Yonivore
09-14-2009, 10:54 PM
...square this one for me.
Does Wind Get Off Easy? (http://volokh.com/posts/1252758749.shtml)
When birds die due to oil or chemical exposure at an oil company's storage or waste-water facility, the company may be prosecuted for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Exxon-Mobil, for example, recently pled guilty to killing 85 birds (http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-enrd-795.html) protected under the MTBA. The oil giant will pay $600,000 in fines, and several million more to implement a compliance plan to prevent bird deaths in the future.
Exxon-Mobil's not alone. Electric utilities are also prosecuted when protected birds are killed by poorly insulated transmission lines. And yet not all power produces are prosecuted for the accidental killing of protected birds.
As the Entergy Tribune's Robert Bryce detailed in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376543308399048.html), wind power kills more protected birds than Exxon-Mobil's refineries, and yet gets a free pass.
A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.
Altamont's turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon's tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.
The number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.
The problem of bird kills from wind power are well documented. A 2001 report on avian mortality (http://www.nationalwind.org/publications/wildlife/avian_collisions.pdf) by the National Wind Coordinating Council estimated wind power was responsible for 33,000 bird kills per year, the vast majority of which are protected under federal law. The American Wind Energy Association estimates (http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Wind_Energy_and_Wildlife_Mar09.pdf) bird mortality rates are, on average, "one to six per year or less" per megawatt of wind power capacity in the United States. Given the U.S. had 25,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity in the U.S., wind power could be responsible for as many as 150,000 bird kills per year. How many will die if wind production increases ten-fold or more to meet proposed renewable energy mandates? (And will we consider that actual wind output can be far less than installed capacity (http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2159).)
Wind power is hardly the only thing that kills birds. Bird kills are a problem with many tall structures, and other energy sources are hardly without their problems. All things considered, wind may be preferable to available alternatives (even if it cannot provide base load capacity) and could be an important part of America's energy supply in the future. Yet it seems clear that when it comes to killing protected birds, traditional energy companies face federal prosecution, while wind energy gets a pass.
One reason for the special treatment is that it is easier to reduce bird kills at traditional energy facilities than a wind farm. In Exxon-Mobil's case, netting can keep birds away from potential contamination sources. There's no comparably easy fix for wind farms -- at least not yet. So federal prosecutors may target enforcement efforts where they can maximize the environmental results. It's also possible that there's no political benefit to going after "green" energy.
Then, as if there's a conspiracy afoot, the guys at Powerline.com posted a different piece, also less than flattering, about wind power:
Wind Power: Not So Powerful (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024522.php)
Do you have to be smarter to run a dry cleaning shop than to be President? In some respects, yes. If you are a dry cleaner and the numbers don't add up, you go broke. If you are President (or a Congressman) and the numbers don't add up, you just tax or borrow more money. No one has ever said that Barack Obama is a numbers guy (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/12/can-obama-do-math/); in fact, his ignorance of mathematics is just one facet of his ignorance of business and economics.
Obama lards his speeches with statistical factoids, but they are frequently wrong. For example: he loves to tell audiences that Denmark obtains "20 percent of [its] electricity through wind power." Sure, Denmark is a flat, windy place, but it still isn't true. The Institute for Energy Research (http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/09/14/something-rotten-obama-says-danes-receive-20-of-their-power-via-wind-new-study-tells-the-real-story/) explains:
The findings of a new study released this week cast serious doubt on the accuracy of that statement. The report finds that in 2006 scarcely five percent of the nation's electricity demand was met by wind. And over the past five years, the average is less than 10 percent -- despite Denmark having 'carpeted' its land with the machines. ...
Prepared by the independent Danish think tank CEPOS and co-authored by economist Henrik Meyer and Hugh Sharman, a prominent Denmark-based international energy consultant, the report details the extent to which Denmark's claim to wind superiority is essentially founded on a myth - the function of a complicated trading scheme in which the Danes off-load excess, value-subtracted wind generation to other nations for roughly free, asking only in return that these countries sell some of their baseload power back to Denmark on the frequent occasions in which the wind does not blow there
The upshot? The Danes retain the title of world's most prolific wind producer, and President Obama cites their experience as a path to be followed. The cost? Danish ratepayers are forced to pay the highest utility rates in Europe. And the American people are led to believe that, though wind may only provide a little more than one percent of our electricity now, reaching a 20 percent platform - as the Danes have allegedly done - will come at no cost, with no jobs lost and no externalities to consider.
Speaking of jobs, the report also pulls back the curtain on the wind power industry's near-complete dependence on taxpayer subsidies to support the fairly modest workforce it presently maintains. Just as in Spain, where per-job taxpayer subsidies for so-called "green jobs" exceeds $1,000,000 per worker in some cases, wind-related jobs in Denmark on average are subsidized at a rate of 175 to 250 percent above the average pay per worker. All told, each new wind job created by the government costs Danish taxpayers between 600,000-900,000 krone a year, roughly equivalent to $90,000-$140,000 USD.
We've gotten rid of our green jobs czar, now we need to get rid of the myth of green jobs.[/quote]
I've always thought wind-generated power (on a large scale) was a stupid idea. However, I wouldn't mind having one for my house. I would just have to set it back a piece to keep from having to clean the grackels off my roof.
Does Wind Get Off Easy? (http://volokh.com/posts/1252758749.shtml)
When birds die due to oil or chemical exposure at an oil company's storage or waste-water facility, the company may be prosecuted for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Exxon-Mobil, for example, recently pled guilty to killing 85 birds (http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-enrd-795.html) protected under the MTBA. The oil giant will pay $600,000 in fines, and several million more to implement a compliance plan to prevent bird deaths in the future.
Exxon-Mobil's not alone. Electric utilities are also prosecuted when protected birds are killed by poorly insulated transmission lines. And yet not all power produces are prosecuted for the accidental killing of protected birds.
As the Entergy Tribune's Robert Bryce detailed in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376543308399048.html), wind power kills more protected birds than Exxon-Mobil's refineries, and yet gets a free pass.
A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.
Altamont's turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon's tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.
The number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.
The problem of bird kills from wind power are well documented. A 2001 report on avian mortality (http://www.nationalwind.org/publications/wildlife/avian_collisions.pdf) by the National Wind Coordinating Council estimated wind power was responsible for 33,000 bird kills per year, the vast majority of which are protected under federal law. The American Wind Energy Association estimates (http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Wind_Energy_and_Wildlife_Mar09.pdf) bird mortality rates are, on average, "one to six per year or less" per megawatt of wind power capacity in the United States. Given the U.S. had 25,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity in the U.S., wind power could be responsible for as many as 150,000 bird kills per year. How many will die if wind production increases ten-fold or more to meet proposed renewable energy mandates? (And will we consider that actual wind output can be far less than installed capacity (http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2159).)
Wind power is hardly the only thing that kills birds. Bird kills are a problem with many tall structures, and other energy sources are hardly without their problems. All things considered, wind may be preferable to available alternatives (even if it cannot provide base load capacity) and could be an important part of America's energy supply in the future. Yet it seems clear that when it comes to killing protected birds, traditional energy companies face federal prosecution, while wind energy gets a pass.
One reason for the special treatment is that it is easier to reduce bird kills at traditional energy facilities than a wind farm. In Exxon-Mobil's case, netting can keep birds away from potential contamination sources. There's no comparably easy fix for wind farms -- at least not yet. So federal prosecutors may target enforcement efforts where they can maximize the environmental results. It's also possible that there's no political benefit to going after "green" energy.
Then, as if there's a conspiracy afoot, the guys at Powerline.com posted a different piece, also less than flattering, about wind power:
Wind Power: Not So Powerful (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024522.php)
Do you have to be smarter to run a dry cleaning shop than to be President? In some respects, yes. If you are a dry cleaner and the numbers don't add up, you go broke. If you are President (or a Congressman) and the numbers don't add up, you just tax or borrow more money. No one has ever said that Barack Obama is a numbers guy (http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/12/can-obama-do-math/); in fact, his ignorance of mathematics is just one facet of his ignorance of business and economics.
Obama lards his speeches with statistical factoids, but they are frequently wrong. For example: he loves to tell audiences that Denmark obtains "20 percent of [its] electricity through wind power." Sure, Denmark is a flat, windy place, but it still isn't true. The Institute for Energy Research (http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/09/14/something-rotten-obama-says-danes-receive-20-of-their-power-via-wind-new-study-tells-the-real-story/) explains:
The findings of a new study released this week cast serious doubt on the accuracy of that statement. The report finds that in 2006 scarcely five percent of the nation's electricity demand was met by wind. And over the past five years, the average is less than 10 percent -- despite Denmark having 'carpeted' its land with the machines. ...
Prepared by the independent Danish think tank CEPOS and co-authored by economist Henrik Meyer and Hugh Sharman, a prominent Denmark-based international energy consultant, the report details the extent to which Denmark's claim to wind superiority is essentially founded on a myth - the function of a complicated trading scheme in which the Danes off-load excess, value-subtracted wind generation to other nations for roughly free, asking only in return that these countries sell some of their baseload power back to Denmark on the frequent occasions in which the wind does not blow there
The upshot? The Danes retain the title of world's most prolific wind producer, and President Obama cites their experience as a path to be followed. The cost? Danish ratepayers are forced to pay the highest utility rates in Europe. And the American people are led to believe that, though wind may only provide a little more than one percent of our electricity now, reaching a 20 percent platform - as the Danes have allegedly done - will come at no cost, with no jobs lost and no externalities to consider.
Speaking of jobs, the report also pulls back the curtain on the wind power industry's near-complete dependence on taxpayer subsidies to support the fairly modest workforce it presently maintains. Just as in Spain, where per-job taxpayer subsidies for so-called "green jobs" exceeds $1,000,000 per worker in some cases, wind-related jobs in Denmark on average are subsidized at a rate of 175 to 250 percent above the average pay per worker. All told, each new wind job created by the government costs Danish taxpayers between 600,000-900,000 krone a year, roughly equivalent to $90,000-$140,000 USD.
We've gotten rid of our green jobs czar, now we need to get rid of the myth of green jobs.[/quote]
I've always thought wind-generated power (on a large scale) was a stupid idea. However, I wouldn't mind having one for my house. I would just have to set it back a piece to keep from having to clean the grackels off my roof.