Balsa Trees Illegally Logged for Wind Power
7 hours ago Guest Blogger
Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett
I have detailed in previous Climate Change Weekly posts various harmful environmental impacts the development of large industrial wind facilities imposes wherever they are erected. These include the amount of wilderness and viewsheds disrupted, massive bird and bat kills, the shedding of tons of composite materials from blade-edge erosion, ocean disruptions, the toxins released in mining for rare earths, and the mountains of waste generated. A recent investigative report from The Daily Sceptic exposed an additional environmental harm the wind industry is contributing to: Amazon deforestation.
Balsa wood is a key component of wind turbines, a near-perfect material for them. The wood is used primarily as a core material within a sandwich structure, thanks to its unique combination of being extremely lightweight yet remarkably strong and rigid. Its cellular structure provides excellent structural integrity, stiffness, and fatigue resistance, essential for massive, long-lasting blades that flex in high winds.
The problem is parts of the Amazonian rain forest are being denuded to supply the growing demand for balsa wood. Aside from the impact on the Amazonian ecosystem and the biodiversity therein, the net impact on carbon dioxide levels (if one is worried about that) may be a push: balsa trees, a carbon sink, are being cut down to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by shifting to “nonpolluting” wind power in energy use, a disputed proposition at best, all things considered.
Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic’s environmental editor, found,
