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The Israel Nature and Parks Authority studied bird and bat kill and the effectiveness of mitigations and ended up calling for a moratorium. So did the environme

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority studied bird and bat kill and the effectiveness of mitigations and ended up calling for a moratorium. So did the environment ministry and the Society for the Protection of Nature [1]. That article is worth reading not so much for the absolute numbers of birds and bats killed, as for the mitigation study. The wind company, Enlight, put a Portuguese radar system in to stop the turbines when large birds flew close. (This was a condition of their permit.) The INPA cross-checked this against data from bird tracking tags. The system didn't activate even once when the tracked birds entered the supposed range of the radar. I've had a bee in my bonnet about bird kill since reading the last graf: "An Enlight spokesperson defended the company’s actions. The company did not respond to requests to comment on the INPA study showing the Portuguese technology to be ineffective." Either the radar really is that bad, which I think is unlikely, or Enlight configured it not to trigger. Either way it's pretty unconscionable for them to play coy. For all the comments here and elsewhere about no-one really caring about incidental bird take, this seems a clearer case of bad faith to me. It's a company refusing to engage with the public about a proven failure of its systems while seeking additional concessions. It's OK to be an anti-NIMBY. Saying everyone who cares about birds is arguing in bad faith isn't laudable, but it's besides the point, really. Just bear in mind that wind companies are not operating to save the environment, but to make a profit. They can act in bad faith too. Therefore, if you have any interest in reducing the ecological stress turbines create, you should also be interested in keeping those companies honest. [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/environment-minister-seeking-moratorium-on-new-wind-farms-to-probe-impact-on-nature/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/environment-minister-seeking-m...

topynate 4y ago
Just to give an idea of what the actual trade-offs are between the benefits of wind and the immediate ecological impact, I ran some numbers a few months ago and reached an estimate of somewhere between $1700 and $2500 saved in "social cost of carbon" per dead bird, for on-shore wind power in Scotland and the north of England. Social cost of carbon is the estimated value of the benefits of reduced carbon emissions, including benefits to human health. For a non-endangered bird, even $1700 saved is a good deal. Clearly a pigeon's life is not worth $1700 (not that pigeons are particularly at risk from turbines). For a critically endangered bird, it is not a good deal at all (extinctions are very bad). At some point there's a cross-over. The problem is that as you build out wind power, you kill more birds, which starts putting populations under stress that weren't stressed before. In other words the cross-over point moves. That makes effective mitigations more important the more wind power gets built. Ideally a doubling of capacity should be accompanied by a halving of the kill rate per unit of capacity. A mitigation strategy that could cope with all the planned capacity increases would probably look like: paint jobs on all new build, plus effective radar that can brake the turbines, plus a form of active deterrent (i.e. microwave or sonic repellent). All this while policing the wind companies by tracking tagged birds.

topynate 4y ago

Just to give an idea of what the actual trade-offs are between the benefits of wind and the immediate ecological impact, I ran some numbers a few months ago and reached an estimate of somewhere between $1700 and $2500 saved in "social cost of carbon" per dead bird, for on-shore wind power in Scotland and the north of England. Social cost of carbon is the estimated value of the benefits of reduced carbon emissions, including benefits to human health. For a non-endangered bird, even $1700 saved is a good deal. Clearly a pigeon's life is not worth $1700 (not that pigeons are particularly at risk from turbines). For a critically endangered bird, it is not a good deal at all (extinctions are very bad). At some point there's a cross-over. The problem is that as you build out wind power, you kill more birds, which starts putting populations under stress that weren't stressed before. In other words the cross-over point moves. That makes effective mitigations more important the more wind power gets built. Ideally a doubling of capacity should be accompanied by a halving of the kill rate per unit of capacity. A mitigation strategy that could cope with all the planned capacity increases would probably look like: paint jobs on all new build, plus effective radar that can brake the turbines, plus a form of active deterrent (i.e. microwave or sonic repellent). All this while policing the wind companies by tracking tagged birds.