General: Are wind farms saving or killing us?

61 to 90 of 104

- CommentAuthorCWatters
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012 edited
Birds in the UK seem to be better at avoiding the turbines...

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/43904

Spanish wind farms kill 6 to 18 million birds & bats a year

On 12 January 2012, at the First Scientific Congress on Wind Energy and Wildlife Conservation in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, the Spanish Society of Ornithology (SEO/Birdlife) made public its estimate that, yearly, Spain’s 18,000 wind turbines may be killing 6 to 18 million birds and bats (1). The average per turbine comes down to 333 – 1,000 deaths annually, which is a far cry from the 2 – 4 birds claimed by the American wind industry, or the 400,000 birds a year estimated by the American Bird Conservancy for the whole United States, which has about twice as many turbines as Spain.

Bats are included in the Birdlife estimate, comments Mark Duchamp, president of Save the Eagles International (STEI). “Therefore, supposing for example that wind farms would kill twice as many bats as they do birds, the figures would be: 111 - 333 birds per turbine per year, and 222 – 666 bats per turbine/year.

The mortality figures that were recorded in Germany and Sweden in the early nineties are not unusual after all”, he notes. Quoting from a California Energy Commission study: “In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al. (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden.”

Continues..

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wind-farm-birds112011.html#cr

Massive bird kill at US wind farm
03/11/2011 06:29:22
Wind power CAN be green - but it has to be bird-smart

November 2011: With the deaths of nearly 500 birds at the Laurel Mountain wind facility recently, three of the four wind farms operating in West Virginia have now experienced large bird fatality events, according to American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

Continues..
- CommentAuthorgustyturbine
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
How can the figures be so different from counrty to counrty. I wonder if it is down to the positioning of the turbines and the birds feeding around the turbines. In all honesty I do not see that many birds around my sites. Some birds of prey like Buzzards, Red kites (too clever to be hit) and crows. Not much else. Has mainland Europe and the states got a higher bird population than the UK by any chance. It would seem very strange if they did but it might make the figures more understandable......
Bats I can understand as there seems to more insects in warmer countries on the wing but maybe I am wrong on that count too?
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012 edited
If there are simple things that can be done to reduce the environmental impact this is great but there is a rather political agenda here you can probably pick out by the anti Obama advertising on the side

Digging into your bottom quote this doesn't look like a wind farm specific problem:

"500 birds were reportedly killed after lights were left on at an electrical substation associated with the wind project. The deaths are said to have occurred not from collisions with the wind turbines themselves, but from a combination of collisions with the substation and apparent exhaustion as birds caught in the light's glare circled in mass confusion"
- CommentAuthorted
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
A well-known university has been conducting a bat mortality survey at several wind farms recently including my local one. I expect the results to show that turbines are not a major cause of bat deaths.

The survey was conducted during a period when the turbines were turned off.
- CommentAuthorCWatters
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
I understand the RSPB have asked for two turbines to be removed from a proposed scheme near us. Not a word from the developer.
- CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
Some turbines were built in migratory paths and some birds, generally large ones like geese, ducks and swans are not very manoeuvrable once they get going. I think I heard once that one type of duck is the fastest flying bird in level flight. The Mute Swan is the heaviest I think.
- CommentAuthorwindy lamb
- CommentTimeSep 22nd 2012
It's well known that some wind farms in the USA where placed across migration routes of birds and bats. If you put 24 turbines across a mountain path through which fly 10 million migrating bats you are bound to cause collisions and that's why English Nature suddenly got the gitters about turbines and bats - they failed to see that we do not have bat species that form mass migrations so instead they advised that turbines should not be placed within 50m of hedge row. There's nothing like scientific data on which to base your opinion!
It also doesn't help if you are trying to show that turbines don't kill bats when you turn them off in your study period.
I've got a planning condition on my turbine saying that I have to inform CCW of any bats kills. My friend read this and brought me a bucket to hang off the tower so that I could collect the bats each morning. It's never left it's peg.
- CommentAuthorwookey
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
crusoe: No I don't have a personal 'gold standard for safety' (whatever that might be), I'm just smart enough to understand that 'safety' is not an absolute - it's a continuum, usually best viewed in terms of tradeoffs and alternatives. I assume that you can in fact understand this too, but just choose not to in order to irritate.
- CommentAuthorcrusoe
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012 edited
Well that's cleared up the blee*ing obvious then wookey. Thanks. I asked my inane question because of your own dum*as* set of questions following my opinion that I would like turbines to be safe and not affect quality of life and health.

You are smart enough, you say. Judging from some of your other offerings, I don't disagree. Smart enough to realise your mistake then? That this was in fact a wish on my part, not, by definition, the criteria you claim, and hence didn't merit being mauled in such wookey-esque fashion. Not quite sure why you picked this particular fight as my comment was fairly innocuous.
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
Reading about this last night and in terms of safety 1 death per GWy seems a benchmark.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_168.shtml

Crusoe - You statement that you 'just want them [windfarms] to be safe and not affect quality of life or health' sounds reasonable at first glance but is in fact an impossibly high bar (for anything) - hence the critique from others.

This type of comment sounds fairly innocuous but is the starting point for many anti [insert project of choice] rhetorics.
- CommentAuthorSeret
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
No point in trading snide comments boys, you've both been guilty of posting in a snotty tone so there's no high ground left to be taken.

My tuppence worth: if you are genuinely getting annoyed with each other it's probably best to walk away from the thread now, no good will come of it.
- CommentAuthorwookey
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
Crusoe, so if you understand that wanting things to be 'safe and not affect quality of life and health' stated in that way as an either/or thing is impossible, why just repeat it when asked what level of safety change and life/health affects you are willing to accept?

In fact the more useful question really is 'in comparison to what?'. Business as usual may have significantly _worse_ health effects than the turbines. Is it OK to go back to pea-soupers and get terrible climate-change so long as there are 'no quality of life or health effects from wind turbines'?

Just saying 'it's only an opinion' is no argument - it still doesn't make any sense, or at best is entirely useless.
- CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
Said I knew where this was heading
- CommentAuthorcandlemaker
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
with regard to the bird strike issue. I have a mate who works on preparing reports for the energy producers on the siting of wind farms away from migratory bird flight paths. he has to spend vast amounts of time over a year plotting bird flight paths he is a very dedicated ornithologist and is happy to work for the "Enemy" on the basis that with proper work in advance of putting up a wind farm you can minimize the impact on bird population (and the money is good as well). it seems a shame that the same vigorous pre-build approach is not taken to the possible noise problems that often appear to occur with wind farms, if noise from wind farms could be brought to acceptable levels then I would guess that wind energy would be a very safe form of generation.

slightly left field but don't always believe the stats that are out there. I was sent a report on accidents caused by candles a couple of years ago and one nasty accident seemed very odd, a guy had cut a huge slice out of a couple of his fingers after investigation it was discovered that the poor chap was trying to pare down the end of a candle to make it fit a holder with a carving knife, when he told the nurse in A&E what he had been doing she put this down as a candle related injury!
- CommentAuthorrenewablejohn
- CommentTimeSep 24th 2012
Robl

I think you need to take quotes from Mr MacKay with a pinch of salt. Just in the example you quote if you had a Zenith Z20 concentrated solar system the combined PV and thermal could be as high as 72% which makes a mockery of MacKays figures.

Steamy Tea

With fibre optic panels the CSV units can be located in the loft space. The hot water tank can be used for cooling the CSV panel.
- CommentAuthorcrusoe
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
jms452: Impossibly high bar? For anything? Have to agree to disagree on that one. Wind farms far enough from habitation not to cause the alleged health problems would be a good starter methinks.

Steamy: That's akin to a prophet saying 'I know what's going to happen in 2012' without being specific as to what - and when anything happens he can then say: 'See, I told you.' 'I predict you will see a seagull some time in the next millennium' has more of a ring to it...or drink a mug of steamy coffee - perhaps. Possibly. Maybe.

Annoyed seret? The quality of some of the argument being propounded isn't yet worth that effort.

wookey - you are either being dim or just irritating () I don't recognise it as impossible at all. That pre-supposes pecuniary interference or interest in every case when often community schemes, wind and hydro, such as those prompted/assisted by Good Energy, are desirably low-impact - and have no record of health issues such as are being addressed here. I know this as I attended the Cold Northcott GE seminar and listened to some case histories.

And you are (deliberately?) missing the point that my opinion was not, by definition, a set of criteria, and cannot hence be judged as such, which you nonetheless proceeded to do. If in doubt on this point, I can lend you a dictionary. Small daily fee.

For the record, in my opinion, decisions on siting some turbines are often made and approved by less than open means. And because money is involved, we never learn to be cautious. Because there had never been health issues with turbines, and it could not - at that point - be proven to affect health, that is less a consideration than mere decibels, for example.

The same decision-making process is true IMO, in approval of pesticides, GM foods, and other profitable industries. Why consider health when a fortune is there to be made and many of the regulators are, anyway, in your pocket. It costs more money to trench power cables 1000m than 250m. It costs money to be cautious.
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012 edited
Posted By: crusoejms452: Impossibly high bar? For anything? Have to agree to disagree on that one. Wind farms far enough from habitation not to cause the alleged health problems would be a good starter methinks.

All our power generation in this country seems pretty 'safe' but none of them are totally safe.
We're dealing with such low fatality rates here that just because some plants have never had an accident it doesn't mean that they are safe.

Even on a remote wind farm (excluding construction and decommissioning) servicing engineers will occasionally have accidents (I could digress into increasingly improbable modes of injury but I'm sure you get the idea).

The next logical question (wookey's) is how safe?

This isn't intended as an attack on you (not by me anyway ) just in interesting echo of the dilema policy makers must have daily in turning a public desire for safety into a real life implementation.
- CommentAuthorJonti
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
Posted By: jms452
Posted By: crusoejms452: Impossibly high bar? For anything? Have to agree to disagree on that one. Wind farms far enough from habitation not to cause the alleged health problems would be a good starter methinks.

All our power generation in this country seems pretty 'safe' but none of them are totally safe.
We're dealing with such low fatality rates here that just because some plants have never had an accident it doesn't mean that they are safe.

Even on a remote wind farm (excluding construction and decommissioning) servicing engineers will occasionally have accidents (I could digress into increasingly improbable modes of injury but I'm sure you get the idea).

The next logical question (wookey's) is how safe?

This isn't intended as an attack on you (not by me anyway" alt="" src="http:///forum114/extensions/Vanillacons/smilies/standard/bigsmile.gif" >) just in interesting echo of the dilema policy makers must have daily in turning a public desire for safety into a real life implementation.

jms452,

just to digress, is it really 'a public desire for safety' or is it just penpushers telling us this? If it is a drive from the public then surely it would make more sense to look at road safety which is far more dangerous than windfarms IMHO. I can see the campaign for a national 5mph speed limit with a with a flagman out in front

Jonti
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
I'm not for one minute saying windfarms are poor safety wise just that you need a reference level as nothing is 100% safe'

The public is not rational, and on top of this the planning system seems to force people who don't want a windfarm on their doorstep to come up with every extra issue they can think of.

I imagine that many of the people citing birds, bats, safety & construction traffic main motivation is that they don't want to see or hear a windfarm near their house and are creating arguments most likely to get the result they want from the planners.
- CommentAuthorJonti
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
jms452,

I think your main point in the last post is probably correct. The problem to me is two fold.

Firstly, that if there was a rule meaning that the people affected by the windfarm also got the benefit of the electricity from the windfarm then they would be more likely to be accepted. The reality is that large scale windfarms effect one population but benefit another. It would be the same as having a motorway pass through your neighbourhood but not be allowed to use it.

Secondly, if the planners accept the mortality rate of birds as a reason to refuse then the same objection could be raised against windows in houses and roads where many thousands of birds are killed each month.

Jonti
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
Posted By: JontiFirstly, that if there was a rule meaning that the people affected by the windfarm also got the benefit of the electricity from the windfarm then they would be more likely to be accepted

Couldn't agree more
- CommentAuthorBrianwilson
- CommentTimeSep 26th 2012
This article presents some interesting data on the contribution of wind in the UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/sep/26/myth-wind-turbines-carbon-emissions
- CommentAuthorcrusoe
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
Good point Jonti.

Interesting article Brian. Another thread looming I suspect?

jms452: May be worth just pointing out here that the OP (me) was interested in the health effects per se, not accidents, which, being humans, we are unlikely to ever stop, enth degrees of safety notwithstanding. I think we need more info and studies before we can say conclusively that wind farms need to be 'x' distance from human habitation.

What gets me though is the repeating pattern of denying any emerging problem in the health-technology field by either shooting the messenger or producing an in-house study to counter the independent one. Smacks of power lines and leukaemia clusters.
- CommentAuthorjms452
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
To say conclusively that wind farms need to be 'x' distance from human habitation [to avoid health effects] will take a very long time and yield a very large distance (x).

Taking your' power lines and leukaemia clusters' example the jury still seems to be out after the best part of 40 years.

The best fairly impartial link I could find:
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/cancercontroversies/powerlines/power-lines-and-cancer

'Because the evidence is limited and inconsistent, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified EMFs as a ‘possible’ cause of cancer. This means that there might be a risk but we cannot say for sure.'

I don't want to get into a power-lines/leukaemia debate. My point is that there is still a debate and that the 'more info and studies' approach will never 100% answer the question. In the meantime we are using coal powered power stations killing thousands before we even get onto AGW.
- CommentAuthorSeret
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
I think the bottom line Crusoe is that in the absence of a large an obvious health problem, the possibility of a small and insidious one shouldn't prevent development until large long-term studies have gathered some solid data. We can't just halt any development on the outside chance of there being a negative impact.

Not quite sure why we're even still building wind turbines onshore in the UK anyway. All the best wind is offshore, there's plenty of space and the sea is shallow, there are no neighbours out there and the technology to build and support them is available now, with better technology in the pipeline that will bring the costs down even further. Onshore wind is becoming a sideshow.
- CommentAuthorgustyturbine
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
Seret- COST. 3 times the amount of onshore.
Plus many other complications that will never go away. H+S is a killer (OH sooooo funny).
Foundation issues are a major worry.
- CommentAuthorSeret
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
True, and yet where is all the investment money getting poured into? The big investors have lined up behind offshore wind in a massive way, they must be pretty sure they're going to make their megabucks back. The higher price and O&M costs are offset by the higher availability, and by the fact they can build in massive scales. You'd never be able to slap down 100 turbines in one go onshore, and we've only seen the start of the offshore boom so far.

From what I've heard the major limiting factor to the rate they can build them at is availability of cranes, not the cost.
- CommentAuthorCWatters
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
Todays news...

Locals were complaining about noise from Fullabrook wind farm before it was even finished. Now the results of noise monitoring tests suggest it is in breech of it's planning conditions..

http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/09/25/fullabrook-noise-testing-reveals-wind-farm-is-too-noisy/

"NDC has to ensure the company behind the wind farm ESB International is not breaching the planning regulations, which include the turbines not be allowed to exceed a certain level of noise. But today NDC has revealed the preliminary findings from the testing show four of the 12 sites tested have exceeded that accepted level."
- CommentAuthorgustyturbine
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
Seret,
To a degree you are correct. The limiting factor is mainly jack up barges and turbine availability. The costs though are huge and most feel the future is strong for both offshore and onshore. Offshore is still a very new technology in the turbine world and new issues are still showing themselves for the first time. Availabilty is lower offshore than onshore so I cant see you point regarding the higher O+M costs. Availability is lower because when you get a turbine fault you cant actually get to the turbine if the wind is too high, swell is too high, tide is out, boat is unavailable, its dark.......you get the picture so onshore is much more straight forward. I assume you are confused between capacity factor and availability? Scale is obviously greater. We are looking at an offshore site of the south coast around the 500 meggawatt.
The scale of sites onshore will not be below 100 turbines for long. Not if the UK government look at wind as a real energy source that can be taken seriously.
- CommentAuthorJonti
- CommentTimeSep 27th 2012
gustyturbine,

though what you say about the access to offshore being problematic in certain circumstance the same could be said of onshore. Too high winds, access road washed out or blocked, deep snow, etc.... offshore has the advantage of plenty of room and being easier to transport heavy equipment too. I suspect that as the numbers start increasing so the cost will come down.

Just imagine the furore if planning is put in for 100+ turbine farms onshore.

Jonti

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General: Are wind farms saving or killing us?