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Originally Posted by Esmo  I shall probably be in trouble again, but I don't believe that these photographs are genuine. Birds of prey can out manouver a windmill blade. Windmills are not pretty, but we need them for our future energy supplies. Wave power and solar power are other ways we can make electricity and we have to do it. It may not look pretty but it's the future. I wonder where Holland would be today if folks had objected to all their windmills , Did they get bird strikes ?
Esmo. |
No unfortunately I suspect these pictures are genuine at least the bottom one, the kite must have flow into a stationary blade because I doubt it would have survived otherwise.
I went to a conference about renewable energy and potential impact on birds and the vultures in the bottom pic are probably one of the case studies that was presented. The problem here came from placing the turbines on top of a ridge that was part of a larger escarpment. Vultures have traditionally glided up on the thermals that naturally form against this escarpment for all time, now this spiral of hot air once it reaches the top and has no wall to curl against pushes rapidly inland and carries the vultures with it ..... straight into the turbines resulting in deaths because the birds don't see them coming.......
Other problems have come for example I think it was in California, eagles and other birds of prey were perching on the tops of the turbines while looking out for prey, they'd spy something on the ground and drop down to catch it but pass straight through the path of the blades whenever that was their line of sight - not recognising them as a threat - as owls don't percieve traffic as a threat (presumably because it doesn't pursue them as a traditional predator might).
I think most birds on days with good visibility are very able to avoid turbines the problems come in when there's poor visibility or low cloud during migration periods which forces large numbers of birds into valleys with turbines....
On balance so long as the lessons above are learnt and so long as turbines aren't placed directly in major migration routes I think the benefits outweigh the costs.
There are lots of exciting potential new energy sources coming up but they are just not yet viable and it could take years before they are....... Its possible that we just don't have years to stand a chance of making things better......