For years on end opponents of clean, renewable energy from wind farms have been portraying wind turbines as big, mean bird-killing machines. A new, British study shows that this is just plain not true when it comes to modern wind turbines.
From The Guardian:
A large majority of birds can co-exist or thrive with operating windfarms, but some species are harmed during construction
A large majority of birds can co-exist or thrive with operating windfarms, but some species are harmed during construction
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Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 April 2012 13.20 BST
A major new study has quashed fears that onshore windfarms are causing long-term damage to bird populations, but found new evidence that some species are harmed when windfarms are built.
The study by conservationists into the impacts on 10 of the key species of British upland bird, including several suffering serious population declines, concluded that a large majority of species can co-exist or thrive with windfarms once they are operating.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
The only adverse effect of these wind farms was on two bird species, while there was no adverse effect on most species and some other bird species actually thrived. This adverse effect was, however, not due to the turbines themselves, but due to the construction phase. As with all construction done by mankind, it should obviously be properly sited.
This new study follows on the heels of numerous studies about offshore wind that came to the conclusion that offshore wind is actually good for wildlife. Here's one example:
Anti-wind farm campaigners have often argued that wind farms can have a negative impact on bird populations, while some critics have voiced concerns that offshore wind farms could prove disruptive to marine life.
However, Professor Han Lindeboom from the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies at Wageningen University and Research centre, said that the new study revealed little evidence of negative effects on local wildlife.
"At most, a few bird species will avoid such a wind farm. It turns out that a wind farm also provides a new natural habitat for organisms living on the sea bed such as mussels, anemones and crabs, thereby contributing to increased biodiversity," he said.
"For fish and marine mammals, it provides an oasis of calm in a relatively busy coastal area."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
So what's the Republican response to this endless, clean, and cheap source of energy? As always, they remain in character for their Big Oil and Big Fossil sugar daddies and are trying to prevent our access to it:
Republican representatives and ALEC members proposed their own legislation to make implementation of larger wind projects much more difficult and protracted.
In October 2011, State Senator Frank Lasee (R) introduced a bill (SB 263) that would declare a moratorium on construction of wind farms over 100 feet, saying larger turbines should not be allowed until the state PSC was in possession of a report that ensures turbines do not cause health problems.
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.de/...
What about Mitt Romney? Surely he can't be as extreme as the Republicans in the Wisconsin state house, right? Right?!
What about wind and solar? Romney says “we should not be in the business of steering investment toward particular politically favored approaches,” which flies in the face of his continued support for subsidies for the traditional extraction industries. He says the president’s “obsession” with green jobs has been “a recipe for both time and money wasted on projects that do not bring us dividends. The failure of windmills and solar plants to become economically viable or make a significant contribution to our energy supply is a prime example.”
http://www.earthtechling.com/...
Ooops.... it turns out that Romney is just as wrong about renewables as the Republican extremists in Congress and in the state houses.
The bizarre thing is that even Bloomberg knows that Romney and the Republicans are wrong:
The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators; the average wind farm will be fully competitive by 2016.
snip
Justin Wu, lead wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: "The public perception of wind power tends to be that it is environmentally-friendly, but expensive and intermittent. That is out-of-date - in the best locations, where generation is already cost-competitive with fossil fuel electricity, and that will be the case for the majority of new onshore turbines installed worldwide by 2016.
“The press is reacting to the recent price drops in solar equipment as though they are the result of temporary oversupply or of a trade war. This masks what is really going on: a long-term, consistent drop in clean energy technology costs, resulting from decades of hard work by tens of thousands of researchers, engineers, technicians and people in operations and procurement. And it is not going to stop: In the next few years the mainstream world is going to wake up to wind cheaper than gas, and rooftop solar power cheaper than daytime electricity. Add in the same sort of deep long-term price drops for power storage, demand management, LED lighting and so on – and we are clearly talking about a whole new game," Wu added.
http://bnef.com/...
That Bloomberg sees the writing on the wall, while Romney and the Republican legislator rabble don't, shows just how backwards and out of touch the current crop of Republicans are. Or just plain corrupt. Or both.
President Obama, on the other hand, clearly gets it and pulls no punches in describing the current crop of Republicans as flat-earthers: