Windmills Take Toll on Wildlife

Los Angeles Times ^ | December 8, 2003 | Rone Tempest

[Willie Green]

ALTAMONT PASS, Calif. — When the giant Altamont wind farm sprouted here two decades ago, the only major objections were aesthetic. Local residents didn't appreciate the forest of 7,000 ungainly wind towers cluttering their view.

No one, apparently, thought about the birds.

Since the phalanx of giant windmills began churning in the air above the Altamont Pass east of San Francisco Bay, an estimated 22,000 birds have died, including hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors, after flying into the spinning blades of the wind turbines.

Now, some environmental groups that routinely supported wind power as a clean, alternative source of electric power are opposing the renewal of permits for the wind farm until steps are taken to reduce the bird deaths.

[discostu]

It's used up where I've seen it. you can't use modern irrigation systems around it, you can't build modern cities around it. You can maybe do some second thing in a half-assed form around it, but that's like saying that because you could play handball on the wall around a nuclear powerplant the land isn't used up. The bottom line isn't cost perkwhr, it's also acrage per kwhr, and I know the equation well enough to know that as the technology currently stands windpower is a joke and needs to be retracted to the experimental stage (along with solar) until some big leaps are made.

[newgeezer]

they were jsut commenting on how many are turned off at any given time, no comparing.

Not sure what you mean. Modern turbines have 98.5% uptime. Again, if you're looking at Altamont Pass, you're looking at the equivalent of Model 'T's. Or, at best, '62 Ramblers.

And even in the modern wind farms a lot of turbines are turned off at any given time because they need to be tuned to particular wind speeds and won't be on if the wind isn't going the right speed.

As I understand it, they produce electricity at wind speeds from 9 MPH to 50 MPH. That's the "right" speed. Put 'em where the wind blows, and they're turning. Look for an average-windspeed map on the 'Net. When I drive by the wind farms in NW Iowa or SW Minnesota, it looks like 1 or 2 of every 100 is stopped. That's just my observation.

It's becoming all the more apparent that you use canned responses.

Not sure what gives you that impression. If I come across as terse and/or short-tempered, it's because I've learned over the years that, no matter how much data we 'believers' post, the FR crowd has no desire to learn the facts about wind power. With a very few exceptions they are more than happy to simply, in effect, follow Rush's lead when it comes to wind power.

[biblewonk]

No 1 windfarm (with thousands of turbines) makes megawatts but costs the same as a nuke plant that makes gigawatts. Which is the simple truth and is why windfarms are not ready for primetime.

The average windmill today is about 1.3 mw. 1000 of them could cost 1.3 billion dollars and produce 33 percent of nameplate power. A 1.3 gw nuke would cost what a billion dollars or so plus refuelling and produces about 85 percent of nameplate power. Once again your numbers are way off because you don't really know much about modern wind power. All that really matters is cost per kwhr and wind power is about 3-5 cents per kwhr. Nukes are pretty close to that.

You repeatedly exagerate a difference of about 50 percent in cost to thousands of percents. Maybe you need to update from your 1980's data and realize that windpower is here now.

[discostu]

That's still a junky uptime, the competing systems have uptimes that goes months or years without a break. In Altamont we're looking at the equivalent of Chrysler K cars, it's only 20 years not 80.

You're responses come off as canned because each one is built around an ASSumption of why I think windpower isn't there yet, and each one of your ASSumptions have been wrong. You assumed it was because I was anti-green, not the case. You assumed it was because I hadn't bothered to do any research, not the case. Here you're assuming I'm following Rush' lead, again not the case (I hate talk radio and don't give a damn what Rush says about anything anywhere at anytime). Windpower simply isn't there yet, the technology isn't efficient enough or reliable enough. Someday soon it may be but it's not now. The only part of it I'm against is implementing it when it is not yet a viable power source, it should only be implimented in experimental blocks until it's ready. When it's ready it'll be great, until then we're sinking a lot of time money and land into it when we could get a better return on other power sources.

[discostu]

Way to play with the numbers, Altamont has SEVEN thousand turbines and doesn't even produce 1 GW. Maybe you need to deal with NOW instead of imaginary projections.

[newgeezer]

Way to play with the numbers, Altamont has SEVEN thousand turbines and doesn't even produce 1 GW. Maybe you need to deal with NOW instead of imaginary projections.

You're the one playing with numbers. You're the one who keeps on bringing up Altamont Pass, as if it's the end-all measure of wind power's viability. What is your point? Is it that a 1970s nuke plant is more efficient than a 1980s wind plant? Fine. I'll concede that. Happy now?

Maybe you need to deal with NOW instead of imaginary projections.

Altamont Pass is not "NOW." For someone who claims to have done so much "research," you're awfully reluctant to let go of those Altamont Pass turbines when trying to make your points.

As biblewonk said, maybe you need to pull your head out of your 1980's data and realize that windpower is here now, especially if you're going to presume to tell the rest of us to "deal with NOW."

[newgeezer]

In Altamont we're looking at the equivalent of Chrysler K cars, it's only 20 years not 80.

Your (as you put it so well) "ASSumption" is that wind power generation technology has advanced no more than that for automobiles over the past 20 years. That is wrong. But, it might explain why you continue to focus on Altamont Pass.

Windpower simply isn't there yet, the technology isn't efficient enough or reliable enough.

If 3-to-5 cents per kWhr isn't good enough for you, what will it take? Oh, I know. You're hooked on that "land use" thing. Well, maybe it won't work for the coastal folks. But, here in flyover country, we normally have such a glut of corn and soybeans that the farmers welcome the chance to produce something more profitable on the land.

Maybe it's a matter of perspective.

[discostu]

The article is about Altamont, get over it.

[discostu]

Car technology has actually advanced quite a bit in the last 20 years: electronic fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, airbags, side mounted airbags, hemis, computer controlled everything, now the new Mazda engines.

That's right land use is important to me, land is a non-renewable resource after all, we only have so much of it and if we use it all up on an inefficient method of generating electricity it'll be a pain to tear those crappyt things down and put up something that actually gives us a good ROI. I live in fly over country, more lame ASSumptions on your part. STOP ASSUMING START READING.

[Michael121]

Let's see.... the Taliban and the Bin Laden freaks want to revert back to the olden times.... the eviro weenies want to revert back.....

Hmmmmmm.....

The enviro lefties are the TALIBAN

[okie01]

"It's amazing how flexible the greens can be when one of their pet projects collides with an endangered species."

When leftist worlds collide...

[bwteim]

So that makes approx. 150,000 x 365 = 54,750,000 in GB

And "University of Wisconsin researchers found that cats kill an estimated 19 million songbirds each year in that state alone"
http://www.windstar.org/features/clearinghouse/a_freecats.htm

and 50 states X 19 mil = near a billion or so....
which is amount that Straight Dope says: "Cats kill an estimated one billion birds a year in the U.S"

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010831.html

You'd need a lot of wind mills to come up equal to that number.

[upcountryhorseman]

the point is: these units are supposed to be operating and
producing power, but they are prone to malfunction. Also,
they won't produce any current if the wind is blowing
7mph or less.

[biblewonk]

and I know the equation well enough to know that as the technology currently stands windpower is a joke and needs to be retracted to the experimental stage (along with solar) until some big leaps are made.

You've shown me that you really don't know much at all about modern wind power. I see a lot of that around here so don't feel too bad.

[biblewonk]

Is it that a 1970s nuke plant is more efficient than a 1980s wind plant? Fine. I'll concede that. Happy now?

How so. The Rush Limbaugh types don't seem to know what the word means. Efficency is a measure of the amount of energy lost in the conversion but even that is not relevent to the cost of the energy.

[biblewonk]

Way to play with the numbers, Altamont has SEVEN thousand turbines and doesn't even produce 1 GW. Maybe you need to deal with NOW instead of imaginary projections.

It's funny to hear Rush describe those toys as huge. They are tiny. In 2002 the average windmill size installed in germany was 1.5 mw. At altamont it is less than 100kw. Altamont needs to be "repowered" but there are too many political issues preventing that. Meanwhile the new windfarms in Texas are composed of actual modern windmills. I realize you simply don't like them because you've been given your marching orders. The ironic thing is that you don't really understand your arguments at all yet use the phrase "canned answers".

So how do you feel about the Lord?

[biblewonk]

But, here in flyover country, we normally have such a glut of corn and soybeans that the farmers welcome the chance to produce something more profitable on the land.

Tut tut. Farmers give up 10 percent of their land to earn 3 to 5000 dollars per year in electricity. The land is not "used up".

[biblewonk]

the point is: these units are supposed to be operating and producing power, but they are prone to malfunction. Also, they won't produce any current if the wind is blowing 7mph or less.

The bigger point is the cost of electricity from a modern wind farm on a good site. It is getting very close to the cost of nuclear energy. It is already cheaper than gas fired electricity. Coal is certainly the cheapest and we have lots of coal. This is swell because it gives us time to wring more kwhr per dollar out of windmills.

[biblewonk]

One of my favorite models is the Vestas V80. It's 80 meters and is rated at 1.8 to 2.0 mw. One of them is equal to about 20 to 30 at Altamont pass. Why do you suppose the larger ones make power cheaper?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I found a number on cats, 150,000 killed per day by cats in Great Britan alone.

My cat does her share... about a bird every two weeks.