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AWEA as a source is like quoting PETA on animal cruelty. Anyway, Germany is a great role model, we just need to balance things out.

As a side note, the company that I worked for was publishing incorrect data. They only reported a fraction of our finds. So take published numbers with a grain of salt; it’s sickening, but they’re painting a rosy picture when the scene on the ground is VERY different.

Paula
info@loansquickly.co.uk
http://www.loansquickly.co.uk

The number of birds that wind turbines kill per year is extremely minute, roughly 2 birds killed per year per turbine or one-tenth of a percent of all “unnatural” bird deaths in the United States each year [Source:AWEA]. The below links have a lot more information on bird deaths and wind turbines and the general consensus seems to be this: bird deaths from wind turbines is blown out of proportion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Environmental_effects

http://science.howstuffworks.com/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php

By all means, the “yard sized” turbines are brilliant, but passive energy savings will really add up. Since wind is relatively unpredictable and un-storable, you just need to plan around another source.

Honestly I’m not sure why there is such a sprawl. Some of the spots are based on ridge lines but others seem somewhat arbitrary. If I can find it, I’ll have to pass along a link that surfaced a while ago. Bottom line was that Germany found wind turbines to be the least productive overall source of energy. I’m not sure how much of the infrastructure was factored in, but they’ve got more solar panels than our entire country and they’re as far north as CT. Surely our southern states can do better!

My husband and I were going to try to use those when we get closer to planning our off-grid shipping container home. I’d definitely like to use a turbine that’s not going to kill local wildlife, especially bats.

Do you know why the US is sprawling their wind turbines out like that? I’m like you, it seems as if it’d make more sense to cluster them closer together. I’ve never researched how Europe handles their wind turbines, but I’m definitely going to look it up now. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

When I’m talking about the overall footprint of wind, I’m talking about a 20 year life expectancy of each turbine. Where do you put monoliths out to pasture? The raw material from Brazil probably comes from much less regulated mining operations than the ones we have in the US (not that we’re stellar by any stretch of the imagination). We’re pulling in all of this stuff from overseas, trucking thousands of oversized loads hours from the ports, scalping 4-lane wide paths through miles of variable terrain (with ridiculously feeble “erosion control”) and stringing hundreds of miles of new power lines… which also kill birds. Construction crews are killing snakes for kicks as they go, including non-venomous ones, so it’s little wonder that quiet rattlesnakes are the ones surviving to reproduce. That means that we’re setting ourselves up for silent venomous snakes when we used to be given fair warning to turn and walk away. This isn’t just “wind power sprawls over the countryside,” this is actually influencing local populations of all snakes, horned lizards, etc. And I’m not even sure about the overall bird impact.

Just as bee populations are making us wonder what’s going on; turbines are taking out incredible numbers of bats. Two bats are lucky to produce one offspring per year. So there’s absolutely no way that their populations are capable of sustaining high loss. On a side note, bats even roots in the bases of some turbines – so they’re attracted to the very thing that kills them.

I will give Europe credit for clustering no more than a dozen turbines in very close proximity to each other. Sadly, the US isn’t following this at all in the west (and I’ve never seen large projects out east), so instead of having a major footprint on a relatively small area (12 turbines on less than 50 acres), we’ve got 200 turbines sprawling over 30,000 acres with a maze of roads in between. It makes no sense.

Apologies for the essay, but the reason I took the wind farm job was to make my own call. I’d heard the “new” turbines weren’t as bad for birds (12 RPM for a 115′ blade is still too fast), but I’ve found that published stats are significantly under-reporting numbers (move over a decimal place to get more accurate) for birds and bats killed.

This is a great discussion, thank you!

I understand that there’s a footprint for wind, just as there is for solar and nuclear and biomass. But as I understand it, the footprint for wind turbines is much smaller than that of a nuclear power plant or coal fired plant. In my opinion, this makes it a better option.

I totally agree with you, Heidi, that the ultimate answer is for us to use less. I know wind can’t support our current rate of use. But by using less and putting up more turbines (here in Michigan, they’re going up in Lake Michigan, on the water), we could rely less on sources that pollute more (like coal fired plants).

Thank you guys for sparking such a great discussion about this!