A Green Energy Trade Off
July 7th, 2005
In between the San Francisco Bay area and the San Joaquin Valley lies a 50 square mile stretch of hills, lined with nearly 5,000 windmills, known as The Altamont Pass. Generation pollution-free power to 120,000 homes a year, it is one of the nation’s leading producers of windpower.
Where’s the kicker?
The Pass is also responsible for the deaths of 1,700-4,700 birds a year. According to the California Energy Commision, between 880 and 1,300 of those deaths are federally protected raptors such as burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks and golden eagles.
Do I really need to explain how they die?
I guess this just goes to show that no “pollution solution,” as great as it may seem, is free from side effects. Mother nature loses once again.
Popularity: 2% [?]
July 7th, 2005 at 11:14 am
a little sequenced black paint on the blades would prevent most daylight deaths, glow in dark for night
July 7th, 2005 at 11:46 am
really? that’s a great idea. do you have some sources?
funny, cause we were just talking about giving elephants prosthetic tusks so that they can still use their tusks for social purposes, but so that poachers don’t kill them. seems like many elephants in preserves already have their tusks removed, but prostheses would be nice. problem is, they’d have to be very obviously not real tusks, so that poachers don’t kill them, so we were thinking glittery or glow in the dark tusks… anyways i guess it was a weird conversation.
July 7th, 2005 at 11:49 am
and what’s this do I really need to explain how they die thing, mike? how DO they die? do they run into the propellers? why don’t they die around trees? does the current or the noise confuse or attract them? what makes windmills so much more dangerous than trees?
July 7th, 2005 at 11:55 am
I think the view of “there’s no solution to pollution, let’s give up” isn’t really the right approach.
Plenty of bridges fell and experiments were tried before we got anything right in our history as a society.
The solution is not give up, but to understand the problems in design (like Jeff’s doing), come up with smart solutions (like starspirit), and keep trying.
July 7th, 2005 at 11:57 am
oh, this was Joe’s post, thought it was mike’s. I hope Mike kicks in on this, i think he knows quite a bit about wind turbines.
July 7th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
A) paint on the blades seems like a ridiculously simple solution; i wonder if they’re working on a solution…it is possible that it doesn’t even matter to them
B) how they die? they run into the propellers and get diced.
C) in reference to my no “solution to pollution”: we try to come up with man made ways to fix our man made messes; i believe that the REAL solution lies in controlling the way and what what we consume. it was not my intention to connote a sense of abysmal pessimism.
July 7th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
altamont pass is very old news and has been discussed to death; it’s a uniquely bad windfarm for bird deaths, and should not be considered a model for bird mortality rates in other settings (besides which, the number of birds involved is tiny compared to many other things we are happy to build)
see awea’s report.
July 8th, 2005 at 1:36 am
From what I understand, the birds do literally get chopped up in the blades and that painting the blades has not helped much.
Article
The issue of killing migratory birds is one which might be solved by using signals (noises, pheromones, etc) that may cause the birds to avoid the area. I’m not sure why the birds are not able to avoid the turbine blades, but I imagine they’re much harder to dodge than trees. In fact, office buildings with lots of glass/glazing is a large killer of birds as well (~100 million/ yr Link )
I’ve witnessed at least a few in my childhood when birds had flown into my classroom windows at school.
Nevertheless, it’s a design challenge that has yet to be solved. And yes, Joe, the root of the problem is the consumption in general, but we’d all be hard pressed to unplug our lives. So, the solutions are to both re-evaluate our use, reduce consumption, and find greener energy sources.