When I was thirteen years old, I climbed to the top of a wind turbine for the first time. I was spending a summer at my cousin’s place in Pincher Creek. My parents had sent me there to learn independence and to get a taste of life away from home. My cousin in Pincher worked as a wind turbine technician. Taking me up one of the 80-meter towers was one of his ways of showing me the best parts of town.
Getting to the top was work—the inside of the tower was echoey, and climbing the ladder was a several-minute cardio sprint. Once I’d climbed on the platform that stored the gearbox, though, I could see for miles across the Southern Alberta prairies. Peeking between the turbine blades, I got an incredible view of the Rockies.
As a kid, I’d already thought about work, but I hadn’t considered what makes work “good.” I just knew I’d spent too many hours in the cold on my family’s flower farm, and I didn’t love the ten minutes it took to scrub the dirt off my hands after a long day in the fields.
Challenges in Coal Mining
While Alberta’s renewable energy moratorium has been lifted, legislation still bans the development of wind and solar projects in many parts of the province. Oil is in, wind is out. But there’s a side of oil, gas, and coal mining that those in government don’t often consider: what the actual work is like.
Oil, gas, and coal are everywhere in Alberta, and they’re reliable energy sources. It makes sense that the province has prioritized them for so long. But our at-home comfort comes at a cost to those who produce these resources for us. Those who work in mines and on the oil sands are often left with health problems, and they’re forced to spend days or weeks at a time away from their families.
Alberta has a long history of being a coal-mining province. Since the 1800s, we’ve been using coal to power our homes. Working in a coal mine is hazardous, however. It often means driving long hours to work or being away from home for several days. Mine shafts are dark and damp. This cousin of mine is a former miner, and I spoke with him about his time in the belly of the Rocky Mountains. “You can’t go to touch a piece of equipment that’s broken without getting dirty,” he told me. “It’s all covered in oil and coal that just makes things black. It’s always black. Everything is always dirty. That’s what we were working in.”
Even outside on top of the mountain, workers in open-pit mines have only two seasons: winter and hot. There’s nothing in between. It rains or snows, and many workers are cold all the time… or overheated. By the time they finish their careers, many miners have lung diseases, have suffered hearing loss, or other work-related injuries.
Wind Energy’s Impact on Families
Wind turbines are closer to home and easier to get to. Men who work on turbines can still be involved in the lives of their families every day after work. They come home from work cleaner than if they were working in mines.
Turbines are outside, but once you get inside, you’re still inside—and warm. The impact on workers’ health is less as well. Technicians are not working with hazardous materials, so their risk of cancer, lung problems, and hearing loss is significantly reduced.
Working as a wind turbine technician still comes with dirt and occupational hazards. The turbine’s gearbox, brakes, and generator are stored in a box at the top of the tower, which gets extremely hot on summer days. The turbines are prone to oil spills, and part of the technicians’ job is to clean up these spills. There are the hazards of high voltage equipment and occasional falling components. Technicians receive training on workplace hazards. Mandatory rescue courses teach them to evacuate an injured coworker from a turbine. Technicians always travel to the top of turbines in pairs.
Working on wind turbines often pays more. According to GlassDoor, coal miners make an average of $27/ hour, and wind turbine technicians earn around $31.90.
While there are many benefits to wind work, the drawbacks of wind power are not insignificant. They don’t work all of the time. You’d be hard-pressed to power your home by wind energy alone – sometimes, the wind doesn’t blow. The turbines need regular repair, and no energy is generated when they’re not working. Until we find a way to store electricity from wind farms for calm or repair days, the problem of inconsistent power will remain. Currently, any individual wind turbine works around 30% of the time. Currently, wind energy accounts for about 5% of Alberta’s power.
As this number increases, more Albertans will experience the benefits of transitioning from working in dirty mines to working in renewable energy.
