“[Hannah] Ritchie ends with suggestions for better results for wind’s avian mortality problem, including ‘Turn off wind turbines at very low speeds when bats are around … Don’t put wind farms in high-risk areas for birds and bats … Paint the turbines Black … Play alert noises to bats and birds to deter them.’ But … these things limit wind siting, increase costs, and/or annoy local neighbors.”
A social media post by Hannah Ritchie (sustainability researcher, University of Oxford) on industrial wind power is worth revisiting. She works within the climate alarm/forced energy transformation narrative (“Bird species are under threat from climate change”) but considers the question:
…It would be worrying, then, if a move to low-carbon energy increased pressures on bird populations. That’s a common concern as countries move to wind power.
The media bias in favor of industrial wind turbines is a sight to behold. Simple reporting of the facts, from costs to environmental tradeoffs, could inform the public and voters to quite possibly eliminate the government gravy train that disadvantages virtually all of us. That is, everyone except for wind developers and other constituencies of the Climate Industrial Complex.
It is uncommon to see a break in the narrative of “the energy transition.” This was recently done at E&E News’s Energywire, “‘Wake effect’ could drain 38% of offshore wind power, study says“. This piece by Heather Richards (May 5, 2024) is worth revisiting at length. Key quotations follow:
…The findings from national lab and university researchers upend assumptions about how turbines interact with each other.
Wind turbines off the East Coast might significantly drain energy from each other, lowering the power output of an offshore farm by up to 38 percent, according to a new study that challenges early assumptions about the nascent industry’s electricity contribution.
“Oil, gas, and coal are ascending despite determined government efforts to reverse energy progress. With criteria air pollutants on the wane and carbon dioxide (CO2) benefits laboratory-proven, the increasing sustainability of fossil fuels is evident.”
Each years brings record production of the three fossil fuels: oil, natural gas, and coal. Peak demand is not in sight–nor should it be in a world of rising population, the aspiring poor, and new ways to employ inanimate energy to improve living. But what about future supply to meet growing demand?
In most nations of the world, free-market energy plenty is held back by government intervention. Government ownership and operation of fossil fuels and related infrastructure impedes supply and demand. But fossil fuel plenty is very hard to hold back, and enough is produced to reasonably meet demand.…