Anne Brande, executive director of the nonprofit Albany County Conservancy, told Cowboy State Daily that their group is concerned about the impacts. "And no one is really taking a look at all this," she said.
As per the studies conducted for over two decades, wind turbines impact local meteorological conditions by raising temperatures at the surface level. While the effect is small, it could become a significant and sustained problem as more wind farms are built. (Related: Wind farms pose health risks to local residents, but governments around the world don't care.)
The researchers concluded that the impacts are different from the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions from oil, gas and coal in that they only last while the wind turbines are in operation. Unfortunately, wind farms are being built across the Cowboy State at a rapid pace – thanks to federal subsidies.
In 2004, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that "large-scale use of wind power can alter local and global climate by extracting kinetic energy and altering turbulent transport in the atmospheric boundary layer." According to the authors, large amounts of wind across the continent will produce a pronounced impact on climate, but reducing carbon dioxide emissions produce a net benefit to the climate.
Six years later, the University of Illinois' Somnath Roy and a team of researchers found that wind farms affect temperatures and humidity near the surface. They warned that the "explosive growth" of future wind farms could impact agriculture.
"More and more wind farms are being constructed on agricultural land that is sensitive to changes in the microclimate," they wrote. Roy was also involved in a 2013 study that found the same conclusion, as well as in a 2015 study that found wind farms raising nighttime temperatures.
A 2011 Purdue University case study found increased temperatures at the surface as a result of wind farms, as did a 2016 study in Scotland.
Meanwhile, a 2018 study published in Joule estimated that generating America's electricity demand with wind power could warm surface temperatures by as much as 0.24 degrees Celsius, which is nearly one-fourth of the amount of warming the world has experienced since 1800.
Wind turbines may harm wildlife
Apart from the wind turbines adding to the causes of global warming, experts are also against building more of them as they may harm wildlife.
Mike Lockhart, a wildlife biologist specializing in eagles, is concerned that all the lined-up projects in Wyoming are being built within a major corridor for the gold eagles. Lockhart has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for over 30 years and is supportive of wind energy and concerned about climate change.
However, he said wind farms should be built elsewhere as the number of eagles killed by turbines in a major corridor is significant and likely underestimated. Lockhart said he was not familiar with the research on the impacts of wind projects on surface temperatures, nor was he aware of any research into how rising surface temperatures might impact eagles.
Meanwhile, Brande said the noise and industrialization from wind projects are going to spread across migration corridors used by pronghorn – a species of artiodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. These will not only harm the state's wildlife but could affect Wyoming's tourism industry.
But these so-called green energy projects are able to proceed despite studies warning against their risks.
In a lawsuit seeking to stop the construction of a wind farm in Albany County, the Wyoming Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in favor of the wind farm. The court's decision paved the way for ConnectGen to move forward with its plans to construct more than 100 turbines on a 26,000-acre estate in southern Albany County. A company representative confirmed that construction could start as early as 2024.
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