Wind Farms

[William Malacarne]

I ran across this on a calbird list.

"Groups Protest Wind Turbine Eagle Kills

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-2214...=feeds%2Foncnn

Wearing red to symbolize the blood of dead eagles, several Native
American groups from California organized a protest against the killing
of Golden and Bald Eagles that will take place in collisions with the
Wind turbines of the approved Hatchet Ridge Wind Project in Northern
California. Eagles, hawks, owls and falcons will all die in collisions
with the wind turbine blades that spin at 220 mph on 300 foot towers.
The groups that organized this protest are; The Advocates for the
Protection of Sacred Sites, Seventh Generation Fund, Indigenous
Environmental Network, International Indian Treaty Council, and Citizens
of the Pit River Tribe. The protest will took place Friday Feb 27 in
front of the Shasta County Administrative building where the board of
supervisors approved the Hatchet Ridge Wind Farm. Bald Eagles, Golden
Eagles, Spotted Owls, Great Grey Owls and over 100 other different kinds
of bird species are expected to die at this wind farm. Each year across
America, thousands of birds of prey die in collisions with turbine
blades. At the Altamont wind farm in California over 50 Golden Eagles
die each year. Accurate figures from other wind farms are not available
because of the high security at sites and cover up by the wind industry."

Bill

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Don't modern wind turbines spin much slower? Not that this prevents birds from getting shredded but it should decrease the likelihood.

[William Malacarne]

Don't modern wind turbines spin much slower? Not that prevents birds from getting shredded but should decrease the likelihood.

yes I just looked that up and it said 10 to 20 RPM,,,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbines

also found this on another site

Controller:

The controller starts up the machine at wind speeds of about 8 to 16 miles per hour (mph) and shuts off the machine at about 55 mph. Turbines do not operate at wind speeds above about 55 mph because they might be damaged by the high winds.

Bill

[Roger Clark]

Are there any statistics of how many birds are actually killed? Maybe something simple could be added, like a whistle that sounds when the wind is blowing, scaring the birds away.

[William Malacarne]

Are there any statistics of how many birds are actually killed? Maybe something simple could be added, like a whistle that sounds when the wind is blowing, scaring the birds away.

Roger

Good question and I found this, it seems to be older data(2003) but might give a good insight,

http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html

Bill

[Roger Clark]

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the link. But the numbers seem pretty astounding. Reading through the list, it comes to around 1.5 billion birds deaths per year in the US from power lines, collisions, and other man-made things. WOW! But what is wrong with this picture?
This site puts the total US bird population at less than 4 to 6 billion:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...0/zoo00443.htm
So the conclusion is that on the order of 1/4 to 1/2 of the bird population is wiped out each year if those reports are true, which is implausible to say the least. Something is fishy...

[Bill McCrystyn]

Many birds are killed just running into large building windows in downtown metro areas. In the case of wind turbins it seems like good old chicken wire covers would work. There seems to a plethora of covers/shields/devices that would do the job. Are we back to the corporate $$$ problem and lack of bringing it to the attention of the public - as always. Maybe if any of us have any of these facilities near us we could get some pictures of the aftermath that could be used by differant groups to publish or get air time to run.

[Jerry Clement]

Here in the Southwestern corner of Alberta, along the eastern slopes of the rockies where the wind never rarely stops blowing, wind farms are spread across the eastern slopes as far as the eye can see. Mention was made here, as to the slow speed that the turbines turn at, in the vicinity of 10 to 20 rpm, however the tips of these 3 propeller type blades that are 130ft in diameter, are approaching speeds in the vicinity of 250kph. The concern here in Alberta has not been so much the bird kills, which have not been that big a concern, as there have been few deaths reported. The concern has been the number of bats killed by the turbines. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/wor...html?id=747858

Jerry

[Brandon Holden]

I've been doing some environmental consulting work for wind farms around Ontario, and it appears that migratory raptors do a very good job of staying out of the blades way. The number of other birds killed (mainly songbirds) seem to be a very tiny number compared to collisions with tall city buildings.

[Beth Goffe]

I have a couple of friends who have done research work in Pennsylvania and Texas, I think, which sounds similar to Brandon's work and their comments are the same. They have not found appreciable numbers of bird deaths. However, they do say that, so far, bats are the real casualties of the turbines and the reason has not yet been determined. Apparently cages around the trubines wreak havoc with their efficiency, so that is not the answer, unfortunately.