Interior Starts Wind Advisory Group

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/3dfcb92a6831d80fb5a564081f756912.htm

Interior Starts Wind Advisory Group

Interior Dept. Names Corporate and Other Members to Wind Energy Advisory Group

October 29, 2007: 01:50 PM EST

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has named a 22-member advisory committee to recommend ways to protect birds, bats and other wildlife from the huge whirling blades and related environmental factors of wind energy projects.

The Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee includes members from FPL Group Inc.' Florida Power & Light Co. and BP PLC's British Petroleum Alternative Energy, as well representatives from state and federal agencies and wildlife conservation groups.

The group will provide recommendations on measures to protect wildlife, and coordinate the review and evaluation of facilities by government agencies. The committee is expected to meet about four times per year.

"By some estimates, wind power could provide clean and renewable electricity to meet up to 20 percent of the nation's energy needs," Kempthorne said in a release Friday. "This committee will help examine issues, such as site selection and turbine design, so we can develop wind resources while protecting wildlife."

Wind farms currently account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. power supply.

[liberalla]

1. Wind power! First they privatize the industry and then they get

tax credits, and then they count the money.

Not sure why, but I don't trust a group comprised of CORPORATE (and other) members and formed by this bush administration...
____________

Protecting wildlife?

I hadn't heard much about damage to birds and wildlife? Anyone else?
I've seen wind farms and they don't look that dangerous to me. Not fast enough to grind up a bird (like getting sucked in an airplane engine), and slow enough that a bird could avoid impact, I'd think.

A bird could get dizzy watching the spinning propellers?