Wind Turbines Kill a Few Birds 991
Guppy06 writes "The Houston Chronicle has an article about how a 7000-turbine windfarm in Altamont Pass, California (the world's largest collection) has killed an estimated 22,000 birds during the past 20 years or so of operation, 'including hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors(.)' There are efforts to keep the operators from renewing their permit until they take measures to protect bird populations. To put things in perspective the article goes on to point out that the Exxon Valdez spill is estimated to have killed around 250,000, while the whole story can just about be summed up by one quote by a biologist: 'When you turn on your lights you kill something, no matter what the source of electricity.'" Killing 3-4 birds per day doesn't seem too bad. It's a shame that larger, rarer birds are getting killed, but... How many birds would die from the acid rain that a coal power plant would cause?
Solar? (Score:2, Insightful)
What about solar energy?
There's a time and place for everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything we can do to remove ourselves from our current situation is beneficial, so with that I say...
Re:Solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Three people a day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Insightful)
increase cost
decrease efficiency
increase need for maintainance (more cost)
What animal (man included) doesn't effect his environment when acting within it's nature? That's a valid question. A few birds be damned -- lets look at the bigger picture.
The answer is NOT to drop all our gizmo's and live in stone and thatch huts. At least if we don't want to see 3+ billion people die off of starvation and exposure.
balance (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Sonics (Score:3, Insightful)
Men step on insects too (Score:3, Insightful)
If so, are we supposed to stop walking in fear of killing insects and bacteria?
If man was making rotors for the express purpose of shredding birds, that would probably be evil.
Whats the count of deer killed by cars accidentally? How about deer killed by hunters intentionally?
I'm all for eco-conservation, and teraforming the earth so we have no deserts, but some wackos take things too far. Ask some crazed Peta member, you may find one who values animals more than a human life.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, and there are 7000 turbines, so that makes little over 3 birds killed per turbine in 20 years, or 0.157... birds/year/turbine! Compare this to other mechanical devices killing animals, like cars running over hedgehogs, boats knocking fish on the head, animals killed after Chernobyl, or insects on your wind-shield and I'm impressed, 22000 is pretty low.
Is this a joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
To put that in perspective... I have a greenhouse (glass enclosed room) on my home. On average, one or two birds fly into it and kill themselves each year. So my greenhouse is 7-14 times as deadly to birds as a wind turbine.
This is just Darwinian selection at work. By the way, the dead birds get eaten by other birds and animals, so some number of them survive from the free meal. I think they forgot to count those.
Worthless article.
Some Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that hundreds of millions of birds are killed each year through collisions with glass windows, vehicles, guy wires, and so forth.
But don't take my word for it, check out this article [cleanpowernow.org] which goes over the statistics, with references. Or, Google for yourself [google.com].
Re:Not all bad (Score:3, Insightful)
The same logic could be applied for the killing of whales, sea turtles and other rare animals. They are going back into the ecosystem! After I eat my three endangered sea turtles for dinner (yum!!), I will later crap them out and that crap will become food for bacteria.
Or those endangered elephants. That ivory sure is nice! And isn't it wonderful how that huge dead carcas then becomes food for so many other animals! Yay!
Re:Solution ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't get something for nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the kind of bird (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not just any bird, but it's birds that we like that we are concerned about, isn't it? Doesn't it also apply to people too? We have the same biases and valuations of people depending on who they are, where they're from, etc.
Meanwhile.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously SO friggin what, how many birds were pasted all over windshields in the last 20 years, Hell Ive hit at least 5 birds in that time. Almost even hit a toucan once that must have escaped from the Zoo (seriously I live in Ohio:)
And how many of the kids out there clipped a bird first thing when they got their first BB gun ? I sure did 2 blue jays and a cardinal, I was 7 and scared as hell about the cardinal it being our state bird and all, but I was safe since I was in NY visiting cousins
Lets add something to kill MORE birds then the damm windfarms can serve 2 purposes.
My hatred of birds is SOLEY based on being raised on a chicken farm I am sure....
You'll SHOOT your eye out
Darwinism anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
As sorry as it sounds (22k birds dead) it's plain old Darwinism. Adapt or die basically.
Next time you're near an overpass populated with pigeons, take the time to watch them, and I mean REALLY watch them. I've noticed a behavior these birds have on freeway's I call "Car Surfing"
Lately i've noticed that the pigeons on the highway 17 camden av overpass won't leave thier roost until there are cars passing underneath. I'm guessing the cars going 60mph below them must produce some sort of small air wave, because the birds never seem to smash into them. They swoop down, grab that little updraft of wind from the car below, and get launched another 30-40 feet into the air.
These birds have adapated to having 1ton+ metal boxes moving around their flight path. Not only have they adapted, but they've learned to use it to their advantage.
As far as altimont pass is concerned, i'm sure the ratio of Kestral/Eagles to common birds is pretty low. I would bet the majority of the birds dying are blackbirds or doves. Carnivoires are oppertunistic, living or dead if it's meat they're going to go for it. So i'm sure most of these accidents with the exotic preditors have nothing to do with the windmills, and much to do with the altimont pass groundskeepers not cleaning up the dead carrion. Perhaps if they made it a part of their daily job to toss all the dead birds in the back of their pickup and move them to a safer place for the preditorial birds to eat, we would see less deaths.
Until that happens though, what we will see is a fine example of these birds adapting to their enviroment. The stupid ones will be weeded out of the genepool.
Re:Three people a day? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's over 4,000 people dead from automobiles, daily. Or, another way, a 9/11 every day of the year.
Re:Three people a day? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cars kill people because of human error. Very very very rarely does a vehicle malfunction causing the death of the occupants.
This includes SUV roll overs. It's your own damn stupidity using an off-road vehicle with high ground clearance for a commuting car / grocery-getter.
Exploding Ford pintos and faulty Firestone tires - those are due to equipment malfunction (or more precisely, failed engineering). But neither of those events had anyone "probably accept that too". Massive lawsuits and large-scale negative press were the result of those.
On the kill three people a day note, the pollution from burning coal has probably killed three people a day (certainly if you include the coal mining fatalities).
Re:Acid Rain and Stupid People Like the Author of. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care if the hippies die or not. I just hope they don't kill us all with them.
Quoth the original poster:
> > Killing 3-4 birds per day doesn't seem too bad. It's a shame that larger, rarer birds are getting killed, but... How many birds would die from the acid rain that a coal power plant would cause?
Our article poster is missing an option.
"How many birds would die from the acid rain that a nuclear power plant would produce?" Oh, right. No acid rain comes out of nuke plants.
"OK, so how many birds would die from the radioactivity emitted by a nuclear plant?" Oh, right. The poster was considering coal as an alternative, but a coal plant spews out more radioactive waste in the form of ash than the nuke ever does.
"Umm, OK, [Disclaimer: I don't believe in global warming, but I'll assume the article poster does] so how many birds would die from coastal wetlands being swamped by rising sea levels caused by the global warming caused by the release of CO2 from the nuclear plant?" Oh, right. No CO2 either.
"Look, can we just BANANA? Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything?"
In a word, no. Energy is a means to produce wealth. Wealth is good.
Wind: Nonviable (kills birds, not cost efficient.)
Solar: Nonviable (cost of production exceeds energy consumed, massive chemical waste byproducts)
Coal and gas: Viable (unless you believe in global warming, which most "greens" do)
Hydroelectric: Nonscalable (there are only so many rivers to dam, plus think of the environmental and economic damage associated with damming something like the Mississippi a'la Three Gorges).
Geothermal: Nonscalable (very few areas have harvestable geothermal resources)
Conservation: Nonscalable. Cut your energy consumption by 50%? Sure. But 50% of O(N^x, where x > 1) is still going to present you with unacceptable constraints on growth.
Nuclear: Zero CO2. Zero emissions while running. Waste products are compact and easily-localized/transported substance that may be a useful resource in the future. Most kilowatt-hours per kilogram of fuel (and waste) by orders of magnitude over every other option.
Even if you don't think nuclear is a good option, it's almost certainly left as the Least Sucky Option.
Good point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I say outlaw mirrored window before outlawing wind turbines.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see: exxon valdez killed 250,000 birds, whole wind farm kills 20,000 *over twenty years*. It's these kinds of crazy enviro-whacko statements that actually do a disservice to ALL pro-environment activists. These statements just make folks want to ignore them all. Some folks won't rest until we are all subsistence-farming vegetarians.
Re:Solution ? (Score:1, Insightful)
>wind energy transfered to the turbines.
I was thinking of chicken wire.
>Perhaps it is NECESSARY to "damage" the environment sometimes.
Energy generation - indeed any use of natural resources - must be sustainable indefinately. Otherwise...well, you end up running out of stuff, killing species off, making food production harder/impossible etc.
That sounds perfectly acceptable (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? x1488 (Score:1, Insightful)
Human nature isn't going to change much in the next thousand years. We're not going to all of a sudden find it easier to protect the environment and natural flora/fauna. There is no intrinsic value to the animals we currently live with.
Sure, conservatism is good--it's not a great idea to go around changing things for the heck of it, because things in general are more complicated than we know. But needless resistance to change is silly. Civilization is changing at an ever increasing pace--a generation is forever, nowadays.
I was watching Bend it Like Beckham last night, and the older generation today has this same problem--thinking that the old ways are the best, that traditions are important in and of themself, and should be preserved. I hope that when I become a father, I'll be mature (and brave) enough to realize that my children's lives will be radically different than mine--that my wisdom may not even be relevant.
Re:Three people a day? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, massive lawsuits resulted from SUV rollovers as well, to the extent that manufacturers actually budgeted for them. They just weren't very widely publicised.
Auditory warning? (Score:3, Insightful)
I seem to remember farmers using explosions to scare birds away from their crops, can't we do something similar here?
Re:Solution ? (Score:1, Insightful)
so essentially the altamount farm is a bunch of propeller blades in the middle of a BIRD highway.
before we change all the technology of the turbines themselves, maybe we should look to postion them in more safe areas
Re:This is old and misleading news (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: How many birds die in collisions with other human structures?
A: It is estimated that each year, 57 million birds die in collisions with vehicles; 1.25 million in collisions with tall structures (towers, stacks, buildings); and more than 97.5 million in collisions with plate glass [5].
Adds a little bit of perspective to the whole mess.
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about suggesting a solution? How about nuclear? Potential hazzard. Wind? Kill birds. Oceanic Turbines? Kill fish. Oil? Pollute. Solar? Far too inefficent and produces too many toxins.
How about this: We use ALL the above solutions so that we (A) don't keep all our eggs in one basket) (B) buy us time to increase solar/wind efficency. Who knows... maybe we'll devolop "energy farms" where we "grow" energy producing plants (chemical energy, say).
Re:Acid Rain and Stupid People Like the Author of. (Score:1, Insightful)
And where exactly did you get your economics degree? Economic growth by no means requires an increase in energy use, any more than it requires an increase in worker productivity. Correlation does not imply causation.
Re:Solution ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, if only we could we could select for smarter environmentalists.
Re:Acid Rain and Stupid People Like the Author of. (Score:3, Insightful)
As others have already commented on this thread, wind turbines kill fewer birds by several orders of magnitude than house windows. It's a non-issue.
Solar doesn't have to use photovoltaic cells. The solarthermal plants are simple mirrors and water boilers to drive steam turbines and generators. A solarthermal power plant produces almost no chemical waste.
One of the problems with nuclear is that it's not really that cheap. The governments (in all countries) subsidize their nuclear power plants in various ways (eg, tariffs, research, cheap loans, fuel production, waste cleanup). It's cheap to the nuclear power plant company but it's not that cheap to the country overall.
The best option right now is sadly still coal, despite the high pollution output (both noxious and radioactive). Second best option is gas. The third best option is a coin-toss between nuclear and wind. My general hope is that geothermal or solarthermal has a breakthrough within the next decade, but I agree they're not viable in their current forms. These are my personal opinions, of course, but I have been reading about this stuff for years.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who, ironically, are against intolerance and fascism in all its forms.
I have many, many vegetarian and pro-subsistance friends. Hell, I myself have been known to dabble in these causes, because it's true -- the American lifestyle is FAR too damaging to the environment. But some of these cats need to lighten the fuck up. Organizations like PETA and some of the more extreme eco-nazis do a ton of damage to the perception of environmentalism in the public's eye.
I am an environmentalist who does not believe in recycling (it is a complex, time consuming, inefficient and expensive process generally ignored by those in waste management. It will only become viable when we run so low on resources that it is cheaper to recycle old material than to use new material. In the short term, a much more efficient plan to make resources last as long as possible is to reduce overall waste through reuse, composting, and burning whatever can be burnt for fuel).
I am an environmentalist who believes in allowing the lumber and oil industries into public lands (while maintaining government management of resources and routing the resulting money from the sale of rights into other conservation programs. See what Canada has done with the Algonquin park, one of the most heavily travelled but CLEANEST parks I've ever been to, whose forestry is far better managed than the privatized areas of the Adirondack park).
I am an environmentalist who believes in hunting (as legalized, managed hunting makes for strong tourism and gives impetus for the conservation of wild private lands. Push hunters off your land and in come the developers, who strip hillsides, put up strip malls and sprawls to soak up tax breaks for a fewer years, and leave behind blight. In fact, a friend of mine was telling me last week that her park's best friend in the state legislature is the Turkey Hunter's Association).
I am an environmentalist who isn't sold on organic farming (which results in a slightly more unreliable food source. It also imposes a number of severe restrictions on farmers which, while well meaning, can cause costs to rise as profits rise -- for example, you can't sow an organic field with manure from cows which aren't fed organic feed. Furthermore, organic practices necesitate stricter controls to prevent spoilage, resulting in more plastics, styrofoams and more rotten fruit thrown into dumpsters).
I am an environmentalist who isn't dead set against nuclear energy (because the potential for widespread damage to the population of the earth is still less than that caused by burning coal and oil).
I am an environmentalist because I look at the environment and say "Here is something I like. Here is something that is dirty. Here is something that is disappearing, and these are problems we need to solve." I don't pretend they aren't there and don't manipulate data to make others feel better about purchasing an inefficient vehicle. But I know that hyperventilating over every detail isn't going to get the crud out of the Hudson, or slow the exponential growth of the trash mound just west of town. Like these people, I see dead birds and think "we have to stop this." Yeah, we do. Eventually. Right now, we're far better off with a slight birdkill than the massive dangers imposed by our reliance on fossil fuels. And maybe if these cats would pump their resources into getting some good government subsidies for solar shingles and so forth, we wouldn't have to worry so much about either.
Re:Acid Rain and Stupid People Like the Author of. (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent was a bit off on the viability of wind and solar however. The chemical waste associated with photovoltaics is in the form of solvants used in manufacturing and isn't all that bad [azom.com]. Not perfect, but we're not dumping tons of waste into rivers to make PV cells. If you live in an area with decent sun, a household solar array can repay its cost by reduced electric bills in about 7 years. After that, electricity IS free.
Re:Three people a day? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doctors budget for malpractice too. That doesn't mean they are tring to hurt patients. The SUV manufacturers are budgeting for these lawsuits because in America, in particular, when someone dies or gets hurt, someone "HAS TO PAY". SUVs will rollover when you scream around a corner on dry pavement. They are trucks, have high centers of gravity, and must be driven as such.
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Alcohol fuels [distillery-yeast.com]
Biomass [energy.gov]
Thermal Depolymerization [changingworldtech.com]
All viable ways to "grow" sources of energy...
Not like the market for energy is going to be going anywhere anytime soon, and this might just put the US back-in-black in terms of energy production vs. usage. With the USA's crop production capacity we might even be able to generate a surplus and export it...
=Smidge=
Re:Eh... Big deal... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll second that. In fact if someone pulls a pop machine over on themselves because they were tryng to climb up on it or rip it off, they should not only not get any money but if they're still alive the first person to find them should be required to jump up and down on the pop machine until they stop moving. Then pay the person who finished them off for doing a public service.
Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but we've gone way too far in structuring the system in favor of the morons. And then act surprsied as the population gets dumber and dumber.
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got squirrels, but should we trade hundreds of small mammal and thousands of insect species which used to reside on your land for the variety of squirrels that you find so adequate as their successors?
The parent poster is correctly observing that human development pushes out wildlife (without making a specific value judgement on that). Your post attempts to glibly deny that observation. However, your remarks lack a certain strength in preparation that reveals your desire to post a quick comment despite a lack of reading comprehension.
Do better next time.
Regards,
Ross
Re:Bigger killer of birds (Score:3, Insightful)
When we talk about environmental issues I always like to put things into perspective by comparing them to at how automobiles impact our environment.
I bet more birds are killed every year by vehicles than by windmills. In fact I bet the environmental impact of millions of automobiles around the world is far worse than ANYTHING else. So until we want to do something about these very real environmental problems I see no reason to even speculate about the possibility of even remotely being concerned.
Uranium is running out (Score:1, Insightful)
I couldn't disagree with this statement more, especially the condesending derogatory statement about 'environmental wackos'. Considering the danger of a radioactive accident, the waste generated in production, and the general scarcity (yes, that's right - scarcity) of uranium, I think it's pretty clear why those regulations were enacted. I support them. It's also clear why fission is unrealistic as a viable world energy source, at least until we (humanity) as a society is able to control weapons grade plutonium (never mind the horrific costs associated with waste disposal) without concern for terrorism, and will thus be able to implement broad scale breeder reactors for energy generation. I'm willing to agree that breeder reactors offer enough fissionable material for energy generation across the short term (next 500 years or so), but only with a real world wide nuclear regulation (this implies a world government).
Anyway, I disagree. However, I also modded you up because you speak from the perspective of an engery industry insider and have said something worth reading. For that I thank you. --M
100W = 1bird:y (Score:3, Insightful)
Domestic Cats kill more birds (Score:2, Insightful)
Easy Solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is almost stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean its been pointed out that 22k dead in 20 years is pretty low compared to how many die a day of other causes. Wind represents one of the cleaner forms of enegery we have. These people are saying this wind farm should be torn down. What, my question, should we replace it with? I always hear bitching from these groups, yet very few solutions. Personally I think they should shut it down and build a nuclear reactor next to it just to spite the idiots that propagated this report.
The whole NIMBY additude is stupid. We need to do something about adding more power to our grids. Suggest a nuclear plant, there could be a melt down, coal or gas, oh that causes too much acid rain, Wind, those windmills are large, noisy, and are unsightly to look at, solar, it would cost too much, etc. etc.
personally I would like to see the tree-huggers in a giant hampster cage with a wheel they could run on to generate power...
Nope, no harm to the public. Way ahead of you, bud (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not, actually. For one, this has recently become an obvious danger, and the airspace around nuclear power plants is monitored closely.
Secondly, the designers of my plant already thought of this, at least to a lesser extent. The containment building was built to withstand the impact of an F-111, fully loaded, at top speed. It's three feet of concrete, with enough rebar to make a six-inch steel shell if it wasn't mixed in with the concrete. And that's just the outer building.
Now, a 737 weighs more than an f-111, but the mass is more spread out, and it goes slower. The building is also rated for at least a three-hour fire, but I wouldn't be suprised if it lasted longer, aside from the fact that 40 fire departments would be there right quick.
Another thing often forgotten here is the human factor- I'm going to make a bold statement, that in light of flight 93, and the new, higher stakes, no US passenger airliner will be successfully hijacked and crashed into a building.
This leaves cargo planes- not sure of the maximum fuel load in a fedex plane, but I'll guess they don't go across the country, and would have less fuel onboard than the 9/11 planes- and foreign planes, who would be nearly dry by the time they hit, and thus less of a fire hazard. Recall that it was the fire, fueled by all that aviation kerosene, that brought down the WTC, not the physical impact.
If a jet impacted into our containment building, the fuel would be disbursed across the outside, and since it wouldn't be able to heat any critical load bearing members (because the entire, massive, overbuilt structure is the load bearer), you'd be safe for quite some time.
Yeah, so anyway, we thought of the plane thing years ago, so think of a soda can filled with gas vs a brick doghouse. Annoying, but not really a threat.
Re:Nuclear Power is dirt cheap (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess Microsoft is right; it's all about total cost of ownership.
To clarify (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless, you're correct about the usage of a huge capital investment.
I do work with a few Navy guys, and navy plants are built quite a bit more robustly that commercial plants. The fastest recovery from a scram one of my coworkers did on his carrier (I think it was the Enterprise) was 12 minutes. The fastest we can do at the power plant is around 8 hours, though if it was a matter of life and death, we may be able to do it quicker.
Although all the physics and fundamentals are the same, in Navy nuke plants, without power, you're dead in the water, vulnerable, and possibly under attack. In commercial plants, you're just not making as much money as you'd like to. So there are some construction diferences.