Wind generation is responsible for 0.003% of human- caused avian mortality

[FogerRox]

Wind generation is responsible for 0.003% of human- caused avian mortality (National Research Council, 2007)

http://www.20percentwind.org/20percent_Summary_Presentation.pdf

[davidinalameda]

1. how about feline caused avian mortality?

:evilgrin:

[Buzz Clik]

3. In urban areas, it's a very high percentage. Approaches 50%.

[MrModerate]

6. I think your number is way high . . .

With road deaths, transmission tower (non-wind-related), and window strikes being being larger contributors to human-caused avian deaths.

I'm considering feline predation to be human-caused because of the pet status of many (perhaps most) felines.

[Speck Tater]

2. I wonder what percent of opossum mortality is caused by cars. nt

[davidinalameda]

4. in my neck of the woods

a lot

raccoons too

and deer at this time of year

[FogerRox]

5. Automobile fatalities cause by dear

Joking

[davidinalameda]

7. one of my sisters was involved with two accidents involving deer

she was on dates with two different guys and deer hit the cars each time

maybe it was God's way of saying she shouldn't date

:shrug:

[Speck Tater]

11. 25 years ago my daughter's best friend in high school was killed when her car hit a deer. nt

[TheMadMonk]

10. Oh. Is that a deliberate misspelling? In Australia the number of vehicles...

..."killed" by kangaroos is fairly significant. And I believe it's the same wherever there's any appreciable chance of high speed encounters between larger animals and unprotected vehicles.

[XemaSab]

8. I know people who have done mortality surveys

There are a lot of small birds and bats killed that are never found.

Raptor and crane mortality is high relative to the total population.

[joshcryer]

9. None of these wind scenarios include transmission line expansion in avian mortality rates.

Thus they are, at best, disingenuous. "Wind power needs transmission lines but wind power doesn't kill birds even though wind power needs transmission lines."

The Fish and Wildlife Service has siting guidelines for wind turbines: http://www.endangeredspecieslawandpolicy.com/uploads/file/wind%20farm%20guidelines.pdf

And the Fish and Wildlife service will be continuing to watch wind turbine sites carefully.

Be assured that the verdict is by no means set in stone.

If you include the transmission infrastructure that the 20% scenario requires, and the loss of breeding habitat (because birds avoid the turbines) that the 20% scenario requires, you probably won't be in the cars/cats/skyscraper scenario.

But you'll be several decimal points out from where you assume the number is.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Transmission line fatalities can't be prorataed to wind sources unless...

...the same courtesy is done to all other sources. In which case we discover surprise, surprise, wind is no better or worse than any other source with respect to transmission of generated power to its consumers.

Noise and pressure waves from the moving blades are certainly enough to upset humans to the point of symptomology. So too the light from aircraft warning beacons on the towers. SO what that direct strike fatalities are miniscule. Turbid air must have some effect on bats' echolocation. Flashing lights can fascinate, making it easier for predators to strike.


Something which is coming out of "The Green Revolution" is the importance of obtrusiveness. Now that large scale installations are going in, the true scale of things is becoming clearer to people. It's easy enough to say "only a fraction of one percent of the land area of the United States could power the world." But that's meaningless. Looking out the window and seeing nothing but spinning windmills, now that's a kick in the guts we can all imagine, once just one person has seen it for themselves.

Hate to say it, but a nuclear power plant CAN be tucked out of sight and out of mind behind a stand of poplars.

And the truth is, unless WE ALL grow up to the point where we CAN be trusted to play with matches (up to and including Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulators) all other arguments, for and against every scheme to save the world, are bloody well moot.

[joshcryer]

13. No, most other sources are built where there is urban demand, from city to city.

Wind will be built in rural areas, as per the very image on the 12th page of the report.

Yes you can blame, eg, a coal plant for building new energy lines from the coal plant to the grid. Such implementations are very very short, and anyway, the coal pollutants probably kill more birds.

Wind is requiring tens of thousands of miles of new transmission infrastructure. iirc the 20% report requires at least 20k miles.

[joshcryer]

14. BTW, wind advocates *do* point to transmission lines as a reason why wind impacts are nothing.

They say "wind causes only a fraction of the deaths a year that transmission lines do."

But wind is the only technology which requires transmission line expansion.

[TheMadMonk]

15. BS. Consolidated solar demands similar expansion. So too wave/tidal.

Additionally, consolidated solar (thermal concentration AND direct conversion) pretty much turns whatever land it is sited on into wasteland.

Power distribution systems can be moved underground, and against much resistance it is happening here and there around the world and the trend is accelerating. The potential to place high efficiency generation facilities close to the points of demand is also becoming increasingly realiseable. Ultimately, one way or another transmission systems WILL become a moot point.

[XemaSab]

16. CSP is typically sited near existing lines

I should know; I've worked on siting a few. :P

[joshcryer]

17. Where CSP is viable there's a lot of empty land right next to the city.

Where wind is viable there's few cities. Cheyenne WY is the only exception I can think of off hand.

By 'viable' I'm talking scenarios where you build out 100 GW wind farms and 300 MW solar farms. They're both viable almost anywhere in the country.

[TheMadMonk]

18. BULL FUCKING SHIT! "Empty" land next to cities is almost invariably...

useful and highly valuable farmland. FFS half of most cities are built right on top of prime farmland simply because they were founded in the midst of that prime farmland to begin with. And yet "we the people" think it's fucking marvelous every time another 100 acres of such farmland disappears under asphalt and emerald green lawns.

1) Virtually all CSP projects destroy the land on which they are sited for just about any other purpose except car parking and mushroom farming.
2) If it COULD be sited anywhere then it WOULD be sited anywhere. But it's not. Bulk solar demands low cloud cover and a high solar angle, which pretty much means desert close to the equator. A solar power plant outside Boston would supply only a fraction of the power of an identical one outside Las Vegas.

Guess what? Given the opportunity, Boston would build ITS solar power plant in Arizona and that mean's more transmission infrastructure.

And the same pattern of demand disconnected from potential supply holds true for most of the civilised world. The vast majority of people live far outside the zones in which solar power generation is most viable.

[joshcryer]

19. Desert land where CSP is viable is valuable farmland?

While I have heard of farms being built on these lands, I do not consider them "highly valuable farmland."

A 300 MW solar farm is not viable except in the desert.

A 1 MW solar farm may or may not be viable in, say, Miami.

[TheMadMonk]

20. If you limit solar power only to those towns/cities located in the zone...

...where solar power is most ecconomical then possibly your argument holds some water. Where by the way do you suggest places like Milwalkee or Anchorage source their power?

If a power plant in Nevada is to supply energy to New York, then an expansion (or at least massive reorganisation) of the existing transmission infrastructure is necessary. Existing, massive power trunks coming out of Virginia (or other coal states) are worthless, if Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and other desert states are to become the nation's wall socket.


And having said all this. Why the fuck are we arguing? Transmission line kills lag so far behind the depredations of domsestic animals gone feral, road kills and any number of other places where human activity intersects with the environment, that they are barely a blip on the charts.

Furthermore, while high tension (long distance) transmission infrastructure will probably be forever hung in the air, over time, most of the last few miles to the consumer WILL end up below ground and out of harm's way. And this is where most kills occur anyway, where conductors at different potentials (voltages) do run close enough together to be within an unwary paw's reach of each other.


One of the major reasons I personally am such a big supporter of nuclear power, is that only nuclear power is actually capable of supplying anything remotely resembling what both suppliers and consumers demand. (Essentially: Make it exactly like it is right now without as many problems.) Solar, wind, wave, tidal, even geothermal (all of the "prefered" alternatives) demand massive changes (and often huge additions) to existing infrastructure. For all the price of the installations (and construction in the rest of the world puts the lie to hyperinflated US prices) nuclear power offers the only real choice that can be simply plugged into the existing system.

[joshcryer]

21. It's all because of this one page:

http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm

This page is linked, relinked, and the meme is perpetuated endlessly.

"Wind doesn't kill that many birds, transmission lines kill way more."

We can hash out the argument about the transmission line infrastructure needed for solar, but my logic suggests that since it is only viable in the desert regions, and since it isn't realistic to actually transmit that energy across the entire country, if you were going to go with Jacobson's plan, you'd be moving industrial manufacturing to where the energy is. That's the flaw in the analysis because it assumes average solar ionsolation, which is exacerbated by the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of miles of desert land. As soon as they build a 300 MW solar plant in... Maine, people will start pitching a fit at the returns.

NM, AZ, NV, S. CA, they can all be powered using Jacobson's plan without significant transmission line expansion. Otherwise Jacobson's plan is not really going to work anyway, not without a complete restructuring of industry.

[Oerdin]

22. The OP article is dumb.

So because humans kill way more birds to turn into chicken nuggests we shouldn't care about birds killed by wind mill blades? What a stupid argument.