Affordable Energy??

[Wolf]

I have recently come across several articles on the environmental impact of large scale solar energy plants and large scale wind energy farms and their devastating effect on birds, bats and insects of the regions that they exist. here is a link to one of themhttp://newswithviews.com/Neill/steven117.htm

[Wolf]

And for the rebuttal on my previous post.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea ... ne-studies
Any thoughts on this?

[Fidget]

An ornithologist professor of mine actually studies the effects of wind farms on prairie chickens (and bats). They really screw with the prairie chicken mating behaviors. But when he explained the effects on bats, he said their research found only a few turbines were to blame for most of the deaths. So they suggested that those couple be turned off during the evening/night when the bats were flying. It was an almost immediate success and resulted in way less bat deaths.

I think that's a great compromise, to evaluate the flight paths of some of the animals (bc there often seems to be a pattern with them) and manage the offending turbines. It's much better than shutting down entire wind farms. Because we know how safe oil and natural gas exploration/recovery are for the animals out there /sarcasm.

[Matt Alyk]

We just can't win can we? Fossil fuels pollute the air (I'm not an environmentalist, just stating a fact) and renewable energy plants disturb wildlife.

[marie83]

No we won't win because we won't go back to how things should be.

A group of twitches went to see about a supposed sighting of a rare bird. They just caught a sight of it when it flew straight into a turbine blade. True story. I was gutted just reading about it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... chers.html

[Pajarita]

Well, let's be a bit more optimistic. There is always a learning curve for any new endeavor so let's hope we learn from our mistakes and correct them so we can protect wildlife AND provide enough clean energy at the same time.

[Wolf]

Thank you, Pajarita ! I was hopeing that someone would say something very similar to what you said.
We know that the manner that we have been operating for ,say the last 100 years, with its dependence upon fossil fuel was not the way to go. Even before we understood the ramifications of pollution and the consequences of global warming we knew that the fossil fuel would eventually run out and we would have to find a better more sustainable way to produce the energy demands of our world.
I understand and sympathise with the various groups working tirelessly to protect our wildlife from us. But at the same time I have never felt that the answer was to shut down the wind or the solar power facilities. It may end up that the best way to provide the clean, renewable energy is to downsize from large production facilities to smaller local facilities, but if so they are going to be much more numerous. Perhaps all new construction of housing should be required to provide through wind and solar or other clean renewable means enough power for itself and some excess to go into the grid at a local level.
I am sure that I don't know the best way to proceed but, I don't think that shutting these facilities down at this time is the right way to go.

[Pajarita]

I have an easy solution to both wind and solar energy problems with wildlife: put them in a giant cage so the birds cannot reach close enough to get hurt.

[marie83]

How much energy does it take to make, erect and power up one turbine? Then they switch them off regularly so need powering up all over again and apparently are only good for 5 years. I've heard they aren't overly efficient as a power source anyway. Then you need to start building cages around them and the energy it would take to do that? not to mention what kind of gap would you leave in the cage grids they've got to be big enough so air movement isn't restricted but small enough to stop all birds flying through? Dragonflies? tiny moths or butterflies?

Not so simple after all.

I cant comment much on solar power though, I don't know a lot about it's maintenance etc. I know in cloudy countries they aren't efficient enough even with the improvements that have been made to them. They still help I'm sure otherwise people wouldn't bother but enough to offset the energy cost or make/repair/maintain?

[Pajarita]

http://energy.gov/eere/wind/advantages- ... ind-energy

http://renewableenergydev.com/benefits-of-solar-energy/

As to the cage, how much could it cost to have a large cage (you can use SS mosquito screen on a larger gauge for support) built around the large ones (you don't need them with the residential solar panels)? I doubt it's much... And couldn't we put them in a place where there aren't any birds to speak of (the top of a real high mountain? the middle of the dessert?)

The cold fact is that we have no choice but to go to green energy because fossil sources are finite and are destroying the environment way too fast so everybody is working real hard on solutions and I think there is a real good chance we will find them.