Big Wind wants to minimize the consequences of knocking birds out of the sky. Big Green wants to use birds to knock Big Wind out of business. The “clean energy”-loving Obama is caught in the middle.
The Fish & Wildlife Service is taking public comment on proposed guidelines for the siting of wind farms. The American Bird Bird conservancy and American Wind Energy Association have offered comments.
The AWEA wants only voluntary guidelines and a pass at bird-killing until the number of dead birds is “significant.” The ABC says the FWS guidelines with legalize the killing of eagles.
Looking ahead to its defeat of Big Wind, the ABC is also concerned about the removal of wind turbine foundations which, if said removal isn’t deep enough, may impede the root systems of prairie grasses. The ABC is also concerned about the wind industry’s interference with collecting bird carcasses from wind farms.
It’s all very interesting reading, especially between the lines. Check out the:
It will not doubt be entertaining to watch these three struggle with the unresolvable reality that:
Wind power = Many, many dead birds
In the haste to save the environment, they destroy it and the green jobs they created. There is a lesson here, but it is above the intellect most of the environmentalists. They only learn through failure.
That’s the problem. Disposal costs are very high, and even the non-toxic, non-polluting components are very expensive to dispose of in this quantity.
This very problem (expensive cleanup efforts of sites abandoned due to bankruptcy) was the cause for creating Superfund. We might want to make the wind parties contribute to it.
Why is anyone worried about proper removal of the concrete foundations of these monsters of the plains; when the companies go broke there won’t be any money to properly remove them. They will become monuments to the idiocy of green energy.
It really doesn’t matter what the actual number is. There is no doubt they are killing many birds.
The real issue is the consistency of the punishments and reactions. They go into absolute fits of rage if a duck dies in a tailing pond, but turn their back as they are being whacked by turbines in droves.
This is all the proof needed to show the “green energy” push has zero to do with the environment. But we all knew that anyway, it just makes them look even sillier than before.
In some ways this is a fact-free debate. How many birds are there and how many are actually whacked by turbine blades? I’ve seen the estimated range of wind-caused-deaths (i.e., up to 440,000 annually), but I have some confidence that if those numbers are traced back to their origins they will be found to be wanting.
I can respect the bird-lovers. At least they are being honest with their goal, and ensuring birds don’t get massacred in droves is a reasonable goal.
However, their “bird-smart-principles” seems mere pandering to correctness. I don’t understand how you could reduce the death rate below acceptable numbers, and I wish they would apply that kind of leniency to the coal and oil industries. We like birds too (well, some of us like them on our plates, but that’s a different matter).