Research Reveals How Birds And Wind Turbines Can Safely Coexist

[kristopher]

Research Reveals How Birds And Wind Turbines Can Safely Coexist
by Paul Kerlinger on Tuesday 07 February 2012

A recent incident in which over 400 birds were killed at AES' Laurel Mountain wind farm in West Virginia cast wind turbines in a negative light, and underscores a growing concern for wind farm owners and operators.

But the real culprit for the occurrence was dusk-to-dawn lighting - including a series of 250 W high-sodium lamps mounted on utility poles. However, the incident could have easily been avoided if the project's owners or consultants had taken steps to avoid the effect of non-flashing lights on migrating birds.

A similar incident ...

In a study conducted at communication towers in Michigan, researchers determined that it is the non-flashing lights - not the flashing ones - that attract birds to their death. At that site, they experimented by changing the lights on communication towers, with approval from the FAA, and they found that guyed towers with only red flashing L-864 lights killed 50% to 70% fewer birds than did towers with steady burning L-810 FAA lights.

Research also found that 475-foot-tall towers with guy wires killed 16 times as many birds as towers of the same height without guy wires. This also helps to explain why wind turbines kill so few night migrants when compared to federally licensed communication towers. Without the guy wires found on many communication towers, turbines have fewer structures to cause collisions. In fact, towers with guy wires and non-flashing lights killed nearly 20 times more birds than did unguyed towers with red flashing lights.

The message is clear: ...

http://www.nawindpower.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.9354

[saras]

1. Excellent, solid research, with results useable everywhere. Great.

One other factor is equally as obvious if you catch it - don't put the wind farms in narrow bird migration corridors between mountain ranges, even though there may be good winds there. It's an expensive mistake to fix.

[diane in sf]

2. Great article!

[PamW]

3. Audubon calls for Solar Moratorium at Altamont

Just read this in the "Independent" last night:

http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_e1393fe0-52a8-11e1-8fe3-0019bb2963f4.html

Audubon Official Calls for Raptor Refuge, Moratorium on Altamont Solar

The Audubon Society is calling for a 5-year moratorium on any more solar panels at the Altamont windfarm. The panels require low grass levels while the rodents that are the prey of the area's raptors live in high grass. The planned solar panels will force the rodent population eastward into areas of high grass. The eastward movement of their food source and hunting areas will put the raptors closer to the wind turbines.

PamW