All large-scale energy systems have environmental impacts, and the ability to compare the impacts of renewable energy sources is an important step in planning a future without coal or gas power. Extracting energy from the wind causes climatic impacts that are small compared to current projections of 21 st century warming, but large compared to the effect of reducing US electricity emissions to zero with solar. In the journal Joule , Harvard researchers report the most accurate modelling yet of how increasing wind power would affect climate. They find that large-scale wind power generation would warm the Continental United States 0.24 degrees Celsius because wind turbines redistribute heat in the atmosphere. Source: Miller and Keith (2018a) Wind beats coal by any environmental measure, but that doesn’t mean that its impacts are negligible. We must quickly transition away from fossil fuels to stop carbon emissions. In doing so, we must […]