Windfarms and radio towers affecting birds (1 Viewer)

Farnboro John said:

But is that really true? The solar farms I've seen appear to be a useful grassland resource that will progressively become more so as wild flowers get the opportunity to colonise them over time. Surely they are likely to be a wildlife habitat capable of defragmenting large areas of agricultural monoculture desert?

John

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That could be, certainly; it'll be interesting to see what birds adapt to using them. The wild flowers that could appear will likely be shade-tolerant woodland plants, as the solar panels extract the bulk of the solar energy.

My suspicion though is that in UK at least, the solar farms will be sheep-shorn biodiversity deserts; if they didn't, trees would soon grow up through and shade out the solar panels.

Farnboro John said:

But is that really true? The solar farms I've seen appear to be a useful grassland resource that will progressively become more so as wild flowers get the opportunity to colonise them over time. Surely they are likely to be a wildlife habitat capable of defragmenting large areas of agricultural monoculture desert?

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Those I have seen were some basically cleared of vegetation around them, right down to lack of grass. Potentially though, I agree they could be reserves for butterflies, etc

I wonder whether solar farms are less likely to be treated with pesticides and other chemicals for fear of corrosion and other effects on the equipment? If so, this would be a massive bonus for the potential biodiversity of the sites. (I was interested to see on one of the other threads the Great Bustard declines being caused by the combination of agricultural changes effecting both the crops for the adult birds and the increased pesticides reducing the arthropods for the young.)

All the best

The solar farms that I've seen in the US and in Spain are not nature friendly sites.
The panels are as closely spaced as possible and allow just enough space for access/maintenance.
Other than in the desert, the ground is often covered with some gravel type fill, probably to keep the dust down. They are essentially industrial sites, not nature areas, much less refuges.

etudiant said:

The solar farms that I've seen in the US and in Spain are not nature friendly sites.
. . .
Other than in the desert, the ground is often covered with some gravel type fill, probably to keep the dust down. They are essentially industrial sites, not nature areas, much less refuges.

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And in the desert, that's a very good thing indeed! The last thing one wants in a desert setting is an oasis effect luring birds to their destruction. The solar array I'm most familiar with in Nevada is a mere dot in the landscape, surrounded by emptiness as far as the eye can see. There's some bird mortality (or so I've been told by a staff member) but nothing like there would be if the place were made green and pleasant.

fugl said:

And in the desert, that's a very good thing indeed! The last thing one wants in a desert setting is an oasis effect luring birds to their destruction.

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That aspect needs further study.
We know windmills kill raptors and bats hugely, a fact recognized by the Obama administration when it gave the windfarms a 30 year pass for eagle kills.
The solar towers that I saw in Spain and at Ivanpah reportedly do fry birds in flight, not surprising as there are limits to the accuracy with which the sun can be focused on the boiler element.
Seeing these installations from the highway on a partly sunny day showed clearly that there was a convergence zone around the boiler area where sunlight and heat concentrate to unsurvivable levels. How many birds are killed is an open question.

Recent study in Scotland - satellite tagged Golden Eagles - showed that they avoided wind farms. I'm not suggesting that those results can be used to say what happens elsewhere or with other species but seems to suggest care should taken regarding generalisations about impacts of windfarms.
Perhaps also of interest, I was speaking to an employee at an upland research station who said he was getting the impression that some species (eg, pipits and lapwings) were thriving under the turbines. He acknowledged it was just an impression but he had been working on the hills all his life.

We should be careful with the language used around 'solar farms' to avoid confusion. There are broadly two types:- Solar thermal, and Photovoltaic.

The solar thermal types use mirrored-type surfaces to concentrate sunlight (heat) to generate power through heat cycles eg. steam turbine etc. They can be of the trough type, or the tower type. It is the tower type that causes the issues with sunlight focused into the one spot.

Photovoltaic types are constructed from multiple solar panels (of the type you would find on your roof. There are no issues here, other than the already mentioned possible mirage effect (wasting precious energy expended for nothing by birds), and the increasing amounts of land taken up (this is a high growth energy sector, so the cumulative impacts will add up). Mostly they are constructed as densely as solar access allows to minimize infrastructure costs, reduce payback periods, and enhance investment returns. There are plans for agri-voltaics - more widely spaced panels allowing grazing underneath, though the economics don't stack up as well.

Wind farms are a highly complex subject. Evidence so far dictates it would not seem prudent to place them in migratory paths. However there are issues for resident birds too, and especially bats (which are critical for ecosystem balance). The tip speed of the turbine blades can be several hundred kilometers per hour - no bird can out manoeuver that - especially when they are mostly focused on the ground, and genetically ingrained to rarely look 'up' - as in the case of apex raptors. Scientific facts and stringent governance controls are definitely required, as some wind farms can act like black holes, drawing in successive years fledglings to their deaths continuously.

As much as it is great to have wings, most birds are not just flying around for fun - they are engaged in daily and ongoing survival activities - locating feeding resources, mates during the appropriate seasonal conditions, and defending territories. They do this on a calorific balance basis - energy expended vs energy gained. Thus they seek to do this as efficiently as possible - use of perches (including stationary wind turbines), taking advantage of thermals, and favourable wind conditions (such as those that provided orographic lift when encountering hills etc), and concentrated feeding resources - such as raptors feeding on prey birds killed by wind turbine blades etc.

Conversely wind turbine financiers and operators are also seeking to maximize returns by taking advantage of exactly the same environmental conditions as efficiently as possible. Thus the dice has been rolled with whole wind farms, or individual turbines located in highly risky locations for bird mortality based on less than rigorous EIS's which can only be disproved after a history of operational carnage, the monitoring of which is open to further manipulation. Operating procedures such as shutting down certain turbines at certain times are also open to abuse and non-compliance due to the fundamental conflicts of interest.

Here is one study from the US. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3966850/

Although open to concrete proof, I remain to be convinced on the 'causes' of climate change in the absence of scientific proof of the causes, mechanisms, and quanta of past climate variability. Especially considering that land use changes occurring with increasing human population are a (if not the) major factor in the carbon balance equation. Surely though in the consideration of any alternate energy sources (given that many many centuries from now, fossil fuels run out) the principle of first do no harm must apply????!

In my lifetime, there has not been one single day without war or conflict somewhere in the world. To my mind, and considering the intractibility of Nuclear Fission waste, this rules Nuclear power out straight off the bat. And yet, they are built on the Pacific Ring of Fire (Fukushima, and similarly vulnerable sites in the US).

We have to remember that it's not just a solar/wind energy optioned future. Why each buildings roof doesn't mandatorily face toward the solar arc, and be covered in solar panels in this day and age is beyond me - it would solve the world's energy crisis (along with battery electricity storage and existing hydro infrastucture - pumped excess produced energy storage) immediately. Geothermal and Wave energy could be also large contributors in appropriate locations. http://www.carnegiece.com/

There are places where wind turbines should not be built (or licensed to operate while ever deaths of Endangered species occurs. One such controversial location is in Tasmania where only ~130 breeding pairs of the Endangered Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle remain. 18 deaths were recorded in the time frame of this article. That is unacceptable.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2130927.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/deaths-of-rare-eagles-rise-20101116-17vy7.html

At the very least, the operational management of the wind farm should not be entrusted to the same group that financially benefits from it. That is just poor governance and systems design. They should be directed by a body that has the Eagle's ongoing preservation as the prime directive which informs all decisions.

The other area where research is currently lacking is that of 'death by a thousand cuts', or of cumulative effects of risks to bird, raptor mortality, in particular by exposure to multiple wind farm sites along migration routes, or territorial movements in response to seasonal conditions - there is tracking evidence now which documents movements of the order of thousands of kilometers for individual birds.


Chosun :gh:

steveo said:

In Vermont there is alot of talk about harvesting wind via giant windmill farms for electricity , and erecting larger taller cell, radio towers. My concern is birds any info that you all have would be appreciated thanks.

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EVERYBODY should read this ...... :-C
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/wcfn.org/2015/06/04/covering-up-the-massacre/amp/
FYI, the quoted Dr. Stephen Debus is one of the preeminent raptor authorities in Australia. When he talks - I listen .....



Chosun :gh:

the rspb sanctioned wind farms off the coast of Britain. as most of the migration occurs at night, any deaths resulting from wind turbines will not be registered as the bodies will be swallowed by the sea!given man,s ever increasing need for energy I suppose the poor old birds will"have to take their chances"!

Hi Chosen

I've recently started to get involved professionally in some wind farm projects (I don't work for either of the Australian consultants mentioned in the article I hasten to add!)

I'd dispute the linked article premise that consultants are deliberately misleading. We work in a system where the wind farm promoters and the government have set the goal posts. Bird Utilisation Surveys are undertaken and Bird & Bat Management Plans developed within those goal posts. Not withstanding that, a plan I reviewed recently had reported 3 raptor species (all 'least concern') from the bird utilisation surveys. The governments planning permit had then required special attention for these species as part of the ongoing operational monitoring. The trouble is what do you do then? The turbines are built, so the ability to change things to avoid mortality is significantly impaired.

The discussion in the article re buffer distances between turbines and eagle nests is interesting - although on the mainland WTE are 'least concern' so any consultant recommending turbines no closer than 5km to a nest would find themselves laughed out of the business.

I agree that the monitoring system should be independent. The concept of independent oversight seems to be unpopular these days |:||

I don't want to get into a climate change debate, but in that paragraph you mention the concept of 'do no harm' while that is laudable, in the real world that isn't an option unless you have any ideas for removing the need for humans to use energy. Fossil fuels have huge impacts on the environment, proximally and indirectly through pollution - I lived in Europe during the time the impacts of acid rain meant that scrubbers were fitted to the power stations (generating even more holes in the ground to extract limestone to go in the scrubbers!).
You've mentioned the impact of nuclear (I once worked on a project at a nuclear power station that included disposal of the potentially contaminated carcasses of birds that flew into them so there is another impact for you). Tidal power necessitates impacting the flow in rivers and water levels in estuaries. Wind farms kill birds and bats. I could go on.
So what we are really pitching for is 'least harm' not 'no harm'.