Audubon Society coming out to support Wind Power, even in the face of bird kills

According to Tree Hugger, Audubon Society "Strongly Supports Wind Power" even though many environmentalists get knots in their stomach thinking about the birds being killed by wind turbines. There have been studies recording birds being killed by being hit by wind turbine blades, but there are other studies on why birds get killed by wind turbines, how to avoid the bird deaths, and in any case the rates of bird death due to wind turbines are lower than birds killed by flying into skyscrapers.

Wind-turbine based bird deaths found to be less than thought likely is my earlier blog entry on this subject.

What's interesting here is that the Audubon Society is saying, essentially, maybe it doesn't matter if a few birds are being killed. In the greater scheme of things wind power has so many more plusses that this minus, if it's at all significant, is completely overwhelmed by the positive effect from generating electricity without any greenhouse gasses, or drowned valleys, or radioactive substances that last zillions of years, etc. Wind power is a relatively benign way to generate electricity compared to all the other methods.

The Audubon Society magazine first ran an article doing an in-depth study of wind power and then in the next issue ran an editorial giving this support to wind power.

Let's hope it captures some attention. There are a lot of NIMBY's who are resisting wind power, but who are otherwise environmentalists. I am absolutely baffled by their resistance. How can they possibly be an environmentalist and be so closed minded as to resist wind power???

Well, this is one of those issues dangerously like that adage of squeezing a balloon just to find the balloon expanding in the area you didn't squeeze. Like many problems you solve, it can create other problems. So it seems to be with wind turbines, that in some cases birds get killed by them. But I am myself completely in agreement with the points I wrote above. First, wind power itself is so extremely benign compared with the many other things our society has done with technology. Generating electricity by capturing the wind seems so completely harmless compared to the urban vistas we see in the major cities, concrete and gleaming steel towers for as far as the eye can see. How can anybody think wind turbines are ugly compared to that? And what of the exhaust spewed by fossil fuel burning power plants? Again, the byproducts from wind turbines seem so completely benign compared to that.

Second, as I noted the problem has already been studied and the solutions are well known.

Third, as I noted, birds get killed by so many other human structures, why are the environmentalists focusing their worry against wind turbines when skyscrapers kill lots of birds as well?

Wind-turbine based bird deaths found to be less than thought likely

While wind power is getting economically feasible, it's facing one repetitive criticism. That the turbines kill lots of birds.

I saw a study once describing this. The idea is based on the wind farm in California's Altamont Pass. The experience there is that those turbines do kill lots of birds, especially rare raptors. However further study showed several fixable problems with the Altamont Pass wind farm, and the solutions have been put into use in newer wind farms. Why the solutions haven't also been put into use in the Altamont Pass is beyond me.

Basically the problem was twofold: 1) the turbines in Altamont Pass are located primarily on ridgelines, a place where the birds frequently fly, placing them in more frequent proximity to the turbines; 2) the turbines in Altamont Pass are small, with fast moving blades, and the tower design also gives many places for birds to roost, all of which contributes to more frequent contact between birds and turbine blades.

Wind turbines not so deadly for birds -Dutch study (Tue Jul 5,12:00 PM ET, AMSTERDAM (Reuters))

In The Netherlands and other parts of Europe they've been installing massive wind turbines. The blades on these are often 100 meters in diameter, and each tower produces around 1 megawatt of electricity.

And, their experience with bird deaths is that they're a lot less frequent than expected. e.g.

The new study suggests the Netherlands' 1,700 wind turbines kill about 50,000 birds a year. About 2 million birds perish each year on Dutch roads, it said.

This was predictable from the study I read of the Altamont Pass. With the larger turbines, the blades actually move a lot slower, making it easy for birds to dodge the blades. Further, when the tower makers pay attention, they make sure there's no ledges for birds to sit on, making it less likely the birds will stay around the towers in the first place. Finally, siting of the towers makes a difference, simply by putting the towers in places the birds don't stay in.

Several years ago Home Power Magazine published this summary of research into bird death around wind turbines. The article concludes the issue is overblown - for example, the recorded bird deaths in Altamont Pass are small compared to the birds killed in collisions with buildings or radio towers and the like.

Further the rates of bird death at other wind farms in California are a fraction of the rates at Altamont Pass, so there must be something special about Altamont Pass. Namely, the population growth in the San Francisco Bay Area is causing an out-migration of wildlife, and the Altamont Pass area is pretty open (other than the wind turbines) giving refuge to the out-migrating wildlife.