Leading Bird Conservation Group Formally Petitions Feds to Regulate Wind Industry

[XemaSab]

American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization, today formally petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior to protect millions of birds from the negative impacts of wind energy by developing regulations that will safeguard wildlife and reward responsible wind energy development.

The nearly 100-page petition for rulemaking, prepared by ABC and the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm of Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal (MGC), urges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to issue regulations establishing a mandatory permitting system for the operation of wind energy projects and mitigation of their impacts on migratory birds. The proposal would provide industry with legal certainty that wind developers in compliance with a permit would not be subject to criminal or civil penalties for violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).

The government estimates that a minimum of 440,000 birds are currently killed each year by collisions with wind turbines. In the absence of clear, legally enforceable regulations, the massive expansion of wind power in the United States will likely result in the deaths of more than one million birds each year by 2020. Further, wind energy projects are also expected to adversely impact almost 20,000 square miles of terrestrial habitat, and another 4,000 square miles of marine habitat.

The petition highlights the particular threat from unregulated wind power to species of conservation concern and demonstrates the legal authority that FWS possesses to enforce MBTA regulations and grant take permits under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The petition also provides specific regulatory language that would accomplish the petition’s objectives, identifying the factors that would be considered in evaluating a permit for approval, including the extent to which a given project will result in adverse impacts to birds of conservation concern and species that are under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/111214.html

[Vincardog]

1. I live next to a LARGE wind farm. I have never seen a bird hurt by it.

I have seen birds dead on the side of the road on a regular basis.
Wouldn't it make more sense to regulate and require bird free trucks?
This seems to be the energy industry flying the environmental flag.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Not all windfarms are equal in this respect.

The one next you may be fine: I'm pretty sure the one nearest me is OK. Some, like the one on Smøla, are apparently not so good: see http://raptorpolitics.org.uk/2011/06/09/lethal-attraction/

As far I can tell, all the ABC are asking is that birds be taken into account when choosing a site.

[kristopher]

9. ABC might be unduly influenced by antirenewable interests.

Sourcewatch:

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) "is a 501(c)(3), not-for profit organization whose mission is to conserve native wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas." [1]

"Among the major corporate partners that ABC has recently engaged with are the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas, Swarovski Optik, and ConocoPhillips." [2]

Mitsubishi is nuclear and Conoco is fossil.Others on the board include:
an executive from a major PR firm that specializes in social outreach and greenwashing corporate activities.
Martha Boudreau, serves as General Manager of Fleishman-Hillard’s Washington, DC office

V. Richard Eales, of Malvern, Pennsylvania, is currently Lead Director of Range Resources Corporation, an oil and gas exploration and production company.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Bird_Conservancy

As far as I know it was founded by a genuinely concerned bird lover, but it didn't register on the national scene until it started making hyperbolic attacks against renewable energy as a major threat to avian populations. The primary mission of the group undoubtedly is aimed at avian conservation. Wowever, with the corporate influences that have direct involvement in shaping the organization's policies, and given the disproportionate focus on the compartively damage from renewables relative to nuclear and fossil fuels, it seems prudent consider the possibility that they are really little more than a front group for a well crafted astroturfing campaign by the entrenched energy industry.

For example, here is one such assertion from the group and a response from the wind industry trade group the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

"Bird deaths from wind power are the new inconvenient truth. The total number of birds killed and the amount of bird habitat lost will dramatically increase as wind power build-out continues across the country in a rush to meet federal renewable energy targets."²
--Mike Parr, Vice President of the American Bird Conservancy


The Reality: Wind power is far less harmful to birds than the fossil fuels it displaces. Incidental losses of individual birds at turbine sites will always be an extremely small fraction of bird deaths caused by human activities.:

- Wind is the only source of energy that does not present population-level risks to birds, according to a study of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind power. ³
- Wind turbines are estimated to cause less than three out of every 100,000 human-related bird deaths in the U.S., and will never cause more than a very small fraction no matter how extensively wind power is used in the future, the National Academy of Sciences found. 4
- Wind power causes far fewer losses of birds (approximately 108,000 a year) than buildings (550 million), power lines (130 million), cars (80 million), poisoning by pesticides (67 million), domestic cats (at least 10 million), and radio and cell towers (4.5 million). 5
- Non-renewable energy sources "pose higher risks to wildlife" than renewable sources. Coal - which wind directly replaces - "is by far the largest contributor" to wildlife risks. 6



¹ " Windmills Are Killing Our Birds," Robert Bryce op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2009
² "Bird Deaths from Wind Farms to Continue Under New Federal Voluntary Industry Guidelines," American Bird Conservancy press release, February 8, 2011
3 6 "Comparison Of Reported Effects And Risks To Vertebrate Wildlife From Six Electricity Generation Types In The New York/New England Region," New York State Research and Development Authority, March 2009
4 "Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects," National Academy of Sciences, 2007
5"A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes with an Emphasis on Collisions," USDA Forest Service, 2005

AWEA has worked closely with environmental organizations as it has developed in an effort to ensure that their business practices

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Naturally, the American Wind Energy Association cannot be considered entirely neutral in this matter

They obviously have a vested interest.

[kristopher]

13. Naturally, however their information here does, in fact, have a high degree of validity.

[XemaSab]

12. Swarovski = Big Optics

[Dead_Parrot]

19. I reckon they've been paid off by Mitsubishi...

http://www.mpshq.com/products/wind_turbines/index.html

Lolwut?

[kristopher]

37. No wonder you are gaga over nuclear power.

Such a total lack of awareness of basic economics could lead anyone to erroneous conclusions. Taking a look at the elements of market competition and comparing the effect of those elements on potential profits from nuclear power vs wind (and solar) gives a clear picture of why any existing provider of nuclear technology (a near monopolistic enterprise) would be insane not to try to protect that technology from a mass produced commodity like wind power.

From wiki:

In economic theory, perfect/pure competition describes markets such that no participants are large enough to have the market power to set the price of a homogeneous product. Because the conditions for perfect competition are strict, there are few if any perfectly competitive markets. Still, buyers and sellers in some auction-type markets, say for commodities or some financial assets, may approximate the concept. Perfect competition serves as a benchmark against which to measure real-life and imperfectly competitive markets.

Generally, a perfectly competitive market exists when every participant is a "price taker", and no participant influences the price of the product it buys or sells. Specific characteristics may include:
Infinite buyers and sellers – Infinite consumers with the willingness and ability to buy the product at a certain price, and infinite producers with the willingness and ability to supply the product at a certain price.
Very few entry and exit barriers – It is relatively easy for a business to enter or exit in a perfectly competitive market.
Perfect factor mobility - In the long run factors of production are perfectly mobile allowing free long term adjustments to changing market conditions.
Perfect information - Prices and quality of products are assumed to be known to all consumers and producers.[1]
Zero transaction costs - Buyers and sellers incur no costs in making an exchange (perfect mobility).[1]
Profit maximization - Firms aim to sell where marginal costs meet marginal revenue, where they generate the most profit.
Homogeneous products – The characteristics of any given market good or service do not vary across suppliers.
Non-increasing returns to scale - Non-increasing returns to scale ensure that there are sufficient firms in the industry.

In the short term, perfectly-competitive markets are not productively efficient as output will not occur where marginal cost is equal to average cost, but allocatively efficient, as output will always occur where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue, and therefore where marginal cost equals average revenue. In the long term, such markets are both allocatively and productively efficient.

Under perfect competition, any profit-maximizing producer faces a market price equal to its marginal cost. This implies that a factor's price equals the factor's marginal revenue product. This allows for derivation of the supply curve on which the neoclassical approach is based. (This is also the reason why a monopoly does not have a supply curve.) The abandonment of price taking creates considerable difficulties to the demonstration of existence of a general equilibrium[4] except under other, very specific conditions such as that of monopolistic competition.


.....Profit

In contrast to a monopoly or oligopoly, it is impossible for a firm in perfect competition to earn economic profit in the long run, which is to say that a firm cannot make any more money than is necessary to cover its economic costs.

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

Nuclear power is an oligopoly.

"In contrast to a monopoly or oligopoly, it is impossible for a firm in perfect competition to earn economic profit in the long run, which is to say that a firm cannot make any more money than is necessary to cover its economic costs."

If the world turns to nuclear power we must buy all of the related production and fuel resources as well as disposal services, from highly specialized vendors that are able to exact extremely high profits relative to those in the renewable sector which can be truly mass produced.

The world's undisputed leading birding group, the Audubon Society, has strongly endorsed wind energy.
Every environmental group around the world that has established their bona fides by being in existence before renewables became a threat to the entrenched energy interests likewise endorses renewables (including wind) over fossil fuels and nuclear.

The messaging of the ABC and the structure of its board make it highly likely it is, at heart, an astroturf group serving the interests of the entrenched energy industries.

[Dead_Parrot]

41. And people think the Germans have no sense of humour. nt

[Bob Wallace]

3. Already being done?

I have a hard time believing that wind farms are being built without environmental impact statements.

Don't federal regulations require impact reports?

BTW, bird kills per kWh/GWh is very low compared to some other forms of electricity generation. That's not to say that we should be careful about where we install and do what we can to minimize impact, but let's be careful to keep things in perspective.

"The study estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. While this paper should be respected as a preliminary assessment, the estimate means that wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 14.5 million. The paper concludes that further study is needed, but also that fossil-fueled power stations appear to pose a much greater threat to avian wildlife than wind and nuclear power technologies."

http://nukefree.org/news/Avianmortalityfromwindpower,fossil-fuel,andnuclearelectricity

[XemaSab]

4. Federal agency proposes voluntary guidelines for wind power developers to avoid bird deaths

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2011/02/federal-agency-proposes-voluntary-guidelines-for-wind-power-developers-to-avoid-bird-deaths.html

[Bob Wallace]

5. OK, I'm surprised...

I would have thought there were already requirements.

Your link says that the "The American Bird Conservancy said that the wind industry's goal of providing 20% of the nation's electricity by 2030 would lead to 1 million bird deaths a year or more.".

If we look at the 14.5 million killed by fossil fuel and nuclear plants/operations in 2006 and do some back of envelope math, assume about 70% of electricity from fossil fuel and nuclear in 2006, that's about 2 million per 10% of our electricity. 20% from wind, ABC's number, would be half of what we're killing now.

Minimize wind bird kills, but recognize (if the numbers are correct) that wind saves bird lives when compared to the alternative.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Audubon's Position on Wind Power

http://policy.audubon.org/wind-power-overview-0

[font face="Times, Serif"][font size="5"]Wind Power Overview[/font]

[font size="4"]Audubon's Position on Wind Power[/font]

Summary: Audubon strongly supports properly-sited wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming. Wind power facilities should be planned, sited and operated to minimize negative impacts on bird and wildlife populations.

…

Protecting Birds and Wildlife: While Audubon strongly supports wind power and recognizes it will not be without some impact, production and transmission facilities must be planned, sited and operated in concert with other actions needed to minimize and mitigate their impacts on birds and other wildlife populations. Several federal and state laws require this and the long-term sustainability of the wind industry depends on it. Wind power facilities impact birds from direct collisions with turbines and related facilities, such as power lines. Wind power facilities can also degrade or destroy habitat, cause disturbance and displacement, and disrupt important ecological links. These impacts can be avoided or significantly reduced, however, with proper siting, operation and mitigation.

Audubon supports the adoption of federal and state guidelines on the study, siting, operation and mitigation of wind power. Guidelines should provide developers, permitting agencies and conservation groups with the legal, technical and practical steps needed to minimize impacts on birds and other wildlife. Guidelines should provide the following essential elements:

• Minimum pre-permitting study requirements and guidance on study methods, frequency and acceptable data sources to ensure that wind power is sited in appropriate locations
• Clearly delineated siting criteria that designate areas where wind power should not be allowed, such as Important Bird Areas, major migratory corridors, wilderness areas, national parks, wildlife refuges, and other sensitive habitat such as wetlands and riparian corridors
• Clearly defined monitoring and mitigation requirements in permits, with periodic reviews and requirements for adaptive management if impacts significantly exceed levels allowed by permit
• Guidance on cumulative population impacts assessment and mitigation.

…

[/font]

[Bob Wallace]

7. Today...

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — Thousands of migratory birds died on impact after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot and other areas of southern Utah for bodies of water.

Officials say stormy conditions probably confused the flock of grebes, a duck-like aquatic bird likely making its way to Mexico for the winter. The birds tried to land in a Cedar City Wal-Mart parking lot and elsewhere.

"The storm clouds over the top of the city lights made it look like a nice, flat body of water. All the conditions were right," Griffin told The Spectrum newspaper in St. George (http://bit.ly/rYpQbJ). "So the birds landed to rest, but ended up slamming into the pavement." and plummeting to the ground in what one wildlife expert called the worst downing she's ever seen.

http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-birds-crash-landing-utah-152219107.html

Regulate. But maintain perspective....

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. ”The government estimates that a minimum of 440,000 birds are currently killed each year…”

Do you wonder where that number comes from? (I sure did.)


I found this:
http://www.partnersinflight.org/pubs/McAllenProc/articles/PIF09_Anthropogenic%20Impacts/Manville_PIF09.pdf

[font face="Times, Serif"]Proceedings of the Fourth International
Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics
262–272

[font size="5"]TOWERS, TURBINES, POWER LINES, AND BUILDINGS—STEPS BEING TAKEN BY THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE TO AVOID OR MINIMIZE TAKE OF MIGRATORY BIRDS AT THESE STRUCTURES[/font]

[font size="4"]ALBERT M. MANVILLE, II[/font]

…

Commercial wind development in the U.S. continues to grow at an exponential rate. In 2007, the industry noted a >45% growth in turbine development (AWEA 2008), and in 2008, records were further broken with 50% growth (A WEA 2009) Operating turbines are referred to as “installed capacity,” generally measured in MW rather than in turbine numbers or turbine height and rotor swept area. By mid 2009, the U.S. had >29 440 MW of installed capacity (with 5866 under construction), lead by TX, IO, CA, MN, WA, OR, and NY in decreasing order of capacity (AWEA 2009). With slightly more than 23 000 turbines installed and operating on the landscape today, and more than 155 000 turbines projected to be operating by 2020 (AWEA 2008, M. Tuttle 2007 pers. comm., National Renewable Energy Laboratory 2007 estimate), the Service has serious concerns about current and potential impacts which continue to grow exponentially. From a wildlife perspective, however, there is some good news. With the exception of the continued high collision mortality of raptors, such as Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) and others—including passerines—at Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, CA, and the death of Birds of Conservation Concern and Breeding Bird Survey declining species elsewhere, avian mortality is not particularly high, at least at the present time. While the wind industry currently estimates that turbines kill 58 000 birds per year in the U.S. (National Wind Coordinating Collaborative Wildlife Workgroup 2009 statistic), the Service estimates annual mortality at 440 000 birds (Manville 2005). This is based, in part, on inconsistencies in the duration and intensity of searches resulting in biases between search areas, the size of the search areas, failure to estimate mortality during peak periods of migration, impacts from wind wake turbulence and blade tip vortices, and biases from unaccounted crippling losses (after Huso 2008). Until a robust, scientifically rigorous cumulative impacts analysis is performed, we will not know with a high degree of certainly the true level of mortality. Admittedly, it still is relatively small. However, with high risk, wildlife-unfriendly sites being selected by wind proponents next to, for example, nesting Golden and Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephlus), and turbines placed on ridge lines where Golden Eagles and Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) migrate, Service concerns are elevated. Bats, unfortunately, represent a completely different situation based on the high documented take of bats in WV, PA, NY, OK, western Alberta, and elsewhere, and the apparent attraction of some tree roosting bats to tall structures such as hoary (Lasiurus cinereus) and eastern red bats (L. borealis) including turbines (P. Cryan, USGS bat specialist, 2009 pers. comm.). Add to this the impacts from white-nosed syndrome, a likely fungal disease hugely impacting hibernating bats in the East and Northeast, and turbine mortality could become additive (P. Cryan 2009 pers. comm.). However, mortality represents only one of three concerns regarding wind development—and all other anthropocentric impacts, for that matter. Indirect impacts from fragmentation, disturbance and site avoidance are also a huge concern for wildlife. With the exponential growth of industrial wind development, the issue has also become one of cumulative impacts and additive mortality.

…[/font]

OK, so putting things into perspective for a moment, we appear to be talking about ~23,000 turbines killing ~440,000 birds (~ 20 birds/turbine/year) which the author admits is “relatively small.”

But, what is Manville 2005?

http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr191/psw_gtr191_1051-1064_manville.pdf

[font face="Times, Serif"][font size="5"]Bird Strikes and Electrocutions at Power Lines, Communication Towers, and Wind Turbines: State of the Art and State of the Science – Next Steps Toward Mitigation[/font]

[font size="4"]Albert M. Manville, II[/font]

[font size="3"]Abstract[/font]

Migratory birds suffer considerable human-caused mortality from structures built to provide public services and amenities. Three such entities are increasing nationwide: communication towers, power lines, and wind turbines. Communication towers have been growing at an exponential rate over at least the past 6 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is especially concerned about growing impacts to some 836 species of migratory birds currently protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, as amended. While mortality estimates are often sketchy, and won’t be verified until nationwide cumulative impact studies are conducted, current figures are troubling. Communication towers may kill from 4-50 million birds per year. Collisions with power transmission and distribution lines may kill anywhere from hundreds of thousands to 175 million birds annually, and power lines electrocute tens to hundreds of thousands more birds annually, but these utilities are poorly monitored for both strikes and electrocutions. More than 15,000 wind turbines may kill 40,000 or more birds annually nationwide, the majority in California. This paper will address the commonalities of bird impacts among these industries; those bird species that tend to be most affected; and research (completed, current, and proposed) intended to reduce bird collisions and electrocutions nationwide. The issues of structure location (siting), lighting, guy supports, lattice or tubular structures, bird behavior, and habitat modifications are reviewed. In addition, this paper reviews the respective roles and publications of the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee and the Wildlife Workgroup of the National Wind Coordinating Committee, the roles of the Service-chaired Communication Tower Working Group and Wind Turbine Siting Working Group, and the Fish and Wildlife Services’ voluntary tower and turbine siting and placement guidelines. An update on recent Communication Tower Working Group research initiatives will also be discussed along with promising research findings and needs.

…[/font]

Wait a second, that says 15,000 turbines may kill 40,000 birds! (~3 birds/turbine/year) with the majority in California (i.e. at Altamont pass.)

This discrepancy confused me, because both papers are written by Albert M. Manville, II. However, if you go back and reread the first excerpt carefully, it appears he may be talking about 440,000 bird deaths for the 155,000 turbines projected to be operating in 2020. (i.e. ~3 birds/turbine/year)

In any case, the estimated number of turbine-caused bird deaths is dwarfed by the other causes.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. ABCbirds can’t get their story straight

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/collisions/wind_faq.html

[font face="Times, Serif"]…

[font size="4"]How many birds are killed by wind farms each year?[/font]

No one knows for sure. Recent estimates of the number of birds killed by wind turbines ranges from a low of 100,000 birds/year to 440,000 birds/year (calculated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). If 20% of the nation’s electricity comes from wind power by 2030, ABC estimates that at least one million birds per year will be killed by wind turbines, probably significantly more.

…[/font]

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Putting 440,000 bird deaths into perspective

Using ABC birds’ own numbers:
http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/index.html

[font face="Times, Serif"][font size="5"]Cats Indoors[/font]

[font size="4"]The Challenge[/font]

There is no question that birds are better off when cats stay indoors. Exact numbers are unknown, but scientists estimate that every year in the United States alone, cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, and more than a billion small mammals, including rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks. Feline predators include both domestic cats that spend time outdoors and stray cats that live in the wild, sometimes as part of a colony.

…[/font]

[XemaSab]

16. .

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. Well, that certainly sucked

However, it’s difficult to draw many conclusions from it, other than that a vulture was killed by a collision with a wind turbine. Where did this happen? When did it happen? How often does it happen?

I believe ABCbirds has overstated their case.

I much prefer the Audubon Society’s stance:
http://policy.audubon.org/wind-power-overview-0

…

Rationale: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has clearly stated that the impacts of climate change are here now and will get worse.[1] Scientists have found that climate change has already affected half of the world's wild species' breeding, distribution, abundance and survival rates.[2] By mid-century, the IPCC predicts that climate change may contribute to the extinction of 20-30 percent of all species on earth.

In order to prevent species extinctions and other catastrophic impacts of climate change, scientists say we must reduce global warming emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. Reducing pollution from fossil fuels to this degree will require rapidly expanding energy and fuel efficiency, renewable energy and alternative fuels, and changes in land use, agriculture, and transportation. To avoid catastrophe, we need to do all of these.

Wind power is an important part of the strategy to combat global warming. Wind power is currently the most economically competitive form of renewable energy. It provides nearly 15,000 megawatts of power in the United States, enough power for more than 3 million households, and could provide up to 20 percent of the country's electricity needs. Every megawatt-hour produced by wind energy avoids an average of 1,220 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. If the United States obtains 20 percent of its electricity from wind power by 2020, it will reduce global warming emissions equivalent to taking 71 million cars off the road or planting 104 million acres of trees. Expanding wind power instead of fossil fuels also avoids the wildlife and human health impacts of oil and gas drilling, coal mining and fossil fuel burning.

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. Power line pylon killed Berkley the adopted vulture, together with all the hopes of the environmenta

http://www.greenbalkans.org/show.php?language=en_EN&cat_id=35&id=1247&

[font face="Times, Serif"][font size="5"]Power line pylon killed Berkley the adopted vulture, together with all the hopes of the environmentalists[/font] 2011-10-19

An extremely tragic end ceased the three-year adventures of the bird imported from Spain and released on October 14th 2011 within the Second National Vulture Festival.

The bird was adopted by the Vanchev Family from Plovdiv, who granted funds for the fitting of an expensive GPS/GSM transmitter to help us follow the adaptation and behavior of Berkley into the wild.

The transmitter was the one that helped us reveal the tragic end of the bird – several subsequent signals sent on 16-17-18 October 2011 showed that the location of the vulture did not change for hours. At the same time, the speedometer was sending signals for the device being tipped upside down, while the transmitter was fitted on the back of the bird. The last active data showed Berkley being 2 km away from its death, travelling at the speed of 83 km/h, 32 meters above the ground.

Lead by the coordinates sent by the transmitters, our team found the bird dead under a pylon from the power lines near the village of Kamen, some 16 km to the Southeast of the release site.

…[/font]

[XemaSab]

20. My friends in Ohio

saw a swan hit a line and eat it horrifically yesterday.

That's why power generation should be near the end users and not taken all the way across god knows where.

[OKIsItJustMe]

25. Well, the conclusion (in this case) was that transmission lines should be made safer

Similarly, the Altamont Pass wind farm is an excellent example of how and where not to build a wind farm.

I’ve read that vulture kills are a particular problem at Spanish wind farms, which are built close to the vultures’ territories.
http://www.ebd.csic.es/carnivoros/personal/carrete/martina/recursos/39.%202009%20Carrete%20et%20al%20(2009c)%20Biol%20Cons.pdf

I agree that wind farms should be sited to minimize their environmental impact, however, I don’t like to see statistics abused in the way ABC birds appears to have done.

[Bob Wallace]

28. Altamont Pass, a nasty start...

Lots of problems with Altamont Pass when the first turbines started going up there about 30 years ago.

It's an area where raptors hunt rodents and the first towers and turbines were bird killers. Lots (all?) of the first towers were grid structures, not the monopods now used. The birds would alight on one of the towers cross braces and then, spotting prey, would often launch themselves right into the spinning blades.

Additionally the early turbines were placed on low towers and due to their shorter length blades spun at a much faster rate than turbines now do. The fast spinning blades were hard to see.

Now those early turbines are mostly shut down. Many have already been taken down as the entire area gets refitted with much taller monopod towers and slower turning blades.

[OKIsItJustMe]

36. Faster turbines, slower turbines

While the larger turbines may make fewer RPM, their tip speed may actually be faster.

http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/part-i-technology/chapter-3-wind-turbine-technology/technology-trends/tip-speed-trends.html

[Bob Wallace]

39. Yes, tip speed my be faster, but...

The blades are more visible.

[Dead_Parrot]

21. But more vultures are killed by cats.

Err. Or something.

[XemaSab]

22. That's why you should keep your damn cat in the damn house

Bah... humbug...

[Dead_Parrot]

23. What, and pay for food?

They like vulture. With a side of condor.

[XemaSab]

24. Do they like rare, endemic parrots?

[Dead_Parrot]

26. Nah...

Won't go near them. I think they don't like the screeching.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. I know how to stop a parrot from screeching

However, it takes the sport out of it for the cats.

[Dead_Parrot]

30. First, catch your parrot...

That's where it all goes wrong, of course.

Edit: Except the Norwegian Blue, obviously.

[OKIsItJustMe]

35. Beautiful plumage…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-566600/Norwegian-Blue-parrot-really-DID-exist--stiff-bereft-life-ex-parrots.html

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. Here’s a fascinating study

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/28591.pdf

[font face="Times, Serif"][font size="3"]March 2002 • NREL/SR-500-28591[/font]

[font size="5"]An Assessment of the Impacts of Green Mountain Power Corporation’s Wind Power Facility on Breeding and Migrating Birds in Searsburg, Vermont[/font]

[font size="4"]July 1996–July 1998[/font]

…

[font size="3"]Chapter 7. Avian Fatality Study[/font]

[font size="2"]Introduction[/font]

The development of wind power in the northeastern United States is in its infancy. As projects are proposed, several questions relating to environmental issues are posed. The primary question is, "Do wind turbines kill birds, and, if so, how many?" There is a long history of birds flying into tall towers of various sorts (see Chapter 2), including wind turbines (Colson & Associates 1995, Orloff and Flannery 1996, Winkelman 1995). However, because wind turbines are such a new development on the landscape, answering these questions is still not easy. We are learning that in most situations turbines kill few birds. Recent studies by Anderson (in press) in California, Winkelman (1994, 1995) in the Netherlands, Strickland (in press) in Minnesota, and Kerlinger and Curry (in progress) in Colorado are studies that are now being conducted or recently completed suggest that small numbers of birds are killed. In fact, there is only one site where the kills are considered egregious and that site is the Altamont in California, where nearly 5,400 turbines now stand. The actual numbers killed in the Altamont do not exceed one bird per turbine per year and rates of between 0.05 raptors per turbine per year (Orloff and Flannery 1992, 1996) and 0.019 raptors per turbine per year (Kerlinger and Curry 1998) have been reported.

…

Fatality Searches. In a total of 21 search periods (1 search period equals four turbines searched) not one dead bird was located in the Searsburg wind power facility (Table 7.1). These observation periods were conducted on 15 different days and consisted of about 41 hours of search time. On some days two search periods were used. This represents a total of 82 searches conducted under individual turbines during four (five if August is included) months. (The number of search periods is more than the number called for in the original proposal (N = 6) that was approved by NREL. The extra searches were done after consulting with other biologists and realizing that more were needed to insure that the observations were reliable and valid indicators of actual fatality rates. In addition, no dead birds were found by workers at the wind power plant since it went on-line in spring 1997 and during the previous autumn (1996) when turbines were erected and some were working.

Scavenging Rate Determination. Two tests of scavenging were conducted. Scavenging was minimal as indicated by the small numbers of birds that disappeared from where they had been placed. In the first and shorter of the two, short-term disappearance was observed. Of twenty birds placed beneath turbines on June 30, 15% (N = 3) had disappeared by July 2. These birds were checked again on September 2 at which time only 4 (20% of original birds) were located. Those that were relocated included Blue Jay, Slate-colored Junco, Gray Catbird, and a Yellow- rumped Warbler. They were all decomposed and were not easily found as feathers had matted down and lost all color as a result of photo-oxidation and perhaps washing by rain with low pH. This shows that some birds disappear quickly, but scavenging is not the same at all sites nor in all seasons. Scavenging may have been even less than 80% during the 2 month period because some carcasses may have simply been overlooked as a result of decomposition and growth of grass and shrubs which act to make carcasses less visible.

For birds placed out on September 2, 20% disappeared during the first week and another 15% disappeared about a week later. At the end of a month (about 5 weeks/scavenging surveys), 65% of the birds remained. There was no scavenging after the second week. Again, scavenging occurred, but it was not thorough.

…

[font size="2"]Discussion and Conclusions[/font]

The most important finding in this study is that not one dead bird was found beneath the turbines at Searsburg in 1997. The fact that no birds were found dead in the area around the turbine towers may not mean that the turbines cause no fatalities, although it strongly suggests they are not killing large numbers of birds. Because this is the first study of fatalities at an operating wind power facility in the eastern United States, the results should not be generalized to all situations in this area.

…[/font]

Give it a read!

[Bob Wallace]

29. There's another "wind kills birds" piece floating around the web.

I think a wind farm in Virginia.

Turns out that lights on a building associated with the wind farm confused birds in foggy conditions and the birds flew into the building.

But the anti-wind people aren't revealing the lights and building part, just talking about the birds killed at the site.

[Dead_Parrot]

31. That's a little rich...

...Given that one of Sovacool's data points is actually from incorrect lighting.

[joshcryer]

32. Eh, power lines are a big contributor, too.

And distant, urban, wind facilities far from the grid require thousands of miles of new lines, resulting in millions of new bird deaths.

Still, house cats are the primary enemy of birds as far as I understand.

[OKIsItJustMe]

34. Yes, check out the studies I mentioned

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=813

… Communication towers may kill from 4-50 million birds per year. Collisions with power transmission and distribution lines may kill anywhere from hundreds of thousands to 175 million birds annually, and power lines electrocute tens to hundreds of thousands more birds annually, but these utilities are poorly monitored for both strikes and electrocutions. More than 15,000 wind turbines may kill 40,000 or more birds annually nationwide, the majority in California. …

[joshcryer]

42. I'm merely saying, it would be inaccurate to say "technology that requires X..."

"...where X kills Y amount of birds, doesn't contribute to bird deaths."

Yes, any new power line buildout will kill birds. If you build that technology out without the power lines, then it is a moot question. But since the 2030 renewable plan wants to build out tens of thousands of miles of power lines, expect several million new bird deaths, directly related to that renewable technology.

I am not against renewables, I am merely for honest characterization of impacts.

[OKIsItJustMe]

43. So, the obvious answer is to bury the cables

It would be more expensive of course.

http://www.google.com/search?q=bury%20HVDC

[Bob Wallace]

44. Would burying cables actually be more expensive?

I'm thinking HVDC transmission lines, not lower voltage AC.

If you want to build a new HVDC transmission line you've first got to get control over the real estate. A major expense. Then you've got to install towers, hang cable and you've got to keep the landscape underneath the cable under control. And sometimes you've got to get your equipment and crew into remote/difficult to access locations.

If you used existing highways you would eliminate the real estate costs and the NIMBY lawsuits. Drop the cables in via slit-trenching which is fast and does minimal damage to the road surface. You would have to use conduit on bridges and overpasses, but that's a minor percentage of the total run.

[OKIsItJustMe]

45. Estimates vary…

…the gist I get is that burying HVDC is about twice as expensive as running it on poles. (Naturally, the costs would vary from job to job.)

[joshcryer]

46. Yeah, but that's not happening and may not be necessary.

The birds saved from coal phase out may be more than the birds killed by the power lines. I'm just trying to make a more comprehensive statement about impacts here.

[OKIsItJustMe]

47. We wouldn’t want to save too many birds… (Right?) ;-)

I understood, that’s why I referred to the study.

I think buried power cables have other virtues in addition to saving birds.

[joshcryer]

48. Oh, I agree, absolutely.

I really would like to see a super low impact society, but I'm just sayin'. Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.

[OKIsItJustMe]

33. Yes, it's Virginia

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/nearly-500-birds-found-dead-at-wind-farm/

[Bob Wallace]

40. The NYT is turning into a POS when it comes to the environment...

An accurate title for this piece would be "Nearly 500 Birds Crash into Storage Containers when Confused by Lights and Fog"


"But it wasn’t the blades of the wind machines that killed the birds, according to the consultant. Rather, they seem to have been drawn to lights around storage batteries and an associated electrical substation."


The wind turbines played no role in these bird deaths.

The storage batteries played no role in these bird deaths.

A number of 250watt flood lights (unnecessarily) left on caused the deaths.

[kristopher]

38. Mark Desholm is the leading authority on investigating avian interactions with wind technology

You'll find a list of his papers at his university home page. Many of them are available for download from various sites on the web.
http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/id(a43f77f2-5493-43d8-9618-1ed51c4132c6).html

A couple of samples:
Short summary for some insight into how the research is conducted
http://www.ackenergy.org/Denmark_LTDU_Summary.pdf

A detailed description of the way data guiding wind development is obtained:
Best practice guidance for the use of remote techniques for observing bird behaviour in relation to offshore wind farms
A report produced for COWRIE (Collaborative Offshore Wind Research into the Environment)
http://www.offshorewind.co.uk/Assets/REMOTETECHNIQUES-FINALREPORT.pdf


ETA: apparently DU has some glitches with links. You'll have to copy and paste the first link in your browser window as it will not post properly.

[txlibdem]

49. Well meaning fools or AstroTurf? You decide.

As has already been mentioned, house cats kill millions of birds per year.

How many are killed by impacts with homes, commercial buildings, skyscrapers, etc.

How many are killed by impacts with vehicles.

How many birds are killed by aircraft; can airports kill birds to protect aircraft (and passengers) from danger? Answer: 87,000+ birds strike aircraft, increasing each year; airports *can* kill birds if non-lethal efforts fail to remove the birds from the area and they get a court order.
... http://www.birdstrike.org/commlink/top_ten.htm

Here's a chart that really shows how ridiculous the claim that wind farms are a significant factor in bird deaths:
... http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/

How many birds are killed each year by OIL and GAS EXTRACTION? 1 to 2 MILLION. Where is the government inquiry into that???
... http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm

[XemaSab]

50. Here's an LA Times article about this:

"The proposal ruffled the feathers of the American Wind Energy Assn., an industry lobbying group, which pointed out that far more birds are killed each year by collisions with radio towers, tall buildings, airplanes and encounters with hungry household cats."


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-bird-advocates-urge-mandatory-standards-for-wind-energy-projects-20111214,0,2978806.story

[joshcryer]

51. "an industry lobbying group"

Those pesky lobbyists.

I also, btw, approve of mikehavenar's anti-cat message in the comment sections.