Yes, we can have wind energy without decapitating birds.

[SunSeeker]

It’s no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the breeze as you drive down the highway. But don’t get too comfortable with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window.

Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.

Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.

...

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/

[louis-t]

1. Those are the second biggest golf tees I ever saw.

[TexasProgresive]

2. The bladed wind generators kill birds

but towers of all types have a history of causing bird death. I don't know if they every learned the cause but the birds would fly in a tight spiral around the towers with many injured or dead.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Birds are friggin' dumb as hell.

We all have witnessed birds meet their demise after a crash at full speed into a window. Whooping cranes seem to lack the ability to avoid power lines. While totally stationary in my car at a red light, a male cardinal swooped out of a tree and committed suicide on my hubcap.

We need to minimize the number of birds killed on human inventions, but they could give us some help.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Most birds probably target fixate.

Same problem that causes humans to run directly into things on a motorcycle that they are trying to avoid.

Looking at the thing leads you right into it.

[Buzz Clik]

3. I have no doubt whatsoever...

... that whooping cranes will find a way to into those things and die.

[Bill USA]

6. very interesting!