by Wolf » Wed Mar 04, 2015 6:16 pm
It seems to me that the smaller wind turbines such as used by a home owner or farm are not causing the same type of problems with the killing of wildlife and the same appears to be true for the small solar units sold to these same type customer, that may also be due to the difference in the technology used, photovoltaics for the home owner or small farms whereas the large facilities are using a heat storage/ retrieval system to create steam to produce electricity so the use mirrors which concentrate the light and heat from the solar radiation which then kills anything that passes through the focused light beam.
I see no reason that screening would not work to shield the wildlife from the blades of a wind turbine of any size.
I think that brings us to the transmission lines. This should not be a large problem if the electricity is produced locally by small units that provide an excess of energy for the facility that installs it as most of that wiring is already in place. So the issue is with the industrial sized units, that is the large megawatt producing plants for powering cities, but we are going to have his issue regardless of how we choose to provide the electric power that is needed because we already need to replace most of the existing power grid due to its age. While the transmission lines may need to be longer this should be offset somewhat by the lower cost of operation and maintenance that would be required.
With all of this bouncing around in my mind, I don't know why we cant make the large facilities using both wind turbines and photovoltaics together to produce electricity and forego the mirrors that are torching the wildlife.
