I guess their case would be slightly stronger if they could show that there were rarer species of birds affected particularly hard.

But even in that case, the obvious high-runner are the cats.

It just shows that selfishness crosses all political lines.

Any process that can convert cats into energy is one I'll support.

Remember... it's for the birds!

Here is a future timeline of energy technology adoption, with substantial notes on Wind Power.

I don't see how wind turbines could kill many birds - the arms are too big, and too slow-moving, to realistically bill birds.

How often are humans killed by being eaten by a colony of ants?

I live within a couple of miles of a large wind farm in the SF Bay Area, which the local environmentalist have been attempting to hinder if not shut down. Their complaint is that specific birds such as falcons and golden eagles are endangered by the blades. Their suggestions include using slower RPM turbines which the birds can see more easily, moving the windmills to locations where the birds are less likely to be, and shutting down the windmills during peak bird activity (which probably coincides with when the wind blows).

Half the time I think the enviros are just clueless about the economics involved since wind power still relatively expensive, making it more expensive will hinder its use.

The other half of the time I think they just want to shut down all energy production so that we will live in some imaginary utopia where we are in touch with the earth.

It just shows that selfishness crosses all political lines.

I wish... but this is a textbook demonstration of the altruism (i.e. the worship of self-sacrifice) inherent in the envirocult.

They'll push uneconomic "alternative" energy proposals all day, trying to pass themselves off as reasonable considerate of human interests... but when it looks like one of their pet projects might actually be economically viable -- and therefore *profitable* -- it becomes energy non grata.

What this clearly shows is that environmentalism is not about cleaning up our environment -- it's about cutting human beings back. This movement's end of road is not a "pristine" Earth, but Paul Watson, who lusts for a genocide greater than any in human history.

It took us a long, long time to realize that communism's road ends there too. How long this time?

How about we build a wind farm on Ted Kennedy's ass -- there should be room for enough turbines to power Vegas.

I am currenty involved in wind power development here in CA. We have been working on the avain mortality problem, and larger turbines turning at lower speeds seem to help. But we've ran into another problem. Bats are susceptible to turbine strikes since the spinning turbine rotor may negatively effect their sonar abilities. We have some rare bat species out here. Then there is the huge can of worms regarding radar which may have global repurcussions. Aside from the NIMBY caucus, the feds could put the brakes on all wind power projects. In fact, two pending neighboring projects (not mine)are stalled due to radar concerns.

Wind power is relatively cheap and efficient, but obviously not everyone is ready to embrace green power generation.

Simon,

Your statistics tell me something very important. If we (and our cats) weren't killing avians in great numbers, we'd be hip deep in bird shit by now. We need cats and high tension lines to keep our avian population under control. Without them birds would be getting into everything and ruining the environment. Do we really need billions of starving, sickly songbirds piling up in great wind-drifts across the land, spreading West Nile and Bird Flu? Do we need diesel rigs skidding on patches of canary corpses? More wind turbines, high tension lines, and cats! Do it for the children!

So what you're describing is a phony issue raised by the self-interested attacking an industry surviving off a bogus federal subsidy.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers in energy (including utopian fusion concepts) - only politically hard choices.

The arms may be big and slow-moving, but it doesn't take much to kill a bird. One direct hit with a 10 psi paintball gun with practically destroy a seagull, let alone the smaller birds. Only flightless birds like chickens and turkeys are durable enough to withstand ammunition up to birdshot.

If the arms of the wind turbine are moving fast enough to leave a welt if you stick your hand in it, they're moving fast enough to kill any flying bird that bumbles into them.

You obviously must be too young to remember the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds". The only thing standing between us and an all out attack on our phone booths are those courageous cats - and a few windmills.

No doubt a strike by a large wind turbine blade will kill, well, anything. A bird cannot see or avoid a paintball but they can see the blades. While many of these larger turbines reach close to 500 feet in height, migratory birds fly much higher than that. Unless they are near feeding or nesting areas, most birds will not even be close. Maybe things are different in Mass., but here in Cali, turbines are sited with these issues in mind. We know that we will need to show no impact or mitigate in order to get regulatory sign-off. It's called the law.

Tatterdemalian,

It seems like way more birds are flying into cats than into windmills.

"The other half of the time I think they just want to shut down all energy production so that we will live in some imaginary utopia where we are in touch with the earth."

I think the world would be better if the enviros were 'in touch with the Earth', i.e. were six feet under. Pushing up daisies. tee hee...

The solution is obvious. We should burn the dead birds to generate power!

There is an obvious social elites and economic class issue here. Those opposed to Nantucket wind power 1) sail and 2) never wash bird crap of their car. How about us unwashed masses from Red State America pay a visit, bringing all our noisy internal combustion engine powered toys!

How do we power the especially noisy diesel engines AND save the birds? Dead Cat Diesel!

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1534821.html
A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats.

Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers.

They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter...

The numbers given are (being nice here as it is not my house) meaningless.

The threat to bats mentioned in the study appears feasible, if not quantifiable. The main things I rhink we should take away from all this is:
1. don't trust a reporter to tell you what was in a document. Ever.
2. Build more nuclear powerplants

I blogged about the enviromental-mentalism a few days ago. Enjoy.

I'd like to query the stats provided. 4-50 million birds are killed each year by striking communications towers? The towers don't move at all. Are more birds killed by the towers than wind turbines because there are more towers than turbines? In which case we could end up with more bird fatalities as wind power becomes more widespread. I don't think that's a good enough argument to end wind power, though. At some point, we've got to choose a new energy source, and the switch won't be painless, no matter what we choose. Personally, I'd rather risk wiping out an entire species of birds than deal with nuclear waste.

SMSgt Mac,

You're right the numbers are crap since they are basically estimates. The only numbers that matter would need to be site-specific. I am all for more nuke power, and would gladly trade a wind farm for a reactor, but wind farms are easier to build in this regulatory/political environment than a nuke plant. As far as the turbines being ugly, seeing these behemoths upclose is pretty awe-inspiring. To my subjective eye, they are rather majestic. Not that they should be sited near population centers though.

I think iit's a case of natural selection for the birds. I mean 97 million to 976 million dead birds a year due to running into buildings?
Seriously if those birds are so stupid that they would run into buildings, then the number of birds killed running into mountains and trees must be astronomical.
Good riddance to the stupid birds. Let the birds who know how to avoid inanimate objects be plentiful and multiply.

Hi, Simon,

Good posting. (I'd intended to reply to this before, but may as well do it now.)

In addition to the information presented, an article in the journal Nature discussing the recent report by the National Academy of Sciences (based on 14 good-quality studies) on the environmental effects of windpower projects (Emma Marris and Daemon Fairless, “Wind farms' deadly reputation hard to shift,” Nature Vol. 447, Issue No. 7141 (10 May 2007), p.126), notes that “the average death toll attributable to an average wind turbine” is 3% of a bird per year (!) — that is, “it takes 30-odd turbines to reach kill rate of one bird a year.”

Michael McNeil