OK wind farms

[I Think]

Wind turbines kill about 300,000 birds per year.
Automobiles kill about 1,250,000 people per year.

[Ub2]

Well Nibs, if anything, I have to give you credit, you sure have a tenacious passion for what you believe in . . . I just don't like
turbines.

[Ub2]

I wonder what the projections are for when they'll need a less extreme subsidy for fuel hydrogen cells? I'd also, of course, like to know a proper cradle-to-grave analysis has been done. I do like what we're hearing about their consistency and reliability, and they sure beat a diesel generator in action.

If I stumble across any numbers, I'll post 'em.

[rustled]

I'd appreciate it.

Back on wind farms, I thought I'd go back to the original news story to see if starting there would get me to who's getting what subsidies from whom. Zero Emissions Energy got the SOP for the current projects, which is apparently about 13 cents per kwh. I'll need to follow up what that means to the taxpayer, but while I was reading the comments below the news story (that's where the 13 cents was) I came across this:

As usual taxpayers will foot the bill for political dreams that wind power will solve any environmental problem. 15 MW per farm = 45 MW which will require fossil fuel backup for when the wind isn't blowing. Then there are the problems associated with integrating wind power into the grid. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=958&v=kU6izpryqqwif you've got a few minutes). The only winner on this deal is Zero Emission Developments Inc. I wonder what political connections they have?

For a renewable source of power compare wind with Site C which will produce 1,100 MW

The video in that post is particularly interesting, providing an explanation of how the energy generated by renewables is driving up the cost of electricity (not by a little), and how it is compromising the existing transmission grid (again, not by a little, and the solution will be astronomically expensive). It's highly technical, but not impossible to get the gist of what they're saying (and the comments below the video help a little, too.) And it's for the U.S., so not everything will translate directly. For example, our power grid may already be more capable of handling the fluctuations and compensating for resonance?

I'm not sure of those presenters' credibility or bias, so I'm looking into that and in the process I've come across this: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/. Those of you who feel the threat to wildlife is not particularly significant, or that the threat is easily mitigated, may wish to spend a bit of time reading it.

Comments below that story are interesting reading, too, so far.

[logicalview]

Wind turbines kill about 300,000 birds per year.
Automobiles kill about 1,250,000 people per year.

Yes 300,000 protected golden eagles and condors killed by wind turbines, versus 1,250,000 people killed by cars. It's an apples to apples comparison all right. Good grief you guys just never stop.

[logicalview]

Well Nibs, if anything, I have to give you credit, you sure have a tenacious passion for what you believe in . . . I just don't like
turbines.

It's more then just passion with the pro wind turbine man made climate change crowd, it's religious fervour, as this dogma is their religion.

[logicalview]

Wind turbines kill about 300,000 birds per year.
.

according to the article Rustled posted, your numbers are a trifle low...

Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by wind farms. They kill roughly twice as many bats as birds.

[I Think]

Shredded tweet.
Cell towers, high rises, power lines, kill more birds than turbines.
Nukular plants and wind turbines kill about the same number around 300,000/pa.

Does not matter how many times this is pointed out in this thread, some are too blind to the truth to acknowledge it.

[I Think]

Should mention especially for the folks who don't comprehend much;
Am not for or against any form of electrical generation, except on its merits.
AM AGAINST THE JUNKO LOGIC, AND JUNKO SCIENCE BEING PRESENTED HEREABOUTS.

[logicalview]

Nukular plants and wind turbines kill about the same number around 300,000/pa.

Does not matter how many times this is pointed out in this thread, some are too blind to the truth to acknowledge it.

So you continue to put forward the lie, and accuse others of being "too blind to acknowledge it" that only 300,000 birds per year are killed worldwide by bird blending wind turbines, this despite the evidence put forward by an actual zoologist, trained in species extinction, says that between six and 18 MILLION birds are killed just in Spain alone, *removed*

I just love the hypocrisy of the man-made climate change crowd. Out of one side of your mouth you scream SCIENCE DENIERS! at anyone who questions your farcical statements about man-made CO2, and then when presented with actual expert scientific evidence you tell everyone they are blind to the truth. Just pathetic. Shame on you, for trying to perpetuate such a massive lie, to cover up the horrible damage that wind turbines do to wild life. It is so sad, and so pathetic.

Wind turbines only last for ‘half as long as previously thought’, according to a new study. But even in their short lifespans, those turbines can do a lot of damage. Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that, this century at least, renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change.

I’m a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university. I trained as a zoologist, I’ve worked as an environmental consultant — conducting impact assessments on projects like the Folkestone-to-London rail link — and I now teach ecology and conservation. Though I started out neutral on renewable energy, I’ve since seen the havoc wreaked on wildlife by wind power, hydro power, biofuels and tidal barrages. The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of science.

My speciality is species extinction. When I was a child, my father used to tell me about all the animals he’d seen growing up in Kent — the grass snakes, the lime hawk moths — and what shocked me when we went looking for them was how few there were left. Species extinction is a serious issue: around the world we’re losing up to 40 a day. Yet environmentalists are urging us to adopt technologies that are hastening this process. Among the most destructive of these is wind power.

Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by wind farms. They kill roughly twice as many bats as birds. This breaks down as approximately 110–330 birds per turbine per year and 200–670 bats per year. And these figures may be conservative if you compare them to statistics published in December 2002 by the California Energy Commission: ‘In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden.’

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/880 ... -wildlife/

[logicalview]

AM AGAINST THE JUNKO LOGIC, AND JUNKO SCIENCE BEING PRESENTED HEREABOUTS.

*removed*

[maryjane48]

how many birds and any other living thing are killed by oil polluted water or land?

[oneh2obabe]

Wind turbines kill about 300,000 birds per year.
Automobiles kill about 1,250,000 people per year.

Yes 300,000 protected golden eagles and condors killed by wind turbines, versus 1,250,000 people killed by cars. It's an apples to apples comparison all right. Good grief you guys just never stop.

To be fair, he said BIRDS - not golden eagles and condors.

[oneh2obabe]

Solar: Anywhere from about 1,000 birds a year, according to BrightSource, to 28,000 birds a year, according to an expert at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Wind: Between 140,000 and 328,000 birds a year in the contiguous United States, according to a December 2013 study published in the journal Biological Conservation. Taller turbines tend to take out more birds.

Oil and Gas: An estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds a year are killed in oil fields, the Bureau of Land Management said in a December 2012 memo.

Coal: Huge numbers of birds, roughly 7.9 million, may be killed by coal, according to analysis by Benjamin K. Sovacool, director of the Danish Center for Energy Technologies. His estimate, however, included everything from mining to production and climate change, which together amounted to about five birds per gigawatt-hour of energy generated by coal.

Nuclear: About 330,000 birds, by Sovacool’s calculations.

Power Lines: Between 12 and 64 million birds a year are felled by transmission lines, according to a study published July 3 in the journal PLOS ONE.

That's plenty of birds. But there's no more effective bird killer than species' lifelong enemy: cats. All told, felines kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds a year. Sylvester would be proud.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... son-chart/
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-m ... l-on-birds

[rustled]

how many birds and any other living thing are killed by oil polluted water or land?

Billions, no doubt.

Which is why, if we're about to do something we know full well will kill thousands more, and in areas which are currently relatively "safe" zones for them, we should only do so with the full weight of science and good sense on our side. For the wind farms we are currently discussing, this may not be the case. To reiterate the findings of someone much more learned than myself:

The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of science.

Given what other countries have already discovered about the many other problems associated with wind power, I think we're allowing passion and ideology to rush us into installing wind farms without properly considering the known consequences, and we shouldn't dismiss the suspected consequences lightly.

To my mind, if we are passionate about reducing our carbon footprint, installing solar (or small-scale wind, if our zoning situation permits) makes far greater sense than "going along with" or actively supporting wind farms, whether through our tax dollars, our own silence, or the attempted silencing of others. At some point wind farms may be a viable and genuinely green alternative, but for today's wind farms, the bulk of available evidence seems to point to the opposite. We already know they can't do what we hoped they'd do, and it's quite possible they may even do more harm than good.