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Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling
- adastra22 3y agoWhat a weird comparison. Nobody is saying we should drill oil and gas instead of wind turbines.
- yellow_lead 3y agoWell, there have been campaigns and articles for years attacking wind energy on the basis of protecting birds.
- janmalec 3y agoMay I introduce you to our lord and saviour nuclear energy.
- osigurdson 3y agoIt blows up though.
- saagarjha 3y agoGenerally it does not. Makes a lot of people upset if things don’t work out, sure.
- osigurdson 3y agoAgree. Usually it doesn't blow up but sometimes does. When it does, all of the squirrels in the area get 3 eyes and 5 legs.
- smileysteve 3y agoMore accurately they suffer defects and die. Then there is Chernobyl which now has healthier and more diverse wildlife than much of the world because humans have evacuated.
- osigurdson 3y agoChernobyl was good then?
- smileysteve 3y agoIn the micro, no, see the part about death. In the macro, it created a nature preserve that humans will barely visit, won't hunt in, won't deforest; and requires no active enforcement to keep that way.
- osigurdson 3y agoSo positive NPV in a sense?
- adastra22 3y agoYou have a strange, anti human morality.
- Alifatisk 3y agoHow often does such incident occur?
- osigurdson 3y agoNot often but sometimes.
- renaudg 3y agoYeah and planes crash and it's spectacular, but they're still the safest means of transportation by far.
- osigurdson 3y agoPlanes are fast though. Even if less safe that cars we would still use them.
- adastra22 3y agoAnd nuclear is cheap. It is literally free energy.
- osigurdson 3y agoIf someone gifts you the facility and the staff work for free then maybe.
- bittercynic 3y agoNuclear energy is a little scary to me because I suspect it makes it more economical to build nuclear weapons. -Many more people become atomic experts, and they may be hired by weapons programs in the future. -We will learn how to deal with nuclear materials more efficiently - good for energy, but maybe also good for building weapons. -With more nuclear material being manufactured for energy, will it be easier to hide weapons manufacturing in the mix? I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking from ignorance here. I don't know much about nuclear technology.
- ceejayoz 3y agoNuclear weapons aren't that tough on a nation-scale to produce. It's generally thought that places like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, etc. could make a nuclear weapon in a few months if they really wanted. The barriers are more geopolitical than anything.
- adastra22 3y agoNuclear weapons have very little to do with nuclear energy.
- bittercynic 3y agoCan you elaborate on that? Are the processes for making fuel for energy so different from the processes for bomb material that one doesn't help the other at all?
- audunw 3y agoThat's a "yes, and" kind of thing. We can't build nuclear fast enough yet. So we need both. I'd argue that wind and solar is much more important at this point since the growth of those is now faster than nuclear has ever been. And fast growth of non-fossil energy sources is priority #1 right now. We can free up some land later with nuclear. Wind and solar isn't going to push any species to extinction, so any damage is reversible. Though I'm a bit wary of nuclear given there are studies indicating that the heat energy added by thermal power plants contributes surprisingly much to global warming. If we can replace all thermal power plants with renewables that's a nice contribution to reducing global warming. On the order of CO2 emissions from planes if I remember correctly. I'm sure we could "afford" the heat from thermal power plants if we didn't have so many greenhouse gases. But when we're already so close to the edge of the cliff, every little bit counts.
- kika 3y agoIf we produced a gigawatt of energy by cleanest way possible, where do you think this gigawatt ends up? Some "energy dumpyard" somewhere outside the solar system?
- pjc50 3y agoIn the long term .. yes? The temperature is a balance between energy incoming from the sun and energy being radiated off into space. Wind and solar don't change that balance directly, although the lower reflectivity of solar panels makes a small local difference. Ultimately it's the transmissibility spectrum of the atmosphere that matters. Which is why we care about CO2 in the first place.
- awiejrilawej 3y agoI'm genuinely curious, why are there so many extraordinarily pro-nuclear people on this forum? And how many of them have greater than zero experience with nuclear anything? I worked in the nuclear power industry for a decade and people in the industry are not as maniacally pro-nuclear as the people in this forum.
- evandale 3y agoThis forum has lots of highly intelligent individuals and nuclear power is the most intelligent energy source to switch to so we can stop relying on fossil fuels. Perhaps you were working with people who don't feel the need to talk about how great nuclear is all the time because you all work in the industry and understand that already.
- pjc50 3y agoIt's weird, isn't it? There's a lot of nuclear cheerleaders, and it makes me suspicious when they're also anti-renewables rather than "yes, and". Essentially everyone has forgotten the arguments of the nineties: nuclear weapons proliferation, waste dumping, and covering the entirety of western Europe in a thin layer of airborne radioactive particles. As well as the more practical cost overruns. Personally I think it would be worth someone giving SMR a go, but in a different country from me and at their own expense.
- gcheong 3y ago"nuclear weapons proliferation,..." Seems like we got that anyway thanks to the military industrial complex without getting much in the way of nuclear energy generation.
- pjc50 3y agoLots of places built dual-purpose reactors? The initial UK nuclear program (Windscale) was weapons-first. The famous French reactor programme and their independent nuclear deterrent are also linked. Also, this is why people are reluctant to let some of the world's larger carbon emitters, the oil states in the middle east, build nuclear reactors. Iran has a small, heavily monitored fleet.
- mrweasel 3y agoThe people who are concerned about wind turbines killing birds also tend to not want nuclear power plants.
- smileysteve 3y agoAnd by wanting nuclear, within the context of the build pace of nuclear is to support the status quo - ie oil and gas. It's the same conclusion as hydrogen car investment. It's easy to maintain ice technology, but the generation, storage, trabsport, use are riddled with issues.
- beaeglebeached 3y agoOf course, if your neighbor has a good turbine spot and you don't, you have to look at it while his property's utility rises over yours. That, cannot be tolerated. They're free to move to industrial zoned land if they want to be a power plant. (Neither the ag-backwoods voters controlling their zoning nor capitalists installing them are hyper concerned about sparrows getting chopped up. It's a ruse.)
- sunshinesnacks 3y ago> That, cannot be tolerated. Why, exactly?
- beaeglebeached 3y agoIf you search zoning meeting wind turbine Google images it will be revealed quickly. Scan the demographic. Old people who've already gotten theirs with mostly invented blame for ailments. It's all downside for them, to see their landscape change and plant a tree who's shade they'll never see.
- red1reaper 3y agobah, old people is the reason why we are climatically bad in the first place, its a downside they are going to have to accept.
- sunshinesnacks 3y agoI originally thought you were arguing that wind turbines should not be able to be installed on someone’s property if they can’t also go on the neighbors property, but now I’m not sure. Was your first comment sarcasm? Maybe I’m just misreading.
- beaeglebeached 3y agoIt was sarcasm.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoThe Canadian province of Alberta has more or less this exact policy.
- gnabgib 3y agoThe province with the most solar (1511mw to #2-Ontario's 944mw[0]), and most wind power (4431mw to #2-Ontario's 3822mw [1]) in the country? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_Canada
- dghlsakjg 3y agoI didn’t say that they don’t have green energy. I said that they currently have a government policy that is designed to promote oil and hinder green energy projects. https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/canadas-oil-rich-alberta-province-halts-renewable-energy-projects-96c3e369 https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/canadas-oil-rich-alberta-...
- imafish 3y agoWhat would be a better comparison?
- adastra22 3y agoNuclear. Solar. Geothermal. Hydro.
- nfriedly 3y agoI think some people are saying exactly that.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey absolutely are saying that. https://theintercept.com/2021/12/08/oil-industry-wind-farm-prevent/ https://theintercept.com/2021/12/08/oil-industry-wind-farm-p... > The plan, which was approved in 2017, sanctioned a Danish company to build a 120-megawatt capacity wind energy project — enough to power 40,000 homes by placing turbines 26 nautical miles offshore. The letter warned that the project would “irreparably damage beach tourism, home values and the economy,” “lower rents generally,” and produce “no environmental benefit.” “In fact,” the letter claimed, “regional air quality would become worse because of them.” > While the letter was signed by a local resident, it made little mention of its true author: the Caesar Rodney Institute, a libertarian think tank at the time funded by the oil industry. The subterfuge was intentional. In an interview with the State Policy Network, a group that coordinates best practices for oil-and-gas-backed and libertarian think tanks, the Caesar Rodney Institute said it produced the letter and had it signed by a local concerned beach homeowner to “establish rapport” with the target audience of local residents and merchants.
- genman 3y agoYet those opponents of the wind turbines want to have all the benefits of the modern society like medicine and transportation and that sweet electricity that enables the electromagnetic waves used for planet wide communication. It almost feels like they are shilling for oil and gas companies or for authoritarian regimes that receive their main income from oil and gas drilling.
- osigurdson 3y agoIt really doesn't matter what anyone wants. Hydrocarbons are a huge but decreasing part of the energy mix. Eventually we will not use them but it is going to take 50-100 years.
- tasty_freeze 3y agoI don't know where you are, but in the US there is a large percentage of the population who claim to believe that, who claim that "green coal" is a thing, and they vote like they believe it. Former President Trump has repeatedly stated that wind turbines are terrible for birds. I'm no mind reader, but it is also a fact that he owns a coastal golf course and sued to prevent development of a wind farm because he didn't want his golfers experience to be affected by seeing offshore wind turbines. 2016: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/trumps-hot-air-on-wind-energy/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/trumps-hot-air-on-wind-ene... 2018: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/trump-again-overblows-risks-of-wind-power/ https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/trump-again-overblows-risk... 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/23/trump-bizarre-tirade-windmills https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/23/trump-bizarr... 2020: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-wind-energy-kills-birds-presidential-debate-joe-biden/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-wind-energy-kills-... 2023: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagles-killed-wind-turbines-1778304 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagle... I'm sure if I looked beyond the first page of search results, I could fill in the other years. Some information about the lawsuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_Scotland_Ltd_v_The_Scottish_Ministers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
- dangus 3y agoMy Fox News Dad sure does.
- ajuc 3y agoThere's currently a big public debate in my country regarding relaxing building restrictions for wind turbines, and all the FUD about noise levels, killing birds etc is very much in use. Current law is so harsh that you can build a coal powerplant closer to peoples' houses than a wind turbine :) That's despite the fact we have the worst air pollution in EU and the wind turbines would replace coal powerplants... TL; DR: you're wrong.
- mrweasel 3y agoYou are sort of correct, nobody is saying that directly, but that is the result. The people who are concerned about wind turbines killing birds aren't offering any alternatives, that would be widely accepted, so the result is fossil fuel, because that's what we already have in place. The anti-nuclear protests in the 60s and 70s also didn't want fossil fuels, but they also didn't understand that an increase in fossil fuel usage was the alternative, because it was the only one that made financial sense.
- pjc50 3y agoA lot of the anti-nuclear protests during the Cold War were against nuclear reactors because of nuclear weapons, which offered a much more immediate threat against the habitability of the earth.
- rappatic 3y agoI wish a proper study on this could get some real funding. The cited study is certainly better than nothing but it's based on a volunteer reported survey with significant response bias (eg. maybe the drop in bird sightings near oil and gas drilling is because people don't want to go birdwatching near an oil field).
- jeffbee 3y agoYou want a "proper study" instead of an annual time series, comparable for over a century, conducted by millions of individuals? What a goofy comment. This is gold-standard data. The paper even explains why this is superior to nerd bullshit like eBird.
- Hnrobert42 3y agoWhoa whoa whoa. Whoa! Watch what are you calling nerd bullshit. ;-)
- red1reaper 3y agoyou are right, in any case it would be nerd birdshit
- imafish 3y ago[flagged]
- widdershins 3y agoAnd kill all pet cats.
- deely3 3y agoIf we continue sarcasm line.. this is sarcasm, yes? Then we should kill all cats globally. Billion of birds killed by cars even in places where cats native for thousends years.
- quesera 3y ago> Billion of birds killed by cars even in places where cats native You raise a good point. however unintentionally! :)
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago[flagged]
- Tagbert 3y agoThen let's start with the strays. Our cat was a rescued stray whose ear was docked when she was spayed. A block away from us is a house with a whole colony of stray cats that people have put up housing and other people come by and feed them. It doesn't look like those cats have been fixed judging by their ears.
- gumby 3y agoI’m a cat owner but probably will never get another one. Definitely not if I move back to Australia.
- ceejayoz 3y agoAn indoor-only cat kills no birds. Bonus points for spaying/neutering.
- onionisafruit 3y agoI want to believe, but this article is less than convincing without reading detail about the study’s methods. I didn’t see a link to the paper on my first read. When I decided to go back and get the author’s name, Economist’s paywall kicked in. If anybody can see the full article, it would be lovely if you put the name of the researcher in the comments so I can read the original paper.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoIt's easy to believe. The massive ecological destruction caused by the oil and gas industry is well documented. Whatever downsides there are to wind mills, pale in comparison to that.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>Whatever downsides there are to wind mills, pale in comparison to that. So in your world we're going to do whatever because it can't be as bad? Sounds like a terrible plan.
- firebat45 3y agoSo in your world, we make no attempt to improve anything unless we can achieve 100% perfection? Sounds like a terrible plan.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoNo in my world we don't delay the process of stopping to destroy our planet over some minor concerns that are typically raised by people who argue against this because they want to continue burning stuff and slow down the demise of the fossil fuel industry. These people don't actually care about our planet, the environment, or any of this. And I suspect your concern is disingenuous.
- gumby 3y agoThis comment has the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968302
- Proven 3y ago[dead]
- pcwelder 3y agoLink to the paper pprint https://ekatovich.github.io/files/Katovich_Birds_and_Energy_Infrastructure_PrePrint.pdf https://ekatovich.github.io/files/Katovich_Birds_and_Energy_...
- jeffbee 3y ago[flagged]
- kapnap 3y agoIncredibly false. A typical "large" rig will need a 100m x 100m drill pad, roads to access which are often highly controlled during the design phase. A drilling rig will remain on location for MAYBE 30-40 days if it is a deep well (2000m-7000m). A completions rig (aka service rig) will come out afterwards to complete the well (install downhole equipment / frac / get the well ready for production). Lease may be a bit bigger if large frac. Been a drilling engineer for 15+ years so haven't really seen too many fracs.
- CapitalistCartr 3y agoSo 2-1/2 acres plus roads, instead of 5 acres, and you address how long, which OP didn't mention, in no way disputing him. Not a basis for leading with "incredibly false."
- jeffbee 3y agoSeriously, every hole results in an eventual dump, tank, yard, road, or some other dang thing and the net land wrecked per operation is five acres. https://maps.app.goo.gl/sKfYNokGcidWLGTQ7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/sKfYNokGcidWLGTQ7
- kapnap 3y agoSheesh. That's insane. My understanding is that East California is like that too. Not sure the status as of today and if this is still permitted or not? Look up some images from LA in the early oil boom - crazy. Here's an example of them in Alberta (where I am familiar): https://maps.app.goo.gl/73x4uKZxWKbZkgD76 https://maps.app.goo.gl/73x4uKZxWKbZkgD76
- jeffbee 3y ago
- delegate 3y ago> their blades can spin at well over 200km per hour. It is easy to imagine careless birds getting chopped to bits. Interesting use of the word 'friendlier'.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThat's the article's introduction; the rest of the article goes on to indicate why that imagined concern isn't as bad as imagined, especially when compared to the impact on birds of fossil fuel production and use.
- devilcius 3y agoWhat does it means for a wind turbine to spin at 200km per hour? Serious question.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThe speed at which the tips of the very long blades move.
- SamBam 3y agoThe local birds killed by oil drilling aren't even what we should be comparing to. Even if that number were zero, bird populations world still be better off in a world powered by wind turbines than oil and gas. Global warning is coming for birds too. Global warming poses an "existential threat for two thirds of North American bird species" [1] and obviously a similar proportion of bird species around the globe. 1. https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees
- swader999 3y ago[flagged]
- ajross 3y agoBecause they migrated or are in hibernation, adaptations that exist precisely to accommodate the particular climate of your area. Disrupt that and you mess up their ecosystem. I really fail to understand how this kind of glib response persists even in forums like this one where people claim to be good at reasoning.
- wredue 3y agoLots of these are bots, and be careful responding to them, as HN views responding to the anti-science brigades as “not in the spirit of good conversation”, and will readily post limit you (while funnily allowing anti-science to remain rampant, while also complaining about how bigotry and anti-science is becoming too rampant here).
- bigbillheck 3y ago> Lots of these are bots If you check that account's post history the entity behind it certainly seems to be an actual person.
- botanical 3y agoAgree 100%. Wind turbines killing birds is a disingenuous argument when it comes to climate change. > Birds of prey in Africa experiencing population collapse, study finds > new research used road surveys to find that nearly 90% of the 42 raptor species studied had experienced declines, with more than two-thirds showing evidence of being globally threatened. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/04/birds-of-prey-in-africa-experiencing-population-collapse-study-finds-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/04/birds-of...
- forward1 3y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago"Cool, where is his study published?" The answer you seek is in the second (short!) paragraph. > But a new analysis of American data, published in Environmental Science & Technology...
- saagarjha 3y agoNot that I have any problem with people seeking to advance the scientific method but one wonders from this commenter’s other posts whether this was a legitimate desire for truth or someone just looking to poke holes in the post…
- forward1 3y ago> legitimate desire for truth or someone just looking to poke holes in the post What is the difference?
- saagarjha 3y agoAnger.
- forward1 3y agoYou're right. We must be civilized and restrained from emotion. All anger is to be reserved for "Hate Week".
- ceejayoz 3y agoGood versus bad faith. The person looking for truth will likely go "thanks!" when receiving the clarification or additional info they were searching for. The person looking to poke holes will move onto the next trumped-up quibble and force someone to knock that down too. Repeat ad infinitum until people get fed up and you can claim victory. (for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968969) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop As the (ironically, probably not) Churchill quote goes: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
- chadbr 3y agoClearly nobody in the responses has stood next to an oil well or a wind turbine.
- VincentEvans 3y agoElaborate. Haven’t stood next to either. My curiosity is piqued. What should I be expecting when I find myself so lucky?
- sergiotapia 3y agoHere you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc imagine living with that 12 hours a day. like a drop of water hitting your forehead every few seconds. forever.
- rglover 3y agoI would go on a rampage.
- wongarsu 3y agoLooks like it would be an issue for maybe an hour or two a day in either the morning or the evening. Unless that's a location close to the arctic circle where the sun stays that low for significant portions of the day. Don't get me wrong, that looks extremely annoying, especially if it happens in the evening hours. And I don't whish it on anybody. But the people in that video don't have to endure it the entire day, only while the sun is very close to the horizon.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> imagine living with that 12 hours a day Given the video clearly depicts sunset, that is indeed an imaginary problem.
- VincentEvans 3y agoLol, thats it? This is the downside compared to the oil and coal?
- heythere22 3y agohttps://archive.is/3xriv https://archive.is/3xriv
- locallost 3y agoI am not a conspiracy theorist, it's just a simple case of "follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar per year business and their interest is to keep it this way. So poisoning the well is a good strategy for them. If you thought about it, it was clear the bird argument was always just a talking point nimby types were fed with, so they have something alarming to repeat and to get outraged, without really caring if it's true. The only thing they cared about is not having wind turbines because of their (weird?) aesthetic preferences and desires to have things stay the same forever. Ironically the bird and animal population overall are struggling with the way things are now and how they want to keep it. But again, they don't really care about that.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoYeah but the alternative / green energy industry is also worth hundreds of billions; [0] says solar will be a $373B industry by 2029, [1] says wind will be $278B by 2030, and [2] says nuclear will be a tiny $38B by 2029. My point is that the alternative energy sector's financial interests are at least as big as the fossil fuel industry's, but they put a lot of effort into coming across as The Good Guys That Will Save Our Planet For The Future Of Our Children, because that means they will get government funding and investments from new energy and infrastructure projects. Disclaimer: I pulled these numbers from the first google search results. I don't know why they all look 5 years ahead. I am not an energy or financial expert. [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-power-market-size-2022-134700872.html?guccounter=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-power-market-size-2022-... [1] https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/global-wind-power-market-to-record-robust-20231114 https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/global-wind-pow... [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-nuclear-energy-market-outlook-2023-2030-opportunities/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-nuclear-energy-market-...
- locallost 3y agoEverything they say deserves scrutiny too. So if they say for instance "we are the cheapest form of energy" of course people should question it. But we are not talking about them here, it's simply a fact the fossil fuel industry is deploying the same tactic of sowing doubt for decades now. From birds to "we don't know definitely if climate change exists" to again "there is climate change but who says people can't adapt" and so on. Their talking points have been debunked and you won't change that by saying others are bad.
- andromeduck 3y agojust build nukes
- m0llusk 3y agoThis is broken logic. Working primarily with averages leads directly to repeating the mistakes of the statistician who drown in a lake that was an average of three feet deep. Currently one of the notably large wind farms being operated is in the Altamont Pass in California which also happens to be the preferred spawning site for golden eagles. Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California? The issue isn't wind farms or fossil fuels, it is exactly how we should build and maintain these wind farms and where. Using the critically needed energy transition to wipe out species of wild animals may not be an appropriate strategy.
- AdamN 3y agoThat's a second order question - and one worth asking when decision-makers and stakeholders are being intellectually honest. The problem is that Trump et al. are disingenuously saying that we shouldn't build wind turbines at all because of the birds.
- kstrauser 3y ago> Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California? Yes. Boiling our atmosphere will harm bald eagles in addition to everything else. Bald eagles are cool birds, unless you live somewhere that they’re as common as seagulls and 20x as annoying. If forced to choose, I’d rather have a healthy world with few bald eagles than Venus with none.
- l5870uoo9y 3y agoThe title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- codingdave 3y agoAffordable is the trick, though - while I totally understand why that is important, sometimes it seems like we're going to end up saying: "Sorry we are going extinct... staying alive wasn't profitable." I know that is both an idealistic and hyperbolic take on things. The bigger point is that when people say "affordable", they often really mean "profitable". But we cannot afford not to fix the problems.
- garte 3y agoIt seems to me that nuclear and fossil energy is heavily subsidized almost everywhere. So affordability is kind of a tricky metric.
- throwawayqqq11 3y ago"Affordable" could also be taken as "doable". Which broadens the scope largely but misses the main problem: sustainability. This take is not just not helpful but, i would argue, actively harmful to the debate. By definition, sustainability is a waste management, that allows recycling rates of 90% or higher. CO2 is just one of our waste products we totally didnt care about.
- shadowgovt 3y agoThe United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings on the moon. And this was done during a time that historians don't generally consider to be a time of vast deprivation for the populace; it turns out investing in and inventing rocketry and aerospace technologies the likes of which humanity has never seen before is great for job creation. How much of the GDP should we be willing to spend to actively replace pollution generating energy plants with lower polluting alternatives?
- foxyv 3y agoIf we cared about birds we would be talking about reducing car traffic and saving more areas for wildlife. The argument against Solar and Wind with regards to wildlife preservation is almost always a distraction.
- rootusrootus 3y agoIf we cared about birds we'd be aggressively controlling the cat population.
- throwaway5752 3y agodeleted
- anticorporate 3y agoI think you and the parent commenter are using different scopes for the word "we" in this case. There are some great programs in places to manage feral cat populations, but in many areas they are no where close to large enough to help fix population-level impacts on birds.
- jfengel 3y agoThe OP is pointing out that most pearl-clutching about the effects of wind turbines comes from people who don't care about birds in any other context. It's solely a way to continue fossil fuel production, using the language of environmentalism. A serious discussion of the safety of birds would sound very different, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to talk about anything other than reducing fossil fuel production.
- wredue 3y agoRidiculous argument. Why on earth would people care about the birds in the context of natural processes compared to unnatural processes? This is a monumentally stupid apples and oranges “gotcha”.
- ryandvm 3y ago[flagged]
- reactordev 3y ago[flagged]
- failTide 3y agoCats and wind turbines present dangers to different types of birds, with the turbines being a danger to larger raptors including condors - so I think your comparison is an oversimplification of the issue, even though I'm a proponent of wind power in general.
- ta1243 3y agoLOL, I'm reminded of a Futurama episode from over a decade ago where one of the presidential candidates during the debate, when asked "Environment: Yes or No" replied: Two words: Condor attack. Don't want that. Got to say no. It feels like "Condor" is a trigger phrase that's been around and programmed into people for years
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- failTide 3y agoThey were extinct in the wild in the late 80s. There's under 500 in the wild now. Of all the things that might trigger people, I suppose condor extinction is pretty understandable.
- hotsauceror 3y agoThe entire "it kills birds" feels like such a canard, to me. I don't understand to whom this kind of appeal is directed. It seems to me that the primary interests at stake are 1) the myriad financial interests in the extraction, distribution, and consumption of petroleum-based energy products, and 2) the negative impact on the environment of these same activities. So let's just have that discussion, on those terms? I cannot believe that someone like Donald Trump, for example, actually gives a shit about birds, and that that is what informs his opposition to the use of wind turbines. It seems unlikely, although possible, that that argument would persuade others of a like mind? And there have been other, similarly pitiful positions advanced, such as that an increase in the use of solar and wind power increases our exposure to UV radiation and skin cancer, from the sun? I just don't understand why these arguments are made, and to whom. I cannot imagine that either 1) they would convince anyone who cares about the debate, or 2) that the population of people who WOULD be convinced by such arguments, would amount to much - either in the size of the population or the force of their support.
- djleni 3y agoBased on the people I’ve heard make points like this, I don’t think it does convince anyone. I think this type of argument fills a totally different role: “I don’t believe or care about climate change and would like to keep my life as is, but this creates cognitive dissonance when someone shows it’s bad. I can use this argument to say your idea is as bad too! Dissonance lessened.” At least when I’ve heard it it’s that context. The person saying it doesn’t really care if it’s accurate or equivalently bad, just that they have a gotcha to say when presented evidence for wind being good.
- hotsauceror 3y agoYes, right. It seems like some sort of desperate, last-minute thing to fling in someone's face. "Oh yeah? If you care about nature so much how come you're in favor of these giant things that slaughter birds? I guess we can safely disregard all your arguments."
- jiggawatts 3y ago
- drewcoo 3y agoWind turbines are not very friendly at all to oil-and-gas drilling!
- gokhan 3y agoDirect competition, why would they be?
- flkenosad 3y agoWhy does nobody talk about the real issue with wind and solar? It's ugly. It distracts from the landscape.
- squidbeak 3y agoUglier than fossil extraction, or the concealed ugliness of nuclear waste? Uglier than climate change?
- thomasmg 3y agoYes, I also prefer the beautiful oil rigs, and the nice smell of coal in the air. Anyway, all the buildings made by humans are so nice to look at, except for the really really ugly solar and wind installations!
- digging 3y agoI really loving driving through oil-rich areas and seeing flames dotting the horizon. Maybe we can start piping some natural gas directly to wind turbines to spew fires out the top so they're more elegant?
- i80and 3y agoI actually think wind farms look really relaxing and cool, and love driving past them. But that's just individual aesthetic preferences.
- jurassicfoxy 3y agoI didn't realize how stupid of an argument this was until my girlfriend pointed out how every single highway/landscape/street is absolutely covered in powerlines. The very few wind turbines are beautiful in comparison to what you see all over the continent, every day.
- locallost 3y agoIt's really crazy how easy it is to convince people of something.
- vorticalbox 3y ago> with the exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii What is it about these places that made them effect the bird population? Did it negatively effect it?
- thelastgallon 3y agoIt's estimated that cats kill 1.3–4 billion birds each year in the U.S. alone, with 69% of these kills attributable to feral or unowned cats: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-their-effects-on-birds/ https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-cats-and-thei...
- pvaldes 3y ago> We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to a limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search "Our data about US were so poor that we needed to add data from other continents" > cats kill 1.3–4 billion birds each year in the U.S. "But we still ended somehow with this bold and likeable value made with a mix of pure air, foreign data and statistical spice" Another case of turd data polished to gold by the magic of science. People will repeat it for decades online.
- callalex 3y agoYou provide quotes but no attribution for those quotes.
- pvaldes 3y agoFair point. This is the original article in nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380?WT.mc_id=FBK_NCOMMS#abstract https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380?WT.mc_id=FBK_NCOM... "Methods: We searched JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the Web of Science database [...] within the Web of Knowledge search engine [...] to identify studies that document cat predation on birds and mammals" "We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to a limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search to [...] other temperate regions. We also searched for studies providing estimates of cat population sizes [on] the contiguous USA and for US studies that estimate the proportion of owned cats with outdoor access and the proportion of cats that hunt wildlife. [Our] search terms included: ‘domestic cat’ [combined] with ‘predation,’ ‘prey,’ ‘diet,’ ‘food item’ and ‘mortality’;" "We estimated wildlife mortality in [...] USA by multiplying data-derived probability distributions of predation rates by distributions of estimated cat abundance" "[]" edited by me for clarity Data-derived distributions based on a poor sample were extrapolated to every ecosystem in US? Data with a special focus on temperate areas were extrapolated to temperate and non temperate? Have deserts the same amount of birds as forests? Assuming that preys are equally distributed on USA would need to assume that every ecosystem is equal, or that cats are equally successful chasing birds in all terrains. This seems unlikely. To start because birds migrate and its distribution is patched. Cats can't migrate. Taiga in winter don't has the same birds as Florida in winter
- myko 3y agoNo respectable person took idiotic politicians who claimed otherwise seriously. It is sad the economist had to put an article out on this topic.
- thelastgallon 3y agoBirds have sensitive lungs, Canary in a coal mine comes to mind. ... birds respiratory system being so sensitive, it is vitally important that the bird's breath fresh, pure air. Toxins or pollutants in the air can quickly become a major source of problem and even death for the bird: https://cdn.ymaws.com/petsitters.org/resource/resmgr/virtual_library_/how_does_a_birds_lungs_work.pdf https://cdn.ymaws.com/petsitters.org/resource/resmgr/virtual... Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year[1]. Air pollution must impact birds a lot more than humans. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-pollution-deaths-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p...
- smm11 3y agoNobody uses bug screens on cars anymore because the bugs are fewer. Bee populations are in decline. And we're killing off birds. Have a nice day staring at the smart tablet in your car.
- clintonbush 3y agoOr nuclear. There's that. Way less land occupation, no carpeting hillsides with solar panels, no ungainly windmills, no millions of pounds of toxic heavy metals to dispose of when batteries and panels go bad, and...oh....it works regardless of the weather.
- standeven 3y ago...and also requires uranium mining and risks nuclear weapons proliferation. I prefer solar and wind.
- standeven 3y agoI worked in oil/gas for a long time. In addition to "windmills are killing all the birds", here are a few of the top green energy lies I've heard: 1. Solar panels are toxic, require more energy to produce than they generate, and can't be recycled. 2. EV's are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles. 3. Lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling. 4. Solar/wind prices are skyrocketing and everyone is abandoning solar/wind. 5. Solar/wind can't work because they're too intermittent. 6. Climate change isn't real OR climate change is real but natural and unstoppable OR climate change is helpful to the planet (these opposing beliefs are often repeated back to back)
- jairuhme 3y agoDo you have sources as to why they are lies? I'm not doubting you, but simply saying they're lies is just as disingenuous as the people making the statements in the first place
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoThis is an HN comment thread, not a peer-reviewed paper on "lies convenient to the fossil fuel industries". However, for your convenience, I used google to search for "are solar panels net energy positive" and found this as the 2nd link: https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-manufacture-actually-produce/ https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-manu... This contains a link to at least one peer-reviewed paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3038824 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3038824 I can almost guarantee that a similar process will elicit similar answers for every other point in the GP's list.
- naskwo 3y agoHow does this compare to the estimates amount of birds that are killed by house cats every year? I had an argument with a vegetarian cat owner about this the other week….
- Aldipower 3y agoHackernews. The pseudo politics portal of the new age. Came here for computers..
- RagnarD 3y agoNuclear reactors are friendlier to birds than either.
- Vicinity9635 3y ago[dead]
- kevrmoore 3y ago[flagged]
- roc856 3y agoThe article has some logical flaws. The allegation is that wind turbines kill birds, not that they chase them away. There was no evidence at all that oil and gas drilling kills birds, only that their numbers are decreased in that area. Perhaps oil and gas drilling does kill birds; if so, the article's author should have explained how that happens. True, global warming might also kill birds, but none of the evidence in the article was about the effects of global warming.
- jacquesm 3y agoNote that there has been a concerted effort to discredit windmills by the oil-and-gas industry to portray them as meat grinders for birds with the same photographs and handy boilerplate text distributed to various "special interest groups" (read: astroturfers) all over the globe to try to stave off the inevitable. And all of this is perfectly legal. They did the same with whales.
- palisade 3y agoThe problem is that they're not wrong, turbines and even solar towers wipe out vast bird and bat populations. Obama had to pass a last minute law approving the numerous deaths of bald eagle populations unfortunately. Water desalination projects leave behind dead zones of salt in the water that wipe out fish populations. Another example is recycling centers grinding up the plastic and releasing a scary amount of microplastics into the environment. I think we need a little bit of self introspection when it comes to environmentalism. When our green tech isn't so green we need to "do better" and make it healthier for the environment. I don't think we should ever stop trying to figure out how to make it less harmful. Hiding our collective heads in the sand and saying, "Look it is green so it can't be causing the same problems," is going to put us into an echo chamber where we can do no wrong. And, in the end justify doing damage we'll regret later. We all live on this planet together we should be good shepherds of it.
- jacquesm 3y ago> The problem is that they're not wrong, turbines and even solar towers wipe out vast bird and bat populations. > Obama had to pass a last minute law approving the numerous deaths of bald eagle populations unfortunately. 316K Eagles vs 150 confirmed deaths due to windmills over a decade. So yes, they're wrong. And amplifying this sort of thing is exactly what those campaigns hope for, so you're doing their work for them. You're in good company, Donald Trump did the exact same thing (and made up a number to go with it rather than to claim 'vast' numbers). Does it mean that any numbers of Bald Eagles killed by windmills is acceptable? No, of course it doesn't. But either we have a different idea when we hear the word 'vast' or 'vast' is exaggerated. edit: here is an article to back this up: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagles-killed-wind-turbines-1778304 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagle...
- joemazerino 3y agoGood luck telling India or China.
- knodi123 3y agoI can't quite tell in what sense you mean this- whataboutist? defeatist? something else? Anyway, we should all be part of the solution, and also work on convincing the worst polluters to join us. In fact, doing the former would help with accomplishing the latter.
- joemazerino 3y agoThe West already has the lowest carbon emissions out of all major industrialized regions. The worst polluters are India and China, both of which are building more coal plants. Crippling our economy while they build theirs is insipid.
- knodi123 3y agoChina's emissions are actually set to decrease this year (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to...) And China and India are less polluting per capita than the US. The U.S. has the thirteenth-highest per capita emissions at 13.68 tons, while Russia is 20th (11.64), Japan is 26th (8.39), China is 28th (8.20), and India is 110th with a mere 1.74 tons per capita. "Crippling our economy" is a one-sided and negative way to view it. I question your objectivity.
- appstorelottery 3y agoBuildings are less friendlier to birds than either.
- 6R1M0R4CL3 3y agotell that to the birds under protection because they're going away that we fetch ded around those wind turbines weekly. including very rare and going away eagles in some countries.
- meristohm 3y agoOur level of consumption, whatever the source of energy, is killing so much life on Earth. There are better ways to coexist. Arguing about the source is a diversion from making steps towards significant decreases in per capita energy consumption.