Energy and Climate Policy—An Evaluation of Global Climate Change Expenditure 2011–2018 by
Coilín ÓhAiseadha 1,*,
Gerré Quinn 2,
Ronan Connolly 3,4,
Michael Connolly 3 and
Willie Soon 41 Department of Public Health, Health Service Executive, Dr Steevens’ Hospital, D08 W2A8 Dublin 8, Ireland
2 Centre for Molecular Biosciences, Ulster University, Coleraine BT521SA, Northern Ireland, UK
3 Independent Scientists, Dublin 8, Ireland
4 Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES), Salem, MA 01970, USA
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
4.2.4. Increase in Biological CO2 Emissions Caused by Wind FarmsAlthough the warming effects of wind farms described in
Section 4.2.1 are mostly localized and tend to be confined to night-time temperatures, we note that they introduce a problematic complication for those proposing to use wind farms to reduce global CO
2 emissions. It is true that electricity generation is currently a major component of the anthropogenic CO
2 emissions, and therefore reducing the amount of electricity generated using fossil fuels should reduce that component. However, the annual biological CO
2 emissions from soil respiration are at least ten times greater than the total annual anthropogenic CO
2 emissions [
6,
182,
183].Typically, the annual emissions from soil respiration are roughly balanced by the absorption of CO
2 via photosynthesis through the Net Primary Production (NPP) of the terrestrial plants and trees. However, the total emissions from soil respiration are known to increase with temperature. Estimates of the exact rates of increase vary between studies, and there are many complexities in extrapolating from the results of e.g., a mid-latitude forest [
184] or a tropical region [
185] to global estimates (see Davidson and Janssens (2006) for a good review of the challenges involved) [
186]. Nonetheless, most studies suggest that the warming of soils generally leads to an increase in biological CO
2 emissions from soil respiration [
182,
183,
184,
185,
186,
187]. Therefore, given that the global CO
2 emissions from soil respiration are an order of magnitude greater than anthropogenic emissions, we suggest that the increase in biological CO
2 emissions caused by wind farms warming the night-time soil temperatures could potentially be similar in magnitude to the reduction in anthropogenic CO
2 emissions from the wind farms.
