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?
Solution ? (Score:5, Interesting)
My fan here has one so I can't put my fingers in. Maybe we could use grid with larger holes so the flow of wind wouldn't be disturbed too much and so it would prevent bigger birds of going through.
I think it would cause some extra noise (wind going through the grid), cost some extra money and maybe lower the wind speed a little (and by the way lower efficiency) but that would definitely save the birds.
But maybe 22000 birds over 20 years (that's a little more than 3 birds a day) are not worth the expense...
Any solution with magnetic fields? I know that some birds use magnetic fields during their flight to find their destination... It could also help keeping birds out of the highway (60 millions/year in car collision ??? That's a LOT).
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, great idea (Score:5, Funny)
On the plus side, we'd have to get Godzilla and Mothra to team up against the scarecrow, so, it wouldn't be a complete loss.
How does this compare to McDonalds ? (Score:5, Funny)
(and it has a nice picture)
Re:How does this compare to McDonalds ? (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I find it much more humane to eat a freshly hunted duck or deer that at least had a chance to live a happy life, than a wing-clipped-caged-chicken or a immobalized-and-starved-veal-calf.
(And no, I'm not PETA herbivore - Sure Chicken tastes yummy, but free-range chickens that got to exercize taste even better and I feel less cruel eating them.)
Re:How does this compare to McDonalds ? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I (the original guy who made that comment, but posting as an AC to avoid burning karma) kinda agree with you -- some farms are nice - a farm in Santa Cruz where you can see the birds wander around (wings not clipped, hanging around for the food) -- others, even free range ones, suck, and they clip the wings and let the birds roam "free" just for the marketing gimmic.
What's so bad about clipping their flight feathers? It does not hurt the chickens and actually prevents them hurting themselves. I have raised chickens and, well, they just don't fly all that well. They are likely to get hurt trying to fly over fences and such. So clipping their flight feathers is actually humane.
I don't like the idea that factory farm chickens get their beaks clipped. It probably does hurt the chickens. BUt the rationale is that clipping their beaks prevents them from pecking each other to death, which they certainly will do if allowed to do so. They are especially bad about pecking wounded chickens, so it is one of those things that escalates.
Personally I prefer the free-range method, but even if we allow factory farms there are some very basic modifications that could be made to make them more humane. I don't like to think that the drumstuck I am eating was once permanently fused to the bottom of a cage at the foot because the foot, mired in the feces of the chicken it was attached to and hundred s of chickens above it, naturally had the wires of the cage gradually cut into it over time and then tried to heal back but for lack of room included the wire in the foot. I don't like to think about all those wounded chickens that have to be fed overdoses of antibiotics to keep said feet from just rotting off. I also don't like to think about the tons of chickenshit allowed into our drinking water.
But all of that boils down to simple neglect and the factory farms not giving a shit, literally. If a few basic laws were passed, the farms would be able to continue to operate with minor modifications and the chickens would have a better life. They would still be bred in a cage for slaughter, but it would be a nicer cage.
I don't know if you can breed as many chickens in a free range farm. If you can then they should switch to that method as it is better all around. But in closing, clipping their wings is not so horrible as the normal lot of chickens.
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.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
As a lovely woodpecker who's currently undergoing treatment in a small padded cage for psychological disorders following a close encounter with a huge wind turbine several years ago, I resent that remark.
Love,
Woody.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? (Score:4, Informative)
Have you ever driven through this particular wind farm, or one much like it?
For one thing, as much wind as these things get, they don't get wind ALL the time. Some spiders are pretty darn fast. (We used to end up with webs across the path to our back gate all the time, even though we walked through there every day.)
For another thing, some of the turbines are usually turned off. I'm not sure why, but you'll look out and see a patch that are busily whirring away, and another patch right next to them still as stone. Maybe maintenance, efficiency, or bird preservation... but it happens.
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: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 anyti
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Make the propeller blades out of NERF! Also put cameras on top of each pole. You can then sell the video to America's Funniest Home Videos and make some money to help pay for the Nerf conversion. The birds get a chance to learn this way! And it's fun for the whole family. *bonk* hahah look at the sillie birdie *baf* almost got him that time!
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
BTM
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Chicken Wire would be useless!!!!!
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).
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Ever see a flock of birds stuck to a giant fan?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solution ? Duh.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solution ? Duh.. (Score:5, Funny)
However, between 7000 turbines and 22,000 birds, thats not exactly a bad statistic. More birds are killed by lots of other things, such as aircraft, cars, and yes, even your humble domestic cat.
I can vouch for that. I got two pheasants and a sparrow this year with one Toyota. Multiply 3 by the the number of Toyotas on the road, and one can easily see that wind farms and turbines are not the problem. Save the birds! Ban imported cars!
Nuclear Power is dirt cheap (Score:5, Interesting)
For starters, the energy release by a fission event, per atom involved, is at least 2 million times greater than a chemical reaction- ie, burning.
Now, in the core at my plant, we have 193 fuel assemblies, each of which contains a little more than half a ton of uranium. Skipping over some details, we can basically use this hundred tons of fuel to generate 1.2 GW for 4.5 years.
The coal powerplant down the road 10 miles burns something on the order of 500 tons of coal a day to make half the electricity we do.
Each of our fuel assemblies costs us $750,000. For coal to be as cheap as nuclear, coal would have to go for $0.46 per ton. It actually costs more in the neighborhood of $28.00 per ton.
So even with the added burdens of security and (ridiculous) regulation, nuclear power is still cheaper. My plant is actually a base load plant- we run at 100% capacity 24/7, and other plants (coal, oil, gas, etc) vary their load with demand- because we underbid all of them in the local deregulated market.
If it wasn't for the ornerous regulation, idiot groups like greenpeace, and widespread misunderstanding about nuclear power, you'd see Nuke plants being built on quite a regular basis.
THey'd never be the entire source of electricity for the country, because nuclear plants don't change load gracefully over the course of the day. You start them, fully load them, and run them till they need to be refueled, or shit needs service sooner than you expect, because it's not in it's design parameters.
Re:Nuclear Power is dirt cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
I forget nothing. (Score:3)
And such a t
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.
Re:Nuclear Power is dirt cheap (Score:3, Informative)
Come back when you can tell me all the differences between TMI and Chernobyl.
While it is true that the RBMK plant used at Chernobyl is very different than the Pressurized Water Reactor:
Russian vs US
Graphite moderated (it burns) vs. Water
No containment vs Concrete
Positive power coefficent vs Negitive power coefficent
for starters;
both accidents had one thin
Fission is cheap. I know. (Score:5, Informative)
I work at a nuclear power plant, and we sell electricity in a de-regulated market. We underbid all the other types of plants in the New Hampshire Market, and still make hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profit.
We buy our fuel from Westinghouse, and they seem to find it to be a profitable business, because they're still in it. They charge us $750,000 per fuel assembly (193 at a time), and if you read my other post, you'll understand why we pay gladly.
Decomissioning a plant is expensive, true, but represents the profit of one years operation, out of a 40-60 year run for most US plants. The threat of terrorism has undoubtable cost a lot of money in additional security, but since incredibly tight security was the rule long before 9/11, I doubt the increase was even 25% of the security budget. No facts on that, just an educated guess. You'd have to have a team of Navy Seals to get into our plant unnoticed, and even if you did, the worst you could do would be to irreprably damage the plant- not harm the public.
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: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.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Informative)
As a quick comparison, in the past year, three birds have died after running into the living-room window in my house. Those turbines are downright safe!
Re:Solution ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a quick comparison, in the past year, three birds have died after running into the living-room window in my house. Those turbines are downright safe!
Yes, but this is just running statistics and not thinking of the details. Probably, most of those birds are hitting the same exterior turbines -- they aren't hitting each turbine equally.
If you put a large silhouette of a giant bi
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a link:
http://www.aza.org/ConEd/HouseCatsPredators/ [aza.org]
The same treehuggers complaining about the turbines probably let little Mr. Fluffy go out side unsupervised. What do you think Fluffy DOES out there? (besides crap in the sandbox of the kid next door)
Fluffy hunts!
Re:Solution ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm going straight to hell for this... (Score:3, Informative)
But cats do indeed occasionally go after the bigger birds - see below link.
http://www.oz.net/~inthane/catbird.jpg
This is an honest-to-god picture of a cat attacking an eagle at some eagle preserve in Japan - can't give more detail than that off the top of my head, sorry.
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh sure, condemn them to a slow and painful death by cancer instead of quickly and cleanly in the aero-electric abattoir.
KFG
Re:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
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: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:Solution ? (Score:5, Funny)
Lots of my friends are environmentalists!
I'm an environmentalist!
A bad one!
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...
I think it has something to do with location (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I think it has something to do with location (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, it's probably the guy that hung the birdfeeders behind the turbine....
Re:I think it has something to do with location (Score:5, Informative)
That is true, but the problem is solved primarily because the new, larger capacity turbines spin quite a bit slower, while the 30-year-old Altimont Pass turbines are fast and dangerous (and rather loud, too.) Once the Altamont Pass turbines are replaced (over the next fifteen years) they expect raptor kills to decline to as few as five or ten per year, IIRC.
Also, people forget that ordinary housecats kill between 200 and 300 million birds per year (not raptors, granted.)
Eh... Big deal... (Score:5, Funny)
I wish we could take this tact with the human population. I say, take the warning labels off of everything and let the chips fall where they may.
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
Try painting the blades (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, that might ATTRACT the birds....
Three people a day? (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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.
This is old and misleading news (Score:5, Informative)
damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
From the link above... [ibiblio.org]
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:This is old and misleading news (Score:4, Interesting)
In the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (which has some 7,000 wind
turbines), a two-year study found 182 dead birds, of which 119 were
raptors. The study attributed 55 percent of raptor deaths to collisions
with turbines, eight percent to electrocutions from power lines, 11
percent to collisions with wires, and 26 percent to unknown causes [4].
The inital posted article says:
an estimated 22,000 birds have died...
Where was the posted article getting its data? 52 deaths per year by collision is A LOT less than the 1100 per year mentioned in the article. Kinda shifts things a bit...
Re:This is old and misleading news (Score:4, Informative)
The newspaper is beholden to the local oil interests. Weeks into the Enron collapsed, they still had not carried a major story exlaining issue. Again all out news came from the NYT. To this day they still believe Ken Lay is just the most honest wonderful stand up guy. He had no responsibility for the actions of his company.
The funniest thing about the Chronicle, at least locally, is their distribution method. In order to keep the numbers up, they give the newspapers to homeless people. These people are then free to trade the newspaper for money. I think they promise to sell all the papers, and the Chronicle checks up on them. I have had such people throw a paper into my car just so they could get out of the sun. Of course all these papers are reported as circulated.
Kill 22,000 birds (Score:5, Interesting)
Sonics (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy solution! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, we're saving the BIRDS not the TURBINES.. damn damn damn!
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.
Nice quote (Score:5, Informative)
Even the common household cat, wind power industry advocates argue, is responsible for more bird deaths than turbines"
heh, a little persective, there.
True then again (Score:3, Funny)
Answer: One if it goes down the wrong way.
Good point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I say outlaw mirrored window before outlawing wind turbines.
Re:Nice quote (Score:3, Interesting)
Its pretty obvious that it is a bunch of rich people that want their home values to go up. So they make it too expensive to operate the wind farm, wind farm goes away.
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].
Altamont windfarm photo (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a bit Pythonesque, really. "The residents pass along here, through the rotating knives..."
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.
wind turbine fatalities (Score:5, Informative)
There isn't a whole lot, but here's some extra information (refs available on request):
Osborn et al. 2000
Minnesota, estimate 36 +/- 12 birds per year, less than one per turbine
Osborn et al. 1998 (same site):
Observed flight patterns, found that most bird flew above or below the turbine level
Johnson et al. 2002 (same site):
"We assessed effects of the wind farm on birds from 1996 to 1999, with 55 documented collision fatalities. Recovered carcasses included 42 passerines, 5 waterbirds, 3 ducks, 3 upland game birds, 1 raptor, and 1 shorebird."
De Lucas et al. 2004:
Straits of Gibralter, most birds altered flight path to avoid turbines
Several of these researchers seem to think that turbines do kill birds, but in very small numbers compared to other structural sources of mortality. (birds hit stuff, especially plate glass windows)
The problem is that it's easy to count dead birds at the base of turbines, but hard to count birds that died from most other sources of power...
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.
Since they don't give sources (Score:3, Informative)
Greenpeace volunteers... (Score:3, Funny)
options (Score:3, Funny)
Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Legend (Score:5, Informative)
That sounds perfectly acceptable (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
HOUSTON speaks? (Score:4, Interesting)
I laugh.
But first, more useful stats are gleaned not from "in 20 years of operations" but in "birds per year." Is it static or have lots of work in the last few years to reduce bird death paid off? Using a broad statistic like that reeks of lazy journalism or trying to push aside that bird deaths/year have plunged since Altamont first opened.
I'm not far from the wind farm right now (just over a rise I can see), and I know that lots of birds got whacked with the original windmills.
I also know that new windmills were put in, along with other measures, to DEAL with this problem.
I've heard (on radio, in paper) that the number of birds/year killed is down VASTLY.
Ok, that out of the way: Damage to wild life isincluding hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors - but I imagine that the VAST MAJORITY of bird deaths are to sparrows and other common birds. How much damage is done compared to if they were pumping oil from those fields? Or if it has a coal power plant there?
I find it a little disigenuous that it comes from Houston; from the home of the Resident of the US; on the same day the radio covers stories of Wyoming's [home of Big Dick Cheney] massive budget SURPLUS.
Did you know that a fair amount of energy is required to MAKE solar panels? Ban them!
The best way to save animals and such is to:
Reduce energy use (do you NEED an electric razor when a manual one works fine? Toothbrush? Does that tivo REALLY need to be on 24/7 with disks spinning?
Have you noticed that plasma screens just SUCK power?
It's not like the environmentalists don't have other things they could do. Every MW not needed is a win for the environment.
Generate power locally. And make is EASY for Joe Sixpack to join in.
If every new electrical meter put it were REQUIRED to run both directions, then it would be a simple matter to run 2, 4 solar panels and just push it back on the grid.
If every new house was REQUIRED to have at least the infrastructure for roof panels - a PVC from roof to power area to run cables, perhaps footings for mounting panels - cost < $100 when putting up a roof and hundreds or thousands when putting onto an existing roof.
If they ALSO measured accoring to TIME of use (peak/non-peak), we might have a slight cash motivation to do power consumptive things during the off peak. Right now the only motivation is the somewhat lame: "because it's good". Most people will respond better, I'm sorry to say, to "because it's good and you'll save 20%/month"
If every new WATER meter in Calif were required to measure usage based on TIME, then people might be a bit motivated to run dishs and laundry at night.
So, now that computers are about as fast as they need for the software we're currently running, where are the "new P4/1.2GHz that uses 50% the power of the same machine using der biggen chip?"
I know my LCD's suck a lot less power than CRTs, that my ARM computer uses a gazillionth the power of the dual 1GHz 1U. AT this point, with intel pushing 4GHz, I'd be more attracted to a machine advertised as saving me 20%/month on my power bills. (and yes, I mostly use a 266MHz laptop or a 400MHz apple laptop).
Encourage less power use and you support the country and reduce our need to support nations breeding terrorists.
The Birds Learn (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure enough, the next summer, no bird-caused blackouts, but my friend who bought a new house about ten miles south of me was having the very same problems that I'd had!
Anyway, I think that it would be interesting to observe the trend, over time, of the rate of bird deaths. It wouldn't surprise me to see that they fall off rapidly after the first year as the birds become accustomed to the presence of the wind turbines. And, as many have pointed out, 22,000 bird deaths by 7,000 turbines over 20 years is quite a low rate. Everything comes with a cost.
-h-
Bigger killer of birds (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition, light pollution from coastal cities screws up nesting and migration patterns for all manner of birds and sea life.
And, has anyone done a study how many birds are killed by pollution from coal plants? It's not so easy, since they don't fall in a nice pile next to the plant.
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 b
Its this farm.. not wind turbines (Score:5, Informative)
In this case it is a flaw in the design of the farm... in Alton pass the turbines sit on gridded towers (like high tension lines). These towers make excellent perches, and a lot of birds hang out in them. Hawks especially have a tendency to dive at prey, and run smack into a turbine blade.(They don't get chopped up, just collide like your living room window.)
Most newer wind farms have far less turbines (its cheaper days to install a single 1MW turbine, than 10 100KW turbines. Also the industry has learned that monopole tower (a single smooth shaft, rather than a lattice) keeps the birds away. (Its cheaper to install too..)
This comment created using 100% renewable electrons via AustinEnergy GreenChoice (mostly wind)
100W = 1bird:y (Score:3, 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...
Re:Solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solar? (Score:3, Interesting)
the mccormick place exposition centre in chicago had ornamental lighting that casued navigational confusion for birds (ie. it looked like the moon) resulting in a total of 1,500 bird deaths between 1982 and 1996.
i am not making this up. there's a good article on how light kills birds here [greennature.com].
Re:Solar? (Score:5, Funny)
Just imagine a microwave installation receiving power from space, flapping birds would enter one side, and a KFC would set up shop on the other (yes, I know such frying would require a high intensity area).
nothing is free (Score:3, Funny)
Plants need the photon energy of sunlight in order to make food for themselves. When you install solar panels you're STEALING FROM PLANTS.
Furthermore, you're sucking heat energy and turning it into electricity. widespread use of efficient solar panels could cause local cooling to the detriment of local ecosystems. YOUR FREEZING THE BABY ANIMALS.
All of you freaki
Re:Solar? (Score:5, Funny)
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 de
Re:Oil is NOT organi based. (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting article here [aapg.org]
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.
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 wa
Re:Acid Rain and Stupid People Like the Author of. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so tired of misconceptions presented as fact. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's no easy solution. (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. But it has to be consistant. Why does a 50 mile-per-gallon Honda hybrid car qualify for a tax deduction, but a 50 mile-per-gallon Volkswagen turbo-diesel car does not? In europe, VW/Audi are producing cars which get 100 miles per gallon (the lupo 1.2 TDI) which also meet the uber-strict euro-4 emissions standards.
I don't know about you, but w
Re:Acid Rain (Score:4, Informative)
By who, the Iraqi Information Minister? I used to live in the house my father grew up in, which is downwind from a paper mill. When he was growing up, the rain would literally peel away the paint on my grandparents' house and car over a few months, and the grass and trees were always sickly. In the wake of clean air legislation, I've never had to see acid rain, and my yard was always green. I don't even smell the stink that used to occasionally come from the plant when I was a kid anymore.
Re:How many birds would die from a coal plant? (Score:3, Informative)
From here [ibiblio.org]