...square this one for me.
Does Wind Get Off Easy?
Then, as if there's a conspiracy afoot, the guys at Powerline.com posted a different piece, also less than flattering, about wind power: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 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, wind power kills more protected birds than Exxon-Mobil's refineries, and yet gets a free pass.
The problem of bird kills from wind power are well do ented. A 2001 report on avian mortality 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 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.)
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.
Wind Power: Not So Powerful
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; 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 Ins ute for Energy Research explains:
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.
Coal and (especially) natural gas will be our energy *alternatives* of first resort. Wind power doesn't seem to be particularly reliable or cost effective for large-scale generation purposes, but I don't see why that's any reason to cast scorn on *green jobs* as such.
R&D is expensive. The failures will outnumber the successes. But there's little doubt we'll need alternatives to petroleum. Why not spend some coin figuring out what will work and what won't?
I'm just poking the ironic finger at how it's acceptable to kill thousands -- possibly hundreds of thousand -- of birds with a "green" energy technology and fine "Big Oil" for the 85 birds too stupid to stay out of an oil storage tank.
This diminishes the irony somewhat for me;
If wind power isn't that useful, I'm all for diverting money to more-effective green jobs (ie solar power, wave power, nuclear power, etc etc)
Hate to say it Yoni, but I agree with you on this. It seems strange because I would think that it would be easy to stop this from happening, just attach some kind of whistle to the end of the blades that emit a pitch that is unacceptable to birds.
If I'm not mistaken, I think most of the wind farms in california are older and use older windmills with shorter blades. Shorter blades = higher rpm's = more bird kills. The big 150' windmills typically being used today have much lower rpm's and don't kill nearly as many birds.
They allude to that in the article, but it still doesn't answer the question about why the wind companies get a free pass.
They allude to that in the article too.
Because it's easier is not a reason, it's an excuse. I guarantee you if they started receiving the same fines as the other companies a cheap and easy way to deter birds from flying into the blades would emerge quite quickly.
Good point, Drachen.
Has anyone figured out a cheap an easy way to deter birds from flying into skyscraper windows? Same concept here. It's not an excuse, it's reality. That being said, the lower RPM turbines go a long way towards solving this issue. I'm also positive that studying avian migration patterns are part of the environmental permitting process for new facilities. Still, there's going to be birdkills no matter what you do. It's unavoidable.
Do the skyscrapers get dinged for killing birds? If not, you kinda just added strength to my point.
How so? We don't fine skyscraper owners for the birds that die from crashing into them. So if you're right that "because it's easier" is just an excuse then shouldn't we be fining them for not coming up with some way to keep that from happening?
Actually, the answer's in the article.
Just as the environmentalists want the coal industry to retrofit their plants under cap and tax legislation, they could require these wind farms to retrofit their windmills with the newer turbines that tend to mitigate these occurrences.
My point was that as soon as you begin fining them, an easy way to deter birds from commiting aviary suicide would appear. I already came up with one right here a few posts ago. You said that birds keep flying into skyscrapers. My point is emboldened. They are not fined, if you begin fining them, an easy way to deter birds from commiting aviary suicide would appear.
I don't know how many birds are killed every year by the newer turbines, but it would seem like some kind of sonic deterent would be easier, and cheaper.
I do feel it necessary to say that this is only an uneducated suggestion based on my limited knowledge of if it is even possible to construct such a device. Perhaps what would deter one bird would attract another. Like I said, it is an on the fly idea.
Your point is not emboldened because what you're proposing isn't practical. Exxon putting nets over a couple of open topped storage tanks is easy. Coming up with a sonic defense system covering thousands and thousands of acres of windfarms isn't. You might as well be saying that we should fine car makers until they come up with a car safe enough to where no one gets killed in auto accidents anymore.
are you serious? putting a whistle on the tip of a blade is too prohibitive? Deer whistles cost between $5-$10. As far as buildings I don't know what direction to go to, but as of yet (just like the owners of said buildings) I am not financially motivated to do so.
Please tell me that was an unintentional pun.
You'll notice my comparison wasn't to Exxon's oil tank problem. Screw the birds...it doesn't even bother me that 100's of thousands die at the blade of these windmills.
I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the left by comparing the fix for windmills to the fix the environmentalists want coal plants to undergo. And, you're right...it is cost prohibitive.
But, the "save the world" narrative doesn't apply to environmentalists or former vice presidents with carbon foot prints the size of Tennessee.
I'm fine with requiring better turbines if that's what it takes. Prosecute away.
I can see we're headed towards an "agree to disagree". You don't see a distinction between putting nets over a couple of storage tanks and protecting thousands of acres of windfarms, and I do. Fair enough.
Just for conversation sake though, your whistle idea has a couple of flaws that I can think of. First, in whistles pitch varies with airflow and the speed of the blades varies. At one windspeed you'd get the proper pitch to deter birds, at another you wouldn't. Second, birds wouldn't be the only animals able to hear those whistles. By trying to protect the birds are you making some other animal's life ?
If you keep the windfarms out of known avian migration routes and use the windmills that operate at low RPM's then birdkills isn't going to be a problem.
Some additional information on the Altamont wind farm.
Since the mid-1980's, a number of research organizations, universities, and consultants have conducted studies on avian mortality due to wind turbines. In the U.S., these studies were prompted because of the relatively high number of raptors that were found dead at the Altamont Pass Wind Farms near San Francisco.
After dozens of studies spanning nearly two decades, we now know that the Altamont Pass situation is unusual in the U.S. The high raptor mortality there was the result of a convergence of factors, some of which were due to the bad siting in the local ecosystem while others were due to the wind turbine and tower technology used at the time. In fact, a very different situation exists not far away at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farms near Palm Springs. A 1986 study found that 69 million birds flew though the San Gorgonio Pass during the Spring and Fall migrations. During both migrating seasons, only 38 dead birds were found during that typical year, representing only 0.00006% of the migrating population.
A report recently prepared for the Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest U.S. states that "raptor mortality has been absent to very low at all newer generation wind plants studied in the U.S. This and other information regarding wind turbine design and wind plant/wind turbine siting strongly suggests that the level of raptor mortality observed at Altamont Pass is quite unique."
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
Ok, I do have to give you one, I hadn't thought of the differing pitches at differing speeds. I had thought of the other animals though. I figured this would take care of itself during testing, but it is improbable that this would be a valid solution. That is why I admitted that it was a quickly thought out idea. Give them financial incentive and something will be produced.
The text that you cited, it seems, already has the solution which goes back to Yoni's suggestion. I probably care a great deal more about the wildlife than he does, but I do care equally about the hypocrasy (sorry, cant spell right now).
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