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Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Are injuries from wind turbines common?
Wind turbine collapses or blade failures are extremely uncommon, and wind power causes far fewer deaths per unit of electricity than fossil fuels.
Modern utility-scale turbines use monitoring and shutdown systems designed to handle extreme weather, including hurricanes. Concerns about blades breaking off were more common in earlier years of wind development, but improved engineering and hazard sensors have made these events exceedingly infrequent. One study estimated the turbine blade failure rate at about 0.54% per year, with the U.S. Department of Energy describing “catastrophic” failures as rare events.
Safety comparisons utilize “deaths per terawatt-hour,” which counts both direct accidents (like mining, drilling, transport, and plant accidents) and indirect deaths from air pollution or emissions. By this measure, wind is estimated to cause about 0.04 deaths/TWh, far below coal (24-33 deaths), oil (18), or natural gas (3).
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This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.
Sources
Philosophical Transactions Damage tolerance and structural monitoring for wind turbine blades
US Department of Energy How Do Wind Turbines Survive Severe Weather and Storms?
US Department of Energy Wind Energy Projects and Safety
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering A Critical Review of Damage and Failure of Composite Wind Turbine Blade Structures
US Department of Energy Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States
Our World in Data What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.
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