Publication: Greening the Wind : Environmental
and Social Considerations for Wind Power Development
Loading...
Date
2011-12-01
ISSN
Published
2011-12-01
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report identifies good practices for managing the key environmental and social issues associated with wind power development and provides advice on how best to address these issues in project planning, construction, and operation and maintenance. It provides detailed background information on wind power, with special focus on two emerging themes of growing scientific and public interest: namely the biodiversity-related impacts and the broader socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of wind power development. Like wind power itself, the scope of this report is worldwide although special attention is paid to the issues characteristic of the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. While the principal focus is on land-based wind power, it also briefly addresses the environmental and social impacts related to off shore wind development. Wind power today is widely regarded as a key component of an environmentally sustainable, low-carbon energy future because it is renewable, requires almost no water, and generates near-zero emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. In many parts of the world, wind power has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electric power generation, thereby helping to limit the severe environmental and social consequences of human-induced climate change. The growth of wind power has also occurred due to its other positive attributes, including growing economic competitiveness. The adverse biodiversity-related impacts of wind power facilities mainly involve birds, bats, and natural habitats.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ledec, George C.; Rapp, Kennan W.; Aiello, Roberto G.. 2011. Greening the Wind : Environmental
and Social Considerations for Wind Power Development. World Bank Studies. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2388 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Wind Power Development : Economics and Policies(2009-03-01)This study reviews the prospects of wind power at the global level. Existing studies indicate that the earth's wind energy supply potential significantly exceeds global energy demand. Yet, only 1 percent of the global electricity demand is currently derived from wind power despite 40 percent annual growth in wind generating capacity over the past 25 years. More than 98 percent of total current wind power capacity is installed in the developed countries plus China and India. It has been estimated that wind power could supply 7 to 34 percent of global electricity needs by 2050. However, wind power faces a large number of technical, economic, financial, institutional, market, and other barriers. To overcome these barriers, many countries have employed various policy instruments, including capital subsidies, tax incentives, tradable energy certificates, feed-in tariffs, grid access guarantees and mandatory standards. Besides these policies, climate change mitigation initiatives resulting from the Kyoto Protocol (e.g., CO2-emission reduction targets in developed countries and the Clean Development Mechanism in developing countries) have played a significant role in promoting wind power.Publication Hydroelectric Power(Washington, DC, 2015)Worldwide, hydropower is a crucial power supply option for several reasons. First, it is a renewable energy resource that can contribute to sustainable development by generating local, typically inexpensive power. Second, hydropower reduces reliance on imported fuels that carry the risks of price volatility, supply uncertainty and foreign currency requirements. Third, hydro systems can offer multiple co-benefits including water storage for drinking and irrigation, drought-preparedness, flood control protection, aquaculture and recreational opportunities, among others. Finally, hydro can allow more renewables, especially wind and solar, to be added to the system by providing rapid-response power when intermittent sources are off-line, and pumped energy storage when such sources are generating excess power. For more publications on IFC Sustainability please visit www.ifc.org/sustainabilitypublications.Publication Handshake, No. 13 (April 2014)(Washington, DC, 2014-04)This issue of Handshake, focused on public-private partnerships in the power sector, brings diverse expert voices together to discuss how to increase access to energy in developing countries. Features on hydropower and renewables together with examples from Africa and Latin America provide an up-to-the-minute look at one of the most important and rapidly evolving sectors today. This issue includes the following headings: power and mining: digging deep to power up; market mover: intraday electricity trading; timeline to transformation: Nigerias privatization; energy for development: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MITs) new research; and interview: United Nation (UN) sustainable energy for all (SE4ALL) special representative Kandeh Yumkella. Whats it like to be energy-poor? Kandeh Yumkella, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All, answers that question and many more in this issue of Handshake. Yumkella recalls his own experiences in Sierra Leone to illustrate the link between energy poverty and income poverty and explains how PPPs can help.Publication Handshake, No. 2 (July 2011)(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2011-07)This issue includes the following headings: renewable energy: wind and solar; energy efficiency: green building; and green finance: infrastructure finance.Publication India : Policy of Notes on Power(Washington, DC, 2013-05-14)The Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) is a high-level global forum to promote policies and programs that advance clean energy technology, to share lessons learned and best practices, and to encourage the transition to a global clean energy economy. At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference of parties in Copenhagen in December 2009, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that he would host the first Clean Energy Ministerial to bring together ministers with responsibility for clean energy technologies from the world s major economies and ministers from a select number of smaller countries that are leading in various areas of clean energy. Currently, the 23 governments participating in CEM initiatives are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and collectively account for 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 90 percent of global clean energy investment.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)The worldwide concern with deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia is motivated not only by the irreversible loss of this natural wealth, but also by the perception that it is a destructive process in which the social and economic gains are smaller than the environmental losses. This perception also underlies the diagnosis, formulation and evaluation of public policies proposed by government and non-governmental organizations working in the region, including the World Bank. The present work suggests that a fuller understanding is necessary with regard to the motivations and identity of the agents responsible for deforestation, the evaluation of the social and economic benefits from the process and the resulting implications of public policies for the region. The objective of the report is to show that, in contrast to the 1970s and 1980s when occupation of Brazilian Amazonia was largely induced by government policies and subsidies, recent deforestation in significant parts of the region is basically caused by medium- and large-scale cattle ranching. Following a private rationale, the dynamics of the occupation process gradually became autonomous, as is suggested by the significant increase in deforestation in the 1990s despite the substantial reduction of subsidies and incentives by government. Among the causes of the transformation are technological and managerial changes and the adaptation of cattle ranching to the geo-ecological conditions of eastern Amazonia which allowed for productivity gains and cost reductions. The fact that cattle ranching is viable from the private perspective does not mean that the activity is socially desirable or environmentally sustainable. Private gain needs to be contrasted with the environmental (social) costs associated with cattle ranching and deforestation. From the social perspective, it is legitimate to argue that the private benefits from large-scale cattle ranching are largely exclusive, having contributed little to alleviate social and economic inequalities. The study notes, however, that decreases in the price of beef in national markets and increases in exports caused by the expansion of cattle ranching in Eastern Amazonia may imply social benefits that go beyond sectoral and regional boundaries.Publication World Development Report 2018(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018)Every year, the World Bank's World Development Report takes on a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 Report, Learning to Realize Education's Promise, is the first ever devoted entirely to education. Now is an excellent time for it: education has long been critical for human welfare, but is even more so in a time of rapid economic change. The Report explores four main themes. First, education's promise: Education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies - both within and outside the education system. Second, the learning crisis: Despite gains in education access, recent learning assessments show that many young people around the world, especially from poor families, are leaving school unequipped with even the most foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. Third, promising interventions to improve learning: Research from areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, or school management have identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, that teachers are skilled as well as motivated, and that other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, learning at scale: Achieving learning throughout an education system will require more than just scaling up effective interventions. Change requires overcoming technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and being adaptive when implementing programs.Publication The Role of Desalination in an Increasingly Water-Scarce World(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-03)The cost of desalination has been plummeting over the years. As a result, desalination has become a viable option for certain strategic uses. Today, over 20,000 desalination plants in more than 150 countries supply about 300 million people with freshwater every day. Initially a niche product for energy rich and water scarce cities, particularly in the Middle East, the continued decrease in cost and environmental viability of desalination has the potential to significantly expand its use - particularly for rapidly growing water scarce coastal cities. Desalination can be seen as one option in a portfolio water supply sources, including traditional surface water and groundwater sources as well as wastewater reuse, to meet growing water demand gap. Although still relatively expensive, desalination offers the potential to enhance system reliability. As renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar expand, and as advances in concentrate management techniques make discharges from desalination plants much cheaper and safer, the prospect of producing freshwater from the sea without increasing greenhouse gases and without significant damages to the local environment become more promising.Publication World Development Report 2017(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-01-30)Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? This book addresses these fundamental questions, which are at the heart of development. Policy making and policy implementation do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in complex political and social settings, in which individuals and groups with unequal power interact within changing rules as they pursue conflicting interests. The process of these interactions is what this Report calls governance, and the space in which these interactions take place, the policy arena. The capacity of actors to commit and their willingness to cooperate and coordinate to achieve socially desirable goals are what matter for effectiveness. However, who bargains, who is excluded, and what barriers block entry to the policy arena determine the selection and implementation of policies and, consequently, their impact on development outcomes. Exclusion, capture, and clientelism are manifestations of power asymmetries that lead to failures to achieve security, growth, and equity. The distribution of power in society is partly determined by history. Yet, there is room for positive change. This Report reveals that governance can mitigate, even overcome, power asymmetries to bring about more effective policy interventions that achieve sustainable improvements in security, growth, and equity. This happens by shifting the incentives of those with power, reshaping their preferences in favor of good outcomes, and taking into account the interests of previously excluded participants. These changes can come about through bargains among elites and greater citizen engagement, as well as by international actors supporting rules that strengthen coalitions for reform.Publication A Cost Effective Solution to Reduce Disaster Losses in Developing Countries : Hydro-Meteorological Services, Early Warning, and Evacuation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05)In Europe, it can be estimated that hydro-meteorological information and early warning systems save several hundreds of lives per year, avoid between 460 million and 2.7 billion Euros of disaster asset losses per year, and produce between 3.4 and 34 billion of additional benefits per year through the optimization of economic production in weather-sensitive sectors (agriculture, energy, etc.). The potential for similar benefits in the developing world is not only proportional to population, but also to increased hazard risk due to climate and geography, as well as increased exposure to weather due to the state of infrastructure. This analysis estimates that the potential benefits from upgrading to developed-country standards the hydro-meteorological information production and early warning capacity in all developing countries include: (i) between 300 million and 2 billion USD per year of avoided asset losses due to natural disasters; (ii) an average of 23,000 saved lives per year, which is valued between 700 million and 3.5 billion USD per year using the Copenhagen Consensus guidelines; and (iii) between 3 and 30 billion USD per year of additional economic benefits. The total benefits would reach between 4 and 36 billion USD per year. Because some of the most expensive components of early warning systems have already been built (e.g., earth observation satellites, global weather forecasts), these investments are relatively modest, estimated here around 1 billion US per year, reaching benefit-cost ratios between 4 and 36.