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People who oppose wind farms often claim wind turbine blades kill large numbers of birds, often referring to them as "bird choppers". And claims of dangers to iconic or rare birds, especially raptors, have attracted a lot of attention.
Wind turbine blades do indeed kill birds and bats, but their contribution to total bird deaths is extremely low, as these three studies show.
A 2009 study using US and European data on bird deaths estimated the number of birds killed per unit of power generated by wind, fossil fuel and nuclear power systems.
It concluded, "Wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh."
That's nearly 15 times more. From this, the author estimated that wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fuelled power plants 14.5 million.
In other words, for every one bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel powered plants killed 2,118 birds.
(Score: 3, Funny) by ikanreed on Friday June 16 2017, @10:20PM (4 children)
They're suckers for propaganda by big oil. They believed the same thing in about my sparrow-fired power plant.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 16 2017, @10:24PM (1 child)
Can you convert it for me? I have my Tesla Coils ready, but I really prefer my Lightning Made of Owls.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday June 16 2017, @10:25PM
We're scientists here, electrocuting birds is net negative energy we have a much more efficient "giant glass wall for them to ram into and fall" solution.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 16 2017, @11:46PM
This is just another example of Leftist hypocrites selectively being righteous for their own selfish needs.
Allowing unfettered hordes of third-worlders is okay as long as they're not in their doorstep, but Earth-saving wind-farms are not okay [washingtontimes.com] even miles from their houses.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:16AM
I've always considered the bird kills to be a bogus story. I have a friend that does maintenance on turbines in Oklahoma, and he has never actually found and blade-kill near his rigs. He has found birds nesting in the nooks and carnies, because not all models are perfectly faired.
I suspect the substations near nuclear and fossil plants are what kill most birds.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.