27
Are wind turbines really that bad for birds?
Easy Answer: Yes. Somewhere between 58,000 and 440,000 birds each year die because of wind turbines.
Wind farms continue to spring up, as people look for alternative energy sources. I recently
did a story about the Terra-Gen wind farm in the Mojave desert, one of the largest in the world. The problem with wind turbines is they are super good at killing birds--especially migratory songbirds. But are we really talking about enough birds to worry about?
I wrote to a bird expert named Albert Manville at the Fish and Wildlife Service to find out. I asked him how the number of birds killed by wind turbines compares to the number killed by windows, cats and cars compares. (According to a publication from the Fish and Wildlife Service, cats might kill 100s of millions of birds a year.)
This is what he told me.
"Comparing bird deaths from wind turbine collisions and barotrauma to other sources of mortality -- e.g., building windows, vehicles, cats, or communication towers -- is akin to trying to compare apples to kumquats. It confuses and muddies the waters. The bigger issue is one of cumulative impacts, specifically what mortality factor will become the proverbial "straw that breaks the camel's back." Will it be wind energy, new building windows, oil spills, or another source(s)? We simply don't know. While wind mortality may presently be relatively low, impacts are all about risk. The blade-caused collision death of 1 Whooping Crane becomes an impact to its entire population."
It's not just the turbine blades that are bad news for birds--wind farms can often disrupt and disturb habitat.
But, there are ways to minimize the problem: "Selecting the most wildlife- and habitat-friendly sites is critically important, and where wind is being developed in high risk areas, collisions could be reduced by blade "feathering" (idling), changes in blade cut-in speeds, setbacks, pylons replacing deadly turbines and other options."
Want more? Here's
on minimizing the number of birds killed by wind turbines.
Photo credit: Flickr user brentdanley.
Pages
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next ›
Do two wrongs make a right? The wind turbines are additional killings over and above the course of nature or buildings. What is the next acceptable killings of birds and bats. Animals have also been affected by turbines and move on to other areas outside wind farms to live. It is a poor trade off for a trickle of energy.
Furthermore, just what effect would laissez-faire global warming have upon bird mortality? Probably more than a few wind turbines.
(Let us not even mention human beings; after all they're such an obnoxious parasitic species according to quite a few NPR academic commentators)
That's why, as Grace so intelligently pointed out, CONTRACEPTION should figure into the equation. Must not be a politically correct words since everyone and their brother seems to avoid it.
CONTRACEPTION!! There. I said it. Take it to heed. How in the world are we going to keep even a blade of grass in the picture when the earth's tolerance for the human toll is waning?
Risk management issues always need to be discussed comparatively. All energy sources impact the natural environment. Any decision not to build wind is a decision to burn more coal, natural gas or nuclear. None of these is without resultant animal mortality. It is not fair to analyze wind turbine wildlife impacts in a vacuum. My sense is that wind energy probably is fairly benign when compared to conventional fossil fuel generation. Certainly the environmental degradation associated with Appalachian mountaintop removal coal mining is catastrophic.
A decision not to build wind does NOT need to be a decision to use more coal, natural gas or nuclear. Instead it could be a decision to focus more on efficiency and conservation, which deliver more bang for the buck than building new renewable sources of power.
We are nowhere near realizing all the potential energy savings from increased efficiency. But environmentalists and venture capitalists alike find shiny wind turbines a lot more sexy than thermostats and carpools. They have a cornucopian worldview in which technology can fix everything, and we can all live happily ever after in 4,000-square-foot "green" homes powered by "clean" wind turbines. Which are usually located in remote wildlife habitat where the noise and transmission lines and flashing lights won't bother the very people who are clamoring for these turbines.
Andrew, please show me ONE coal/gas/nuclear plant that has been decommissioned (or not built) because of a decision to build wind. To the contrary, we are building new natural gas plants and dams as backup power sources for wind. Studies in Colorado have found that building wind turbines does not even reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the backup fossil fuel plants run less efficiently when they have to cycle on and off to accommodate the intermittent nature of wind power.
Please read the study mentioned on the first comment. The study done was done by the wind developer. Is 3,500 bats on an approx. 88 turbine wind farm per year benign? How many bats have been killed because of coal? If you read on in the study approximately the same amount of bats were killed on the neighboring wind farm. They do not die from flying into them. They die of barotrauma.
Are you folks living in the dark ages? You don't want offshore drilling, you don't want coal, you don't want nuclear energy, you don't want wind energy. We all want energy to light our houses, heat (or cool) our houses, drive our cars. What do you expect the solution is? You'll soon be typing your activist comments in the dark ... oh I forgot, computers run on electricity too!
The solutions are conservation, contraception, education and a willingness to limit our "wants" to the resources that our planet can sustainably supply.
Do you give your child a piece of candy every time he "wants" it? Americans act like a bunch of spoiled brats who should automatically get everything we want. Never mind whether what we want is affordable, healthy, or fair to the rest of the planet's inhabitants. It's time to start acting like grownups and living within our natural-resource means.
The SOLUTION, Randall et al of that line of "logic", is to funnel a fraction of the money that is "gifted" to the wind industry in the form of tax credits (OUR MONEY!)and instead put it into refining wind technology. I believe we are very close to solving the issue of avian safety, but we will be stuck in a quagmire of stockpiled 3-bladed 420 foot plus wind monsters for a long time to come. Once they're up, their presence will be have to be tolerated for the next 20 to 25 years and there will be little we can do about it.
How stupid (or clever?) for the industry or the government to push the manufacture of these industrial wind turbines. Everyone is on the bandwagon 'cause they provide "green jobs" in reconverted plants. Those same people can keep their jobs using more efficient, environment-friendly technology. Fewer people will "fight" the noisy turbines taking over their neighborhoods, so even the permitting process will and lack of litigation will save a lot of money.
Currently the focus is on Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. Let us hope that someone, somewhere, is forging ahead to revolutionize the current wind industry and planning to make it a safe-for-all-species, power-producing,affordable, efficient industry that we all hope for.
For goodness sake, let's just get REAL. Shout, clammor, holler, yell - DEMAND quality wind machines. It's within our grasp.
Pages
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next ›
