in many varieties. Some claims rely on sheer bombast, seemingly designed to shock and inflame audiences, rather than contribute to informed debate on pressing policy choices (“Solar farms depend entirely on subsidies from your hard earned money. When the subsidies are gone, the solar farms are abandoned!”)6. Some emphasize theoretical impacts of poorly-designed renewable energy projects while ignoring the many well-established methods to minimize or even eliminate those impacts7 (“[I]ndustrial-scale solar isn’t right for rural-agricultural areas . . . [because] [t]he land (forest, farmland, vegetation, soil) is forever destroyed.”)8. Some frame any departure from the status quo, such as the use of farmland for solar production, as categorically inconceivable (“Ask yourself, if several thousand acres of agricultural land is converted to industrial solar facilities, who will grow your food? Bill Gates? Mark Zuckerberg?”)9. Some rely on unsubstantiated theories of causation, such as speculation that whale deaths stem from noise related to wind farm surveys, despite the fact that marine biologists have found that the sounds during offshore wind surveying are similar “to the sound of a fan in a room10.” Some drill down with single-minded focus on the toxicity or carbon footprint of renewable energy infrastructure or its component parts6, while declining to acknowledge that fossil fuel extraction, production, and distribution cause far greater environmental contamination, harm to human health, and climate instability11.
This report does not examine the origins of the false claims or the motivations of those who disseminate them. However, it is well documented that much of it comes from deliberately misleading sources, such as astroturf “local” organizations funded by distant policy advocates, themselves funded by fossil-fuel producers12. One academic center that has studied these origins in more detail, Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab, has extensively mapped out some of the connections among such groups in the context of opposition to offshore wind development.
This report instead examines the substance of various claims against solar, wind, and electric vehicle deployment, focusing only on those claims that the authors have determined to be unfounded. Critically, the purpose of this report is not to establish that solar, wind, or electrical vehicles can be deployed without any adverse impacts or that each and every argument against solar, wind, or electrical vehicle deployment is baseless. Indeed, the energy transition will inevitably have some adverse impacts, including some adverse environmental impacts. However, renewable energy and its offshoots can also significantly reduce climate threats and improve public health, while providing jobs for millions of Americans. Ultimately, as Michael Gerrard has written, the energy transition will inevitably involve “difficult tradeoffs,” and it will require difficult sacrifices, “in order to avoid far worse impacts14.”
With that context, this report identifies and examines 33 of the most pervasive misconceptions about solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles. The false claims about each of these technologies are presented roughly in the following order: misconceptions pertaining to human health, then misconceptions pertaining to environmental impacts, then misconceptions pertaining to economic impacts, and then other misconceptions that do not fit into any of these categories15. To identify the most common misconceptions regarding renewables and electric vehicles, the authors first conducted primary research that included reviewing social-media groups and websites created to oppose renewable energy projects or policies, as well as existing press coverage about misinformation16. The authors then developed fact-based responses to these misconceptions, relying to the greatest extent possible on academic literature and government publications. The authors would like to thank Eric Larson, Charles Kutscher, Aniruddh Mohan, and David Gahl for reviewing these responses for technical accuracy, as well as Karen Florini and Emma Stieglitz for helping to facilitate technical review and Amory Lovins for providing technical feedback. The authors would also like to thank Achyuth Anil and Miguel Severino for their assistance in preparing the report. Any errors that remain are the authors’ own. Because each of these responses is designed to stand on its own, there is some repetition in content from one response to the next.
Importantly, this is not the first publication to attempt to debunk or contextualize dubious claims about clean energy. Below is a short, non-comprehensive list of other efforts to clarify misinformation and disinformation pertaining to renewable energy and electric vehicles:
This publication aims to build on these other reports and should be read in conjunction with them.
Claims related to solar energy
| Claim | Argument Title | Fact | Link with shortURL |
| #1 | Electromagnetic fields from solar farms are harmful to human health | The electromagnetic fields generated at a solar farm are similar in strength and frequency to those of toaster ovens and other household appliances—and harmless to humans. | https://sks.to/solarEMF |
| #2 | Toxic heavy metals leach out from solar panels and pose a threat to human health | The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources has assessed that there is little, if any, risk of chemical releases to the environment during normal use, and that all materials in a solar panel are “insoluble and non-volatile at ambient conditions,” and “don’t mix with water or vaporize into air.” | https://sks.to/solarmetals |
| #3 | Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills | Waste from solar panels is trivial compared to the waste generated by fossil fuels, with coal ash generating 300-800 times more waste, and oily sludge generating 2-5 times more waste than PVs. | https://sks.to/solarwaste |
| #4 | Clearing trees for solar panels negates any climate change benefits | An average acre of solar panels in the United States reduced approximately 204–231 times more carbon dioxide per year than an acre of forest. | https://sks.to/solartrees |
| #5 | Solar energy is worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels | The lifecycle emissions of solar energy are far lower than fossil fuel sources, with the emissions of coal being 23 times greater than solar PV while the emissions of natural gas are 11 times greater than solar PV. | https://sks.to/solarvsff |
| #6 | Solar projects harm biodiversity | When applying best practices for project design, large-scale solar farms can sustain and even increase local biodiversity by replanting indigenous flowering species that benefit insects, , mammals and ground nesting birds. | https://sks.to/solarbiodiv |
| #7 | Solar projects will hurt farmers and rural communities | Solar deployment would utilize a relatively small percentage of U.S. land when compared to the land currently being used for agriculture. | https://sks.to/solarag |
| #8 | Solar development will destroy jobs | Solar development creates more jobs per unit of energy generated than other types of energy production, and renewable jobs will far exceed the jobs lost due to a shift away from fossil fuels. | https://sks.to/solarjobs |
| #9 | Reliance on solar will make the United States dependent on China and other countries | Although the United States still imports a majority of the solar panels it installs, domestic solar manufacturing is on the rise and likely to grow further as manufacturers open factories in the U.S. | https://sks.to/solarchina |
| #10 | Utility-scale solar farms destroy the value of nearby homes | Data across multiple studies show that utility-scale solar projects only have a minor impact on the closest properties and no effect on properties more than a mile away. | https://sks.to/solarhomeval |
| #11 | Solar energy is more expensive than fossil fuels and completely dependent on subsidies | Unsubsidized solar energy is now generally cheaper than fossil fuels and according to the International Energy Agency, solar PV is “the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most parts of the world." | https://sks.to/solarprice |
| #12 | Solar panels don’t work in cold or cloudy climates | Solar panels generate energy even in cloudy or cold conditions, with cold temperatures actually increasing solar panel efficiency by increasing voltage. | https://sks.to/solarclouds |
| #13 | Solar energy is unreliable | An increasing number of planned solar projects are set to include an energy storage component, and solar, wind, and storage together can provide the majority of the country’s electricity without compromising reliability. | https://sks.to/solarunrel |
| #14 | We do not have sufficient mineral resources for [large-scale] solar development | Multiple analyses have found that global mineral resources are likely sufficient to meet long-term demand across all energy transition sectors, including EVs and transmission. | https://sks.to/solarmineral |
| Claim | Argument Title | Fact | Link with shortURL |
| #15 | Electromagnetic radiation from wind turbines poses a threat to human health | Multiple studies have found that the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by wind turbines are lower than those generated by most common household appliances and that they easily meet rigorous international safety standards. | https://sks.to/windEM |
| #16 | Wind turbines are error prone and a threat to human health and safety | Turbine collapse or breakage are extremely rare, utilising safety mechanisms to survive extreme weather conditions, and the mortality rate from wind energy pales in comparison to the risks associated with fossil fuels. | https://sks.to/windfall |
| #17 | Low-frequency noise from wind turbines harms human health and causes “wind turbine syndrome." | The weight of the evidence suggests that there is no direct causal correlation between low-frequency noise from wind turbines and human health. | https://sks.to/windsyndrome |
| #18 | Shadow flicker from wind turbines can trigger seizures in people with epilepsy | Wind turbines operate between much lower than the threshold frequency typically required to cause a seizure and public-health studies have found that wind turbines do not cause seizures. | https://sks.to/windshadow |
| #19 | Wind turbines are a major threat to birds, bats, and other wildlife. | Wind power is a relatively minor source of mortality for birds compared to climate change, which threatens two-thirds of all North American bird species with a heightened risk of extinction. | https://sks.to/windwildlife |
| #20 | Offshore wind development is harmful to whales and other marine life | Wind turbines generate far less low-frequency sound than ships do and the main causes of mortality for right whales are vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. | https://sks.to/windwhales |
| #21 | Producing and transporting wind turbine components releases more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels | The average lifecycle emissions of coal is 77 times greater than wind energy. | https://sks.to/windco2 |
| #22 | Wind turbines will generate an unsustainable amount of waste | Roughly 85% of the mass of a wind turbine, including the tower, gearbox, and generator, consist of metals that are easily recycled. | https://sks.to/windwaste |
| #23 | Wind turbines take up too much land | The wind turbines require less land per kilowatt-hour generated than fossil fuels and the land required for net-zezro emissions will have a notably smaller footprint than the 4.4 million acres currently used for natural gas extraction and the 3.5 million acres for oil extraction. | https://sks.to/windland |
| #24 | Wind power - particularly offshore wind power - is too expensive | In the United States, onshore wind has the lowest unsubsidized levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of all utility-scale energy sources and the LCOE of offshore wind power has declined substantially over the past decade. | https://sks.to/windprice |
| #25 | Wind turbines are bad for farmers and rural communities | Wind power offers farmers the opportunity to earn additional income from leasing out their land, while also growing crops or grazing livestock. | https://sks.to/windrural |
| #26 | Wind energy is bad for U.S. jobs | Wind power is a fast-growing industry, employing roughly 120,000 U.S. workers in 2021 and creating roughly 5,400 new jobs (up 4.7%) since 2019. | https://sks.to/windjobs |
| #27 | Wind turbines destroy nearby property values | While there might initially be a small decrease in property values, the effect all but disappears with time and distance from a wind project and the presence of a fossil fuel fired power plant has greater impact on property values. | https://sks.to/windhomeval |
| #28 | Wind energy is unreliable | As with solar energy, complete reliance on wind energy would pose intermittency challenges. However, wind, solar, and storage together can provide the majority of the country’s electricity without compromising reliability. | https://sks.to/windunrel |
| #29 | Wind turbines are very noisy | Depending on distance, wind turbines are comparable in noise to typical household AC-units. | https://sks.to/windnoise |
Claims related to electric vehicles
| Claim | Argument Title | Fact | Link with shortURL |
| #30 | Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change | Electric vehicles have lower lifecycle emissions than traditional gasoline-powered cars because they are between 2.5 to 5.8 times more efficient, and are essential to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. | https://sks.to/evharm |
| #31 | Electric vehicles will cost the United States many automobile industry jobs | EV manufacturing need not result in fewer jobs in the U.S. automobile industry with over 179,000 announced U.S. jobs related to EVs and EV batteries from 2015 to 2023. | https://sks.to/evjobs |
| #32 | Electric vehicles are impractical due to range restrictions | The majority of EVs can travel roughly 200 miles on a single charge and some models can travel over 400 miles on a single charge, more than enough to meet the daily needs of median U.S. households. | https://sks.to/evrange |
| #33 | Electric vehicles cannot function in hot or cold weather | Extreme temperatures can decrease EV range, particularly extreme cold, but gasoline-powered cars are also susceptible to extreme weather conditions and EVs may actually be more reliable than gasoline-powered cars in the cold. | https://sks.to/evweather |
Footnotes:
[1] Brian Kennedy, Cary Funk & Alec Tyson, Majorities of Americans Prioritize Renewable Energy, Back Steps to Address Climate Change, Pew Research Center, June 28, 2023
[2] See Misinformation and disinformation, Am. Psychological Assoc. (last visited March 25, 2024) (explaining the distinction between misinformation and disinformation); Anahi Ayala Iacucci, Using Social Media in Community-Based Protection at 230 (2021)
[3] The authors recognize that similar misinformation persists regarding energy transmission infrastructure, the buildout of which is necessary to support the expansion of renewable energy generation and electric vehicle adoption, but transmission is outside the scope of this report. See Lu Nelsen, From the Ground Up: Addressing Key Community Concerns in Clean Energy Transmission at 10, 12, 15-16 (2013); See Queued Up . . . But in Need of Transmission, Dep’t of Energy, Apr. 2022
[4] Monmouth University Poll, Support for Wind Energy Plunges, Monmouth University, Aug. 29, 2023
[5] Tracey Tully & Winston Choi-Schagrin, Why 23 Dead Whales Have Washed Up on the East Coast Since December, N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 2023
[6] How Solar Affects YOU!, No to Solar (last visited March 25, 2024)
[7] See, etc., Bill Pederson & Brooks Lamb, Agrivoltaics: Producing Solar Energy While Protecting Farmland (2021); Biodiversity Consultancy, Mitigating Biodiversity Impacts Associated with Solar and Wind Energy Development (2021)
[8] 10 Reasons Industrial-Scale Solar Isn't Right for Agricultural-Rural Areas, Citizens for Responsible Solar (last visited March 25, 2024
[9] Welcome to No Solar in Logan County (Ohio), No Solar in Logan County (Ohio) (last visited March 25, 2024).
[10] Pearl Marvell, Wind Opponents Spread Myth about Dead Whales, Yale Climate Connections, Sept. 19, 2023
[11] See Hannah Ritchie, What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?, Our World in Data, Feb. 10, 2020
[12] David Gelles, The Texas Group Waging a National Crusade Against Climate Action, N.Y. Times, Dec. 4, 2022
[13] Isaac Slevin et al., Climate and Development Lab, Against the Wind: A Map of the Anti-Offshore Wind Network in the Eastern United States (2023)
[14] Michael B. Gerrard, A Time For Triage, 39(6) Envtl. F. 38 (November/December 2022)
[15] The dividing line among these categories is often blurry: for example, climate change has impacts on human health, the non-human environment, and the economy.
[16] See, e.g., No to Solar [6]; No Solar in Logan County (Ohio) [9]; Defiance County Citizens for Responsible Solar, (last visited March 25, 2024); Windmills Kill, (last visited March 25, 2024); Solar, Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (last visited March 25, 2024); Letters: America Decides to Make Its Electrical Grid Dysfunctional, Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2022. See also, e.g., Julia Simon, Misinformation is derailing renewable energy projects across the United States, NPR, Mar. 28, 2022
Skeptical Science sincerely appreciates Sabin Center's generosity in collaborating with us to make this information available as widely as possible.
Posted by BaerbelW on Friday, 1 November, 2024
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