from the answer-is-blowin'-in-the-wind? dept.
Wind energy is great: It's clean, it's often cheap, and in many locales, it's an ideal power source. Except for the whole animal-killing thing. Unfortunately, every year, wind kills hundreds of thousands of bats in the United States—maybe as many as 600,000, according to some estimates.
Now, we finally have a good idea why: the bats likely think the turbines are trees, because the air currents around slowly-moving turbines mimic those that move around their wooden counterparts.
To study the effect, Paul Cryan, a United States Geological Survey researcher, and his team observed roughly 1,000 bats at specially-manipulated wind turbines over the course of two months in 2012.
Some possible solutions are suggested by the researchers; read more to find out what they've come up with.
Related Stories
The Center for American Progress reports
A new report [carried out on behalf of Scottish government by the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of the Highlands and Islands' Environmental Research Institute] found that over 99 percent of seabirds were likely to alter their flight paths in order to avoid collision with offshore wind farms. While the analysis offers new estimates of which seabirds and what percentage change course to avoid wind turbines, it still leaves many questions about the overall impacts of wind turbines--on and offshore--on bird populations.
[...]thousands of birds could still be killed each year and that this "could even significantly reduce the total populations of some species."
"It is therefore vital that individual developments avoid the most important places for seabirds," [said Aedan Smith of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds]. "Impacts on seabirds must be reduced significantly if offshore wind is to realize its full potential of delivering much needed sustainable renewable energy."
Different birds have markedly different reactions to the wind farms, according to the report. Gannets, which are large, white birds, avoid entering wind farms altogether, while gulls are "less cautious" and may even be drawn to the sites for their foraging benefits. Even so, the report says that inside the farms, gulls "seem to show a strong avoidance of the turbine blades."
Related:
Wind Turbines Kill Birds and Bats
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Konomi on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:07PM
I have to wonder what is worse for birds and bats, us having more wind turbines? Or burning so much fossil fuels the planets ecosystem gets damaged beyond repair? I would be willing to predict the latter would be much worse for them, then again I am not sure how much wind would be a factor in renewable energies, maybe we could go without if we focused on other types.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mcgrew on Saturday October 04 2014, @07:35PM
Right now, wind turbines are a minor nuisance to bats compared to the real threat they face in in North America today -- a fungus [wikipedia.org]. Wind turbines have killed hundreds of thousands [usgs.gov] of bats each year, but the fungus has killed millions of bats.
The wind farms are not only far less deadly, the windmill problem seems far more easily solvable. One idea that comes to the top of my head is the fact that bats navigate by echolocation. It seems that they should be able to mimic bat signals electronically and fool the bats into thinking the turbines are something else; say, a predator or a stone wall. Something like an audio scarecrow; I always loved getting those AOL CDs, they were great for keeping birds out of the garden.
Perhaps there's a scent that repels bats, scents work to repel many species of animals. One reason households with cats seldom have mice is because mice (who don't have a certain disease) are terrified by the smell of a cat and won't come near.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday October 04 2014, @07:57PM
Perhaps there's a scent that repels bats
We are talking about a wind turbine here :-) The only way to perceive the scent would be if the bat is already safely beyond the blades, downwind. Scent will only protect bats that fly against the wind.
The best solution is to ban blades, and only permit bladeless windmills (they look like shaped vertical cylinders.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday October 04 2014, @08:36PM
Well, like I mentioned above, windmills kill a tiny number of bats compared to how many are dying from a fungal infection. Bats would be a lot better off if we could somehow ban that fungus.
As someone else pointed out, bird death numbers from windmills are trivial compared to birds killed by cats. Banning cats would do far more for the birds than banning windmills.
I like cats, they cut down on pests. I have a cat. I like bats, too -- they eat insects, and I hate insects. But I don't very much like the idea of global warming, which will most likely harm birds, bats, and all sorts of other organisms far more than solar cells and windmills.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 04 2014, @10:04PM
Sound.
Broadcast the bat's own fear sound.
And give bats 10 years to figure it out, after few generations of bats that liked windmills going missing those that don't like them will be prevalent.
Too bad the vertical windmills are so inefficient, and simply don't scale. And if you do manage to scale one up [wikipedia.org], you have every bit as much of a bird problem, more actually because there are more birds that fly low, and verticals aren't usually very high. They've been pretty well investigated [motherearthnews.com], and other than home use, they aren't any better.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @10:06PM
Another reason houses with cats don't have mice is that cats eat mice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @11:05PM
> Right now, wind turbines are a minor nuisance to bats compared to the real threat they face in in North America today -- a fungus.
(A) The type of people who can make bats-safe turbines are not the same type of people who can eradicate a fungus so work on one won't prevent work on the other.
(B) The number of wind turbines is relatively small. Wind-powered generation is expected to grow about 5x from by 2020. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @10:52PM
Bats and birds can easily fly north. It is the slow moving organisms that get screwed by global warming. Researchers will probably find some cheap way of deterring most bats from wind turbines.
(Score: 2) by jackb_guppy on Saturday October 04 2014, @11:06PM
It can also be seen as large scale biological experiment.
Those that do not get hit by the wind turbine will live and breed. So "smarter" will live on.
If we poison the air, yeah some may live on... but we and the rest will be dead.
Think of it as evolution in action.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:16PM
Seems like the problem with birds is pretty well understood and can be handled with some simple changes.
But bats are a lot harder to deal with.
So perhaps we should build more wind-farms offshore and get the double benefit of not killing bats and better wind. [renewables-info.com] Also it might help to take the bite out of hurricanes. [arstechnica.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:23PM
Do nothing. Surviving generations will learn and multiply, just like the critters you try to get rid of in your house evolve not to fall for the same old traps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:46PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:59PM
> just like the critters you try to get rid of in your house evolve not to fall for the same old traps.
What are you talking about? Do you think mouse traps don't work any more? That roach motels don't work?
I can't believe you got upmodded for a post that's as dumb as a bag of hammers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:08PM
I'm surprised that your idiotic comment got modded up, in fact.
Those kinds of traps are quite inefficient. For every mouse a trap manages to catch, there are typically 60 to 70 mice present, if not many more, that don't get caught. There isn't going to be much of a noticeable evolutionary impact, because the death rate is so low to begin with.
A better example of what the GP is talking about is deer and vehicles. Deer in populated areas have genetically come to learn that they need to be cautious around roads and vehicles. Naturally cautious deer have a much greater chance of reproducing than those deer who aren't cautious, and end up dead on the road, usually while young.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @02:22AM
> Those kinds of traps are quite inefficient.
The OP is the one who cited them. I just pointed out how stupid that was.
> Deer in populated areas have genetically come to learn that they need to be cautious around roads and vehicles.
Bullshit. Perhaps they've learned to be cautious, the kind of behaviour that can be taught by a mother to her offspring. But there is absolutely no fucking way that in less than a century deer have evolved to be cautious around roads.
You are welcome to provide a citation that proves me wrong. I am confident that you can not.
And you got a +2 mod for line of crap. Fucking geektards.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:10PM
Your ignorance in the matter of theory of evolution is hideous.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @11:22PM
Argumentum ad hominem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @02:31AM
> Argumentum ad hominem.
No it isn't.
An ad hominem is "you are wrong because you are dumb"
Mtrycz's insult is "you are dumb because you are wrong"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @05:50PM
we can count how many bats are being killed by wind turbines--although even that is an inexact science
Let's hope their "data" sets are better than the "data" used on the bird "studies". [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [thinkprogress.org]
...and I find it interesting that a critter with built-in radar is getting whacked by things in the air.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @06:03PM
> .and I find it interesting that a critter with built-in radar is getting whacked by things in the air.
Wind turbines move a hell of a lot faster than anything else a bat has to worry about.
Plus the sounds from the turbines screw with the bat's sonar. And finally the main reason they die is not from an impact, but from the sudden change in air pressure [newscientist.com] when they get too close. Their lungs end up exploding.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @06:23PM
Just to put this in context, cats kill up to 10 times that number of birds in a single day (perhaps around 2.5-5 million per day).
I like cats, but they are definitely a problem for birds. If people are truly concerned about the plight of birds, there are other places to start besides turbines where they can have a much greater impact on reducing the number of bird deaths.
"America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year"
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year [sciencenews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday October 04 2014, @07:09PM
Also terrible for birds: Slamming straight into the sides of skyscrapers with reflective windows.
The concerns about wind farms killing birds have little to do with the actual risk to birds, and a lot to do with finding ways of delaying wind farm projects so that more profits will accrue to companies that compete with wind energy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday October 04 2014, @08:37PM
Problem is, wind turbines disproportionately kill large rare raptors, e.g. golden eagles. Birds that in theory are protected and you could be prosecuted for killing them with gun or poison - but not if you do it with a wind turbine. Domestic cats are very rarely a problem for large eagles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:29PM
67 over a 5 year period in the whole of the US is not a vast number. Of course it's significant for endangered species, but one way to overcome the effect would simply be for wind energy companies to finance breeding and protection programs that put more than this number into the wild.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:39PM
The missing bit of information here is: "...and try to roost in them."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk