“The [2004 California Energy Commission] study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were “upgraded” with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades. These wind turbines offered what raptors perceived as intermediate to very big windows of opportunity to fly through what looked like open spaces between towers…. However, the industry … rapidly installed thousands of these much larger turbines across America … and focused attention on new study results that reflected far less accurate (and honest) searches and surveys.”
In 1984, the California Energy Commission concluded in regard to the state’s wind industry: “[M]any institutional, engineering, environmental and economic issues must be resolved before the industry is secure and its growth can be assured.” Though it was between the lines, the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.
But the wind industry pretty much knew that there was little that could be done to make its propeller-style turbines safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half – or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.
To hide this inconvenient truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established – including high security around turbines, gag orders in agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.
Some three decades later, the wind developers’ hide-the-problem strategy has largely hidden the avian mortality problem. While the public has some understanding that birds are killed by wind turbines, it doesn’t have a clue about the real mortality numbers.
And the industry gets rewarded with a raft of special ratepayer and taxpayer subsidies–and immunity from endangered species and other wildlife laws.
Early Studies: Problem Identification
To fully grasp the wind turbine mortality problem, one needs to examine a 2004 report about the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) by the California Energy Commission (CEC). Developing Methods to Reduce Bird Mortality in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. The study usefully began (p. 1):
For decades, research has shown that wind turbines in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) kill many birds, including raptors, which as protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and/or state and federal Endangered Species Acts. Each violation of these acts can result in fines and/or criminal convictions.
The study’s five-year review (1998–2003) was partial (the researchers did not have full access to all the Altamont turbines) but illustrative of a great problem.
This careful, honest effort analyzed turbine characteristics in relation to mortality and estimated mortality from body counts compiled in careful searches. Researchers then adjusted mortality numbers by examining statistical data based on searcher efficiency and other factors, such as carcass removal by predators and scavengers. The report even suggested that the mortality estimates probably erred on the low side, due to missed carcasses and other human errors.
This study stands in marked contrast to studies being conducted today, especially the Wildlife Reporting Response System, which is currently the only analysis happening or permitted at most wind farms. The WRRS is the power companies’ own fatality reporting system, and allows paid personnel to collect and count carcasses. It explains why mortality numbers are always on the low side and why many high-profile species are disappearing near turbine installations.
Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted (chapter 3, p. 52):
We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow. One operator neglected to inform us when a golden eagle was removed as part of the WRRS. Based on these experiences, it is possible that we missed other carcasses that were removed.
It’s easy to see how human “errors” keep bird mortality low.
The APWRA study also documented that raptor food sources, turbine sizes and turbine placement all directly affect raptor mortality. It was thus able to identify many of the most dangerous turbines or groups of turbines – those with a history of killing golden eagles, kestrels, burrowing owls, and red-tailed hawks.
The study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were “upgraded” with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades. These wind turbines offered what raptors perceived as intermediate to very big windows of opportunity to fly through what looked like open spaces between towers.
But actually, this space was occupied by much longer, rapidly moving rotor blades, resulting in significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and “greater windows of time.” This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.
The illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10–20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow – but for their blade tips this translates into 100–200 mph!
All this was very important, because the industry was moving away from smaller turbines and installing much larger turbines, with much longer blades.
However, the industry not only ignored the APWRA findings and rapidly installed thousands of these much larger turbines across America, despite their far greater dangers for birds and raptors. It also kept the APWRA out of the public’s awareness, and focused attention on new study results that reflected far less accurate (and honest) searches and surveys.
Part II Tomorrow: Studies Deteriorate in Face of Wind Industry Pressure
___________
Jim Wiegand is an independent wildlife expert with decades of field observations and analytical work. He is vice president of the US region of Save the Eagles International, an organization devoted to researching, protecting and preserving avian species threatened by human encroachment and development.
But I don’t see why we focus so much on the turbines. Even at high mortality rates from turbines, these are relatively small numbers especially as compared to other things that hurt bird populations.
…
HOWEVER, we know that power lines are a major problem for birds and kill order(s) of magnitude more than turbines could possibly kill. So why does this matter? Because turbines are sited far from where much of the energy is needed, so relying on wind is going to require a large buildout of high voltage transmission lines (which remember of course require no energy to build and have no impact on their landscape) from all parts of the country, including in many of the areas most prone to bird migration. In other words, if the data even suggested that turbines killed not a single bird, wind would nonetheless be devastating for the bird population.
wintercow20:
Your first question marks the beginning of your learning curve about this issue. We should care about birds and 400-500 foot tall wind turbines, with rotor blades moving nearly 200-mph at their tips (as stated in this post), because this is yet one more, preventable, thing humans do that induces substantial avian mortality. All knowledgeable birders know, for example, that domestic cats are the nation’s leading killer of birds; estimates suggest the annual bird mortality from cats at around a half BILLION birds. The next leading cause of bird mortality is collisions from tall structures–such as skyscrapers, cell towers, communication towers, etc. The third leading cause is collisions with windows. The fourth leading cause of mortality is habitat loss, followed by automobiles, pesticides/insecticides, and, well, pick your poison from there.
Domestic cats, however, generally don’t kill birds whose populations are at high risk, as wind turbines do, since they are typically sited in remote rural areas in the midst of heavy bird migration pathways. Neotropical songbirds are especially vulnerable at night in heavy fog or clouds. Of course, wind turbines attract raptors like hawks and eagles: it is well known that San Francisco’s Altamont Pass wind installation has killed many thousands of these species over the last several decades.
You, and others, should not commit the ethical fallacy that because cats will kill more birds than wind turbines will, wind turbines should get a pass. Ten wrongs don’t make a right, even in the wonderland of windworld. Moreover, imagine the righteous but just outcry if a coal farm or a nuclear park were known to be slaughtering a fair number of Bald Eagles.
If you’d like to know a bit more about this issue, consider reading pages 15-18 of my PSC testimony: http://tinyurl.com/cmnqs5j
Your point about problems with virtually dedicated transmission lines for wind is on target; this is a well documented problem, offering yet another gauntlet of risk for our avifauna.
I haven’t seen much defense of the wind farms’ impact on avian life, but I suspect the usual premises are used to rationalize the realities. As ‘wintercow20’ offers, there are greater dangers for birds in the world, including other man made obstacles (colliding into tall, reflective structures) and natural predators (even cats). That doesn’t take into account the specific dangers for, say, kestrels or burrowing owls, for example. I suspect the Altamont Pass is a statistically significant danger versus a glossy office building for certain bird genuses in that specific region if not for an even larger boundary.
But to counter, surely wind energy defenders who routinely use their analytically derived emissions reduction values would also apply such logic to these risks. So, the theoretical reductions in harmful emissions have some equivalent ‘lives saved’ value most likely. Perhaps there is a beneficial balance for wind farms in that case?? And that would add another incentive to influencing ‘officially’ measured bird mortality rates.
I guess my point is – just as there are steady arguments about the economic and climatic benefits of wind, so there would be for this impact, too. It will boil down to the ‘greater good’, pitting the theoretical dangers fossil plants against the theoretical benefits of wind farm production.
I focus on wind turbines – primarily the deadly propeller-style turbines – for a number of reasons. Here are some of the better reasons to forever end propeller-style turbines.
(1) Wind is portrayed as being clean, eco-friendly, renewable, good for the planet, the energy of the future – when it is not, and has numerous decidedly anti-ecological impacts.
(2) We are not talking about abundant, common, urban birds like pigeons, starlings and sparrows killed by house cats or reflective windows – but vital, far less abundant species that sustain essential wildlife habitats and ecosystems. Wind turbines slaughter too many of these rare and protected species in their remote habitats.
(3) Wind turbines fragment valuable ecosystems, taking over pristine habitats needed for the survival of rare species and turning them into death traps for every species that flies.
(4) Wind turbines are the single biggest reason for the decline of the golden eagle and whooping crane populations.
(5) Wind turbines destroyed the historical habitat for the California condor, making them entirely dependent on feeding stations.
(6) Wind turbines are a major reason for bird population declines in Europe, especially for the golden eagles in Scandinavia.
(7) Wind turbines have been promoted with completely bogus studies and sheltered from accountability for their devastation through the collusion of government wildlife agencies and environmentalist groups for over 30 years.
(8) There is no way to ever make this design safe. If their spread is not stopped, they will cause the extinction of dozens of rare species all across the world.
Why focus on these turbines, when power lines also kill birds? There is a huge difference between turbine blades and power lines, unless one supports and relies on bogus research. Power lines are not moving at 200 mph and they can be easily seen by birds (which have great eyesight) under most daytime circumstances. Bats can also easily avoid power lines. Although power lines do kill some birds, their impact is minor compared to turbine blades.
There is also a tremendous difference between a power line a collision and a turbine blade strike. When a blade moving at 200 mph, hits a bird, it is all over. The chances of a bird getting hit by a turbine blade are also far greater, not only because the blades are moving at a tremendous rate of speed, but because the impact square footage from the rotor sweep of one turbine is equal to over 200 miles of 1 inch diameter power line. So if you have a hundred 2.5 mw turbines in a 100 square mile area, it is the equivalent to the impact area of over 20,000 miles of power lines moving at a high rate of speed crammed into a small area. There really is no question that wind turbines are far more deadly for birds.
The massive Sheppard’s Flat wind farm makes it is easy to understand why no golden eagles will ever live there again, and over time many thousands of raptors will eventually perish. At 845 MW at this one location, amid a huge and once prolific bird and wildlife habitat, there will be 338 2.5-MW wind turbines with the spinning square footage equivalent of over 76,000 miles of 1 inch power lines stuffed into this 30-square-mile (78 km2) wind farm.
As to the turbines’ supposed energy output, the public has also been horribly misled about is how little energy these turbine projects actually produce. They are not and never will be an answer to society’s energy needs. But the public will not be told any of this until the industry and financial institutions backing this madness have sold as many of them as they possibly can – and killed as many birds and bats as one could hardly imagine in their worst nightmares.
I think any bird kills or other negatives of wind turbines is wholly unnecessary and a cost because industrial wind is not a stand-alone, viable energy business. It is wholly an artificial construct of government intervention, aided and abetted by none other than environmental groups.
For this reason, NIMBYism with wind turbines is reason to pause unlike NIMBYism with, say, a gas-fired powerplant built without (involuntary) taxpayer involvement.
I have heard about the greater good argument for years. It has always been a lame argument especially when being sold by the industry, their political mouthpieces and the saps in the media. It is even harder to justify any greater good when the lies are taken off the table and the truth exposed.
This is an absolute fact. Species extinction will occur from these turbines. It would have already happened and still would, if the feeding stations were suddenly taken from the condors. There will be a worldwide collapse of many bird and bat populations and society’s energy problems will still not even be close to being solved by wind turbines. These are very severe consequences for a non-solution. There will never be any greater good from the use of the propeller style wind turbine.
JohnInMA:
The wind “industry” does indeed “use” a greater good metric to defend the way it kills wildlife. And it relies upon people like yourself who rationalize that such enterprise would not do this otherwise, that is, it would not purposely slaughter wildlife without a good, societally approved reason. This is where I came in to this fray more than a decade ago.
My vast experience with this dreadful industry since then has revealed nothing but mendacity, at every level of its existence–starting with bird kills, moving along to bats, moving along to the removal of sensitive ecological habitats, the devaluation of property, the noise of its equipment (“like the sound of the wind in the leaves,” etc, etc, ad nauseum.
When cornered by the truth, the industry falls back on its basic gumbo, which I’ve heard often: “Some will have to sacrifice if we’re to have the clean, green energy from the wind.”
If you believe such demonstrably errant nonsense–that an antediluvian, always fluttering technology that is wholly unreliable, never controllable or dispatchable, and rarely comes into play when it’s needed most in a system dependent upon the meshing of high precision machinery can render a service to the electricity sector that would justify the taking of one earthly creature–hold onto your wallet (at the very least, invest in a scheme that claims gliders are the next good thing in commercial aviation.
And know that folks like you are a major force enabling this scam. Having the end justify the means, when the end has no there there–only highly destructive dysfunction–is really the last refuge of a scoundrel. Oh, and speaking of Dr. Johnson, the wind industry is also highly patriotic, nearly always featuring a giant American flag on the cover of its applications for a regulatory permit to do “business.”
Jim Wiegand, what are the mortality numbers for the UK, Denmark, Germany etc?
Jon Boone & Jim Wiegand:
Funny, my comments were intended to highlight the expected ‘pushback’ from the industry, predicting it will be or would be based on analytical and theoretical information versus empirical (real), and by diverting attention to the larger risks for the general bird population. Clumsily written, perhaps, my intent was to say how general avian risks are irrelevant to the fate of LOCAL burrowing owls, for one example. And impacts from projected emissions reductions as applied to birds is just as tenuous as when applied to human life. One can rarely prove conclusively that an illness or a death is directly related.
In hindsight, maybe I should have simply started the post with, “I don’t agree, but I expect…..” Because as my as my “hopes” drive me to want to extract energy efficiently and effectively from natural, free sources, I too have become disillusioned by the politics of the associated industries and their “non-profit” supporters. And one need look no further than the region cited in the original post to find some of the greatest distortions/spin and especially hypocrisy – essentially turning a blind eye to existing wildlife regulations at best and offering ‘exemptions’ at worst. It is that hypocrisy that drives me to conclude the ‘greater good’ rationalization must be in play, whether or not always overt.
I’ll make my positions more clear in future posts.
JohnInMA:
Thanks for the clarification. As Richard Feynman once said, knowing even the smallest thing is such a big deal.
And, the more you dig into this issue, the more you’ll find that the wind enterprise is suffused with Pecksniffian sanctimony at every level of its “operation.”
Wind power is one of the least desirable forms of nuclear power. Wind results from uneven heating of the earth by a nuclear reactor approximately 93,000,000 miles away.
[…] reading about birds – especially raptors (eagles) being killed by turbines http://www.masterresource.org/2013/03/avian-mortality-wind-i/ Categories: National Press. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a […]
Yeah my cat came home with an eagle just the other day. Ate the whole thing.
How is it possible to say anything at all about the ranking of windmills as bird killers when studies are biased as they are. I know, why doesn’t Big Oil buy a windmill and let Jim actually study how damaging they really are. On the other hand I am sure Big Oil owns more windmills than I do so why would they want to know. Who does own these things?
Would it be possible to study this photographically or even acoustically from land not controlled by the windmill owner. I am sure the Altamont study is good but O.M.G. it is so last decade. Not the New! and Improved! studies being done now; )
Birds/bats do not need to be hit by the blades to become casualties. The rapid change in air pressure is enough. There is no rapid change in air pressure around power lines.
Up until a few years ago there was a large wind-turbine at about the 70 mile marker on I-80 in Iowa, for a small manufacturing co. that has since outgrown that facility and moved. A good friend of my wife worked there. each morning she had to go out with a large sixe pooper-scooper and collect the several dead birds. How many do you see under the power lines on your street as you drive to work?
[…] and bats are exterminated year after year by wind turbines, they turn a blind eye and actively help hide the horrific slaughter, while ignoring evidence that turbines impair the health of people living near […]
The cat defense was a charade, thought up by the American Wind Energy Association (GE, Vestas, ets) and published though the US Fish and Wildlife.
In a study done of of Golden Eagles in California tracked by radio collars…the NUMBER 1 killer were Industrial Wind Turbines….period…not cars, not tall buildings not cats. These are low reproducing birds…and roughly 10% of the California population is killed annually by the turbines already built with many more planned. The population is only replenished from other states that haven’t yet carpeted their land in these perfect raptor killers. As for small birds being killed…lots are killed by big birds, ground animals, houses, cars and yes cats…they have been killed by other animals for eons. I have had a number of cats and they killed maybe a bird every other month probably more like 3-4 a year. In a study done in NJ by the Audubon society they found that each.
Industrial Wind Turbine killing 78 birds and bats a year…for EACH TURBINE. This included an endangered Peregrine Falcons(26 breeding pair in the entire state) and threatened Osprey. This was a 5 turbine array. As we know wind energy ignores and lies about its impact. Note the study is only done for the first 2 years…then no record is kept as to impact. So give me a break on the fraudulent guesstimate of cats and cars. I can count on one hand the number of birds that I have killed by car in my 50 years of life. And yes just because other sources kill birds…doesn’t make it right to build 50 story industrial machine perfect for killing birds. Are you killing 78 birds and bats per year with your car or house? Efficiency and Conservation are 10 times more cost effective at reducing CO2, but their is little lobbyist money in the that…and little for bankers and other skimmers.
Wind and Solar do little to reduce CO2…as witnessed in Germany where they have spent 100’s of billion on renewables and just saw a 1.6% increase in CO2 output…along with a 40% increase in 5 years of electricity cost(remember this is about MONEY). Wind and solar work roughyl about 10%-40% of the time…what is the plan for the other 90%-60% of time? If CO2 reduction was truly urgency then nuclear the only 100% available CO2 free energy source would be the order of the day…but alas that isn’t what this is all about is it? Wind Energy harm people, land and animals for little gain.
In Texas a study showed increase in SO2 and NO2 due to the highly variable output of wind requiring constant change in the output from baseload power production(plus damager to baseload generators)…OH great, the great renewable produced more real pollution! Then we have wood burning BIOMASS…the highest CO2 output source of power…is a favored sources as well…this shows how wrong this charade is!
[…] and bats are exterminated year after year by wind turbines, they turn a blind eye and actively help hide the horrific slaughter, while ignoring evidence that turbines impair the health of people living near […]
[…] along their turbine-dotted Alberta-to-Texas migratory corridor); allows wind facility operators to use search methods that ensure that most dead and injured birds (and bats) will never be found; initiated a process to […]
[…] Master Resource and Watts Up With That? provide chapter and verse about the number of flying creatures killed every year by wind turbines. The numbers are in the 10s of millions in the US alone, not to mention Europe. Each turbine kills several hundred birds per year. In some locations, bats are major contributors to the body count. […]
Wind turbines at Altamont Pass kill an estimated
880 to 1,300 birds of prey each year, including up to 116 golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks, 380
burrowing owls, and additional hundreds of other raptors including kestrels, falcons, vultures, and
other owl species. The APWRA is an ecological sink for golden eagles and other raptor species and
may be having significant impacts on populations of birds that are rare and reproduce infrequently.
http://www.goldengateaudubon.org/conservation/birds-at-risk/avian-mortality-at-altamont-pass/
“Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported that about 70 golden eagles are being killed per year by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, about 20 miles east of Oakland, Calif. A 2008 study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that about 2,400 raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawks—as well as about 7,500 other birds, nearly all of which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—are being killed every year by the turbines at Altamont.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/wind-energy-under-attack-for-thousands-of-wildlife-deaths/
The project proposed by Wind Capital Group of St. Louis would erect 94 wind turbines on 8,400 acres that the Osage Nation says contains key eagle-nesting habitat and migratory routes. http://bdnews24.com/environment/2013/06/15/native-americans-decry-eagle-deaths
st louis mayor’s office:
Phone: (314) 622-3201
Hours:
8 AM – 6 PM
Monday through Friday
Address:
1200 Market , City Hall, Room 200
St. Louis, Missouri 63103
governor:
facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jay-Nixon/6517667731
governors twitter https://twitter.com/GovJayNixon
[…] own previous articles (here and here) strongly suggest that these conclusions are […]
[…] Go to Jim Wiegand’s original article on Master Resource.org My analysis focuses on two North American wind resource areas that are well known for killing raptors, other birds and bats: Altamont Pass in southern California and Wolfe Island in eastern Lake Erie, on the Ontario-New York border. While studies prepared for these two wind resource are quite different, both were designed to hide mortality. Indeed, hiding mortality is an industry-wide practice, and it is easy to discredit any mortality or cumulative impact study produced by wind energy developers. […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth,human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] risk” through siting and design will be issued a permit to kill eagles, but a Master Resource report from March notes: … the wind industry pretty much knew that there was little that […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] change and renewable energy policies on jobs, economic growth, human health and welfare, and bird and bat populations receive little attention. Sadly, science has been subjected to such tyranny […]
[…] that it would affect more land than Montana and North Dakota combined: 141,000,000 acres. Bird and bat-butchering wind turbines would leave some open space in between, but bird-roasting and other solar facilities […]
[…] that it would affect more land than Montana and North Dakota combined: 141,000,000 acres. Bird and bat-butchering wind turbines would leave some open space in between, but bird-roasting and other solar facilities […]
[…] and bats are exterminated year after year by wind turbines, they turn a blind eye and actively help hide the horrific slaughter, while ignoring evidence that turbines impair the health of people living near […]
[…] that it would affect more land than Montana and North Dakota combined: 141,000,000 acres. Bird and bat-butchering wind turbines would leave some open space in between, but bird-roasting and other solar facilities […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW bird-and-bat-killingturbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 […]
[…] that it would affect more land than Montana and North Dakota combined: 141,000,000 acres. Bird and bat-butchering wind turbines would leave some open space in between, but bird-roasting and other solar facilities […]