Posted on 10/15/2005 11:25:09 AM PDT by John Jorsett
Story can't be posted here due to copyright complaint, but it's interesting reading, so click this link to go directly to it. And by the way, 'unexpected' downside? Who couldn't predict that a rapidly-spinning blade in the sky would put the smackdown on birds?
Oh the humanity (or is it avianidity?).
uhhhhhhh,... the ENVIRONUTTZOIDS that demanded the wind turbines.
We need a few in our fields the birds eat more than we do.
These idiots think that if air was pure enough, people could survive just by breathing.
Tilling the ground kills worms, so that's no good. You just can't grow food. Burning dead wood to heat your shack is no good, because it pollutes (meanwhile a 15,000 hectares forest fire is burning out of control in the next state).
There is no way a human can live without causing some damage somewhere, so we should all just die and leave it to the animals. Meanwhile these freaks fly all over the place to go to their meetings at their NGO's, wasting fuel, polluting the earth. They write their garbage enviro articles which is picked up by media and printed, wasting trees. They are eating candy bars, buying packaged tofu, creating garbage.They crap just like anyone else, and flush it to nowhere land just like anyone else.
They want everyone to live is controled housing, live tightly controled lives, everything you do each day is structured to serve a common goal. This would drive a person insane, and from some of the stuff I've seen on TV about these nuts, it does. It's no wonder why these experimental enviro-weinie housing communes aren't more popular. It seems even envirowienies can't stand living too long among themselves. If all these environmental NGO's and other envirowienies would commit suicide, they would contribute enormously to cleaning up the planet.It would cut down on the B.S. being spread all around.
SAVE THE BIRDS! BURN MORE COAL!
SAVE THE FORESTS! BURN MORE COAL!
NO NUKES! BURN MORE COAL!
MORE HEATING OIL FOR HOMES ONLY! BURN MORE COAL!
NATURL GAS FOR HOMES ONLY! BURN MORE COAL!
Can't burn coal. Clinton locked it up in the Escalante.
From a much earlier thread:
Since the phalanx of giant windmills began churning in the air [...] an estimated 22,000 birds have died, including hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors,
Let's see, that's 22000 birds total, and since they only say "hundreds" I'll be generous and say 1000 raptors, killed by 7000 windmills over two decades. Let's run the numbers:
22000 / 20 = 1100 birds per year. 1000 / 20 = 50 raptors per year.
1100 / 365.25 = 3.01 birds per day. 50 / 365.25 = 0.136 raptors per day (1/0.136 = 7.3 days / raptor, or one raptor per week)
3.01 / 7000 = 0.0043 birds per day per windmill (1/0.043 = it takes 2326 windmills to kill one bird per day) 0.136 / 7000 = 1.94e-5 raptors per day per windmill (1/1.94e-5 = it takes 51471 windmills to kill one raptor a day)
From this article: Every year, turbines there kill about 60 golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks, 270 burrowing owls and hundreds of other protected raptors, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
Something odd here: these numbers list 630 + "hundreds" of raptors per year, roughly 20 times the number given in the study referenced by the original article. Could somebody, like a ("truth is what we say it is") leftist plaintiff with a political agenda, be playing fast and loose with the numbers?
Read "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy.
"I think there's a subset of "environmentalists" who would be very pleased if mankind vanished from the face of the earth."
And yet, they never do us the favor of offing themseves first to set the example, do they? *Smirk* ;)
That would certainly strain the birds.
All the way at the bottom of Spain, not too far from Gibralter, there are about a trillion of these things. They cover the tops of practically every ridgeline for miles and miles and miles. Its actually kind of an impressive sight in a science-fiction sort of way.
I didn't notice any particular lack of birds, in fact they tended to leave a lot of their "calling cards" all over my rental car any time I parked it for a few hours.
***All the way at the bottom of Spain, not too far from Gibralter, there are about a trillion of these things.***
JOBS ONLINE: Help wanted,One knight in armour to keep birds from windmills. Supply your own helper.
The amount of pressure drop caused by such a screen is very insignificant at typical wind velocity for windmills. Thus it will have almost zero impact on the output of the generator. It is mainly a structural problem more than anything else. The wind mills that are being referred to here are very large - 100s of feet in diameter and such a screen would have to be securely supported all the way around to insure that it couldn't come in contact with any portion of the blades. The screen would have to turn as well to adjust for wind direction so it becomes a tricky engineering problem as well. It is not inconceivable that the additional cost could cause the overall price of a wind mill to double if a screen was incorporated.
Thanks for the explanation!!!
With migratory birds infecting domestic flocks with bird flu virus, this is another good reason to build windmills everywhere we can put them. Better birds die than people. I won't be feeding birds this winter at my place.
Leftists are opposed to any source of cheap and abundant power because cheap and abundant power is what drives the American economy. Thus they will always find a reason to not support cheap and abundant power. Instead they will propose expensive, non-abundant power. The goal is to cripple the economy of the United States. It has nothing to do with the environment, ecology or any other e word.
Though the Altamont Pass is known for its strong winds, it also lies on an important bird-migration route, and its grass-covered hills provide food for several types of raptors. "It's the worst possible place to put a wind farm," said Jeff Miller, a wildlife advocate at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. "It's responsible for an astronomical level of bird kills."
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