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by dev-da0
3998 days ago
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Strawman fallacy without evidence and denial of pragmatic holistic mix of power generation sources. There is no perfect panacea power generation; each has its tradeoffs. Solar, geothermal, heat pump, tidal (sea life compatible, not underwater "windmills") and fission molten salt are all mostly good AFAWN. I personally don't like wind generators near bird and bat migratory and feeding paths, but I'm sure someone will develop solutions to prevent needless animal strike events. Deploying BWR/PWR plants as are currently designed is economic and community suicide (Fukahshima)... Taylor Smith's TED talk is actually quite brilliant on where practical fission needs to go (low pressure, higher temp, molten salt with scram basin underneath). Disclaimer: I used to work in the energy industry when nuclear was dying back in the late 1990's. |
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In practice it rarely happens, I have windmills (large ones and smaller ones in significant numbers) within spitting distance from my house which also sits in the middle of one of the largest bird breeding grounds in the country. I have spent quite a bit of time at the base of the machines to look for evidence of birdstrikes but I haven't found more bird remains near the windmills than near other man made structures.
Of course I'm only one guy which happens to like rewewable energy technology so don't take my word for this.
There are some studies about this:
http://www.livescience.com/41644-wind-energy-threat-to-birds...
If anything my attempt at evidence collection indicates that the larger machines (which have a much larger swept area than the smaller ones) fare better in this respect because the rotors turn much more slowly, but the tips are still moving at very high speed (200 KM/h) and that's where the danger lies. Smaller machines rotate much faster and the whole disc area is a bad place for a bird to be.
Even so, anything we make (buildings, highways, windmills) affects wildlife and birds are killed by all of the above with the primary killer being the highways and the secondary one the buildings. Windmills do kill birds but they're a distant third.