Autumnwatch-Coverup (1 Viewer)

The BBC's. Autumnwatch programme, Autumn-Coverup more like, is just one of the latest pawns in the fight for more wind-turbines. Despite the increasingly well-known and appalling consequences, these people are being drawn into the argument, in order to help weave the facts as the industry and green-lobbyists would like them to be known. Interviewing the both WWT. and the RSPB., who have such 'knowledge, data and science,' both agreeing that we need many more 'carefully positioned' wind-farms.

What they didn't say of course is that birds are everywhere, they move around all over the place and that they are very much visually attracted from great distances to the rotating blades. Birds and bats, are being killed or critically injured at the alarming rate of an estimated one death per turbine per day out, and all these people can do, with all the media power and attention they have, is to allay public fears by lulling them into thinking things are really not that bad.

This isn't about them voicing their opinions, anyone's entitled to do that, it's about using the powers they have to pervert the nation's minds and allowing an unacceptable situation to worsen without anyone noticing what's actually happening.

Please see the link below from 18.23 to 23.00.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06nt3dn/autumnwatch-2015-3-autumnwatch-day-three

Robert Piller said:

What they didn't say of course is that birds are everywhere, they move around all over the place and that they are very much visually attracted from great distances to the rotating blades. autumnwatch-day-three[/url]

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Never heard of this phenomenon. Evidence / examples please?

Ta

The wind lobby appear to have infiltrated many such organisations. Too many people are willing to believe the greenwash message spun by these snake-oil salesmen.

Craig H said:

Never heard of this phenomenon. Evidence / examples please?

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Me neither. I doubt if there's any truth to it at all.

Craig H said:

Never heard of this phenomenon. Evidence / examples please?

Ta

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hi there craig,

evidence, that's the thing isn't it. those birds killed on off-shore installations just fall into the sea, those on land usually get carried off by scavengers. there's a great deal of playing down of the threats by the industry itself, they would rather everyone was blissfully unaware.

but anyway if it's evidence you want then the links below should provide some. the poor bird in the first seems to find the rotating blades as objects of play while the bats in the second are probably drawn in by the insects that are also attracted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw

http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=es&article=b6

if you need any 'evidence' at all that things are not at all well. go into the countryside and see what's actually out there. there are practically no birds at all in many of the places.

for further reading please see my other blogs.

ps. years ago I remember seeing literally hundreds of fieldfares and redwings, flocks of two hundred or more lapwings were a common sight. turtle doves, golden plover, curlews, they've all gone.

Robert Piller said:

hi there craig,

evidence, that's the thing isn't it. those birds killed on off-shore installations just fall into the sea, those on land usually get carried off by scavengers. there's a great deal of playing down of the threats by the industry itself, they would rather everyone was blissfully unaware.

but anyway if it's evidence you want then the links below should provide some. the poor bird in the first seems to find the rotating blades as objects of play while the bats in the second are probably drawn in by the insects that are also attracted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw

http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=es&article=b6

if you need any 'evidence' at all that things are not at all well. go into the countryside and see what's actually out there. there are practically no birds at all in many of the places.

for further reading please see my other blogs.

ps. years ago I remember seeing literally hundreds of fieldfares and redwings, flocks of two hundred or more lapwings were a common sight. turtle doves, golden plover, curlews, they've all gone.

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Perhaps you should have a look at this and think about where the energy is going to come from to power your computer so you can reply;

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421509001074

At times like this I really do despair......

... whatever happened to 'informed debate'. This is discussion informed by carefully (scientifically?) gathered facts, shared, and then various possible interpretations rigorously tested to try and discern the most likely causes and best overall solutions.

A dead bird or two or twenty at the bottom of a wind turbine, or a brightly lit office building, or a lighthouse, or a memory of 'abundance' no longer present PROVE nothing. They might well indicate the need for further scientific assessment, but they do not indicate proof of a crime against humanity, (or 'ornithanity' I suppose!)

I am not saying they don't kill birds - I'm sure they do, - as do office buildings lit at night during migration, lighthouses, cats, cars, idiots with small penises and big guns, introduced aliens etc etc. But some of the above list also do have a positive side, and some don't. Picking the one you fancy for a rant might be OK in the pub, or in an online forum, but it is not a justified 'call to arms' in my view.

Now Robert if you were to place yourself under a wind farm 24hrs a day for 2 days in every month of the year and record all the birds and bats you found, and were able to demonstrate a potential 'threat to local population or such' level of mortality (greater than that for cars or cats, say) then I think you'd be really able to get your soapbox out ..... and I'd be listening, and acting - as I'm sure so would the RSPB.

Your assertion about the loss of fieldfares, redwings, curlews, turtle doves, lapwings, golden plover directly (solely?) linked to wind farms comes from what data? The first two are classic 'irruption' migrants, turtle doves get blasted in their millions in S Europe before they get here, and lapwings, curlews and golden plover are all the subject of much study, but I've not heard wind farms mentioned as a significant factor in their decline.

So therefore what EXACTLY is your point please?

Robert Piller said:

hi there craig,

evidence, that's the thing isn't it. those birds killed on off-shore installations just fall into the sea, those on land usually get carried off by scavengers. there's a great deal of playing down of the threats by the industry itself, they would rather everyone was blissfully unaware.

but anyway if it's evidence you want then the links below should provide some. the poor bird in the first seems to find the rotating blades as objects of play while the bats in the second are probably drawn in by the insects that are also attracted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw

http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=es&article=b6

if you need any 'evidence' at all that things are not at all well. go into the countryside and see what's actually out there. there are practically no birds at all in many of the places.

for further reading please see my other blogs.

ps. years ago I remember seeing literally hundreds of fieldfares and redwings, flocks of two hundred or more lapwings were a common sight. turtle doves, golden plover, curlews, they've all gone.

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Hi Robert

I have no doubt at all that birds and bats get killed by turbines. I'm more interested in your statement that birds (and bats?) are visually attracted to turbines and are drawn in from a long way off. I have never seen or heard of anything like this so evidence would be appreciated. To be honest I find it a fanciful statement as if that was the case we wouldn't need to worry about evidence as there would be piles of carcasses.

MTem said:

At times like this I really do despair......

... whatever happened to 'informed debate'. This is discussion informed by carefully (scientifically?) gathered facts, shared, and then various possible interpretations rigorously tested to try and discern the most likely causes and best overall solutions.

A dead bird or two or twenty at the bottom of a wind turbine, or a brightly lit office building, or a lighthouse, or a memory of 'abundance' no longer present PROVE nothing. They might well indicate the need for further scientific assessment, but they do not indicate proof of a crime against humanity, (or 'ornithanity' I suppose!)

I am not saying they don't kill birds - I'm sure they do, - as do office buildings lit at night during migration, lighthouses, cats, cars, idiots with small penises and big guns, introduced aliens etc etc. But some of the above list also do have a positive side, and some don't. Picking the one you fancy for a rant might be OK in the pub, or in an online forum, but it is not a justified 'call to arms' in my view.

Now Robert if you were to place yourself under a wind farm 24hrs a day for 2 days in every month of the year and record all the birds and bats you found, and were able to demonstrate a potential 'threat to local population or such' level of mortality (greater than that for cars or cats, say) then I think you'd be really able to get your soapbox out ..... and I'd be listening, and acting - as I'm sure so would the RSPB.

Your assertion about the loss of fieldfares, redwings, curlews, turtle doves, lapwings, golden plover directly (solely?) linked to wind farms comes from what data? The first two are classic 'irruption' migrants, turtle doves get blasted in their millions in S Europe before they get here, and lapwings, curlews and golden plover are all the subject of much study, but I've not heard wind farms mentioned as a significant factor in their decline.

So therefore what EXACTLY is your point please?

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The issue is large wind farms being shoe horned into our remaining wilderness areas - the justification being that they are "green". Now as recent problems on the UK grid have shown, wind is not a reliable source of energy and has simply made all our energy bills more expensive. Is that worth destroying the last breeding grounds of some of our rarest bird species??

http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=310941

As I said let's have more evidence and less assertion, and more consideration of the balance rather than just a polarised perspective. Most things we do have negatives, but some have offsetting, sometimes greater, positives.

Let's take cats for example - from the same adverse perspective as wind farm's negative impact on birds in general, then the extermination of cats from the UK would be a dead cert. (Not sure of the offsetting positives here personally)

Also, personally I actually do have significant concerns about the mass introduction of wind farms, but I have similar level concerns about climate change and the lack of action to address.

I have lesser concerns about the global implications of removing cats, grey squirrels, spring hunting, trapping songbirds, bird liming, rats from offshore islands, illegal poisoning of raptors etc etc.

Let's try to be informed before we are judgmental .....eh?

MorteBirder said:

Perhaps you should have a look at this and think about where the energy is going to come from to power your computer so you can reply;

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421509001074

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hi again craig,

sorry for not getting back sooner. here below I believe we have a solution which at the moment is grossly being overlooked. I makes up for only the merest fraction of the renewables. everyone's so sold on wind as the answer to every problem we've ever had.

http://carnegiewave.com/

http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/Advantages_Disadvantages_WaveEnergy.php

Like wind energy (and indeed all power creation methods), there are advantages and disadvantages to wave energy. What about the marine life? I'm guessing that doesn't matter as much as birds do to you. Out of sight, out of mind?

If we want to keep the lights (etc) on, we need a mixture of sources, (IMO the greener the better), and we need to recognise that there are advantages and disadvantages to all potential sources of energy.

The Scottish Government has tried to go down the renewable route, while Westminster is hell-bent on nuclear (knowing that they won't be the ones that have to pay for the decommissioning of the reactor and storage of the spent fuel rods further down the line) and have tried to cripple the renewables industries with some success (including forcing wave power companies out of business). Energy production isn't the black/white subject that many on both sides of the fence try to turn it into. There are countless shades of grey to the subject and a far bigger picture than gets focussed on.

Further down the line we may invent/discover a clean, efficient, cheap, non-harmful means of generating power. Until that happens however we have to make the best of what we do have, with the upsides and downsides that they bring. None are yet perfect.

Stonefaction said:

http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/Advantages_Disadvantages_WaveEnergy.php

Like wind energy (and indeed all power creation methods), there are advantages and disadvantages to wave energy. What about the marine life? I'm guessing that doesn't matter as much as birds do to you. Out of sight, out of mind?

If we want to keep the lights (etc) on, we need a mixture of sources, (IMO the greener the better), and we need to recognise that there are advantages and disadvantages to all potential sources of energy.

.......

Further down the line we may invent/discover a clean, efficient, cheap, non-harmful means of generating power. Until that happens however we have to make the best of what we do have, with the upsides and downsides that they bring. None are yet perfect.

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Good, sound and practical comments!

There is a variety of designs proposed for harnessing wave power, and much effort has been put into discovering shortcomings and correcting them. One problem common to all is the effect of seawater and marine life on exposed metal parts. Corrosion is inevitable in a salty environment, particularly at the water/air interface and particularly if the device has moving parts that are immersed. Buildup of weed and such as barnacles affect performance, and if devices are set up on the inevitable large scale, the use of anti-fouling coatings is a no-no because of the contamination of the marine environment.

Secure anchorage able to withstand the most severe storms and large tidal ranges is another problematical design aspect. Energy transfer from devices presents a whole series of challenges dependent on device size and movement cycles.

From my somewhat cursory reading on the subject, the most effective and least maintenance-intensive devices showing most promise of reliable energy production are very tall towers that like icebergs have most of their bulk vertically below the surface. These take advantage of temperature differences between the surface and at depth to derive energy from the movement of the internal water column, and so these are not true wave-power devices. However, they are resistant to storms by their bulk, have few moving parts exposed to the elements and potentially lend themselves to cleaning of their internal column by autonomous robots.

The downside is that they would need oil-rig-sized construction yards, require specialist vessels to transport them to their locations (which necessarily would have to be in deep water, which is where the experience gained from oil platform siting and anchoring is applicable), and probably would take up as much area as offshore wind farms, although perhaps they could in some cases occupy the same 'footprint'.

There is much yet to be learned about producing reliable, low-maintenance devices resistant to the elements, but one thing is certain if these are deployed in huge numbers - there will be an effect on the seas around them, whether reducing wave size or affecting currents locally or on a larger scale.

Large wind farms already are known to have local wind-reduction effects, and counter-intuitively, increased gustiness adjacent to the towers, and so any large-scale site for wave devices should be expected to have effects on the marine environment, not necessarily all bad!
MJB

Craig H said:

Hi Robert

I have no doubt at all that birds and bats get killed by turbines. I'm more interested in your statement that birds (and bats?) are visually attracted to turbines and are drawn in from a long way off. I have never seen or heard of anything like this so evidence would be appreciated. To be honest I find it a fanciful statement as if that was the case we wouldn't need to worry about evidence as there would be piles of carcasses.

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The evidence Craig is that it took less than a minute to watch 2 short videos posted by Robert involving the impact to a Vulture and the death of several Bats you now need to multiply time in minutes by the number of wind turbines in the world, and its not going to be a pretty picture generally is it ? I am no scientist and I know we need clean energy, bit it sickens me to see these bird impacts, and then I think of migration over the North Sea it must be like trying to fly through a kitchen blender :C

Mark

markspirito said:

T I am no scientist and I know we need clean energy, bit it sickens me to see these bird impacts, and then I think of migration over the North Sea it must be like trying to fly through a kitchen blender :C

Mark

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Mark it sickens me too, and I'm not in favour of wholesale wind farm development, but it also saddens me when rational perspective is lost. Literally millions of birds are killed in the UK annually by domestic cats, hitting lit or reflective glass buildings, car strikes, hunting etc etc. Yet there is no evidence that I've heard of that any of these things have population level impacts on global or national bird species. Nor is there for wind farms as far as I know. They (wind farms) do kill birds and damage habitat and therefore need to be carefully controlled and planned as has been said, but to suggest (as the OP did) that the RSPB, WWT and BBC Autumnwatch were being disingenuous and 'covering-up' is to my mind both inaccurate and disrespectful to their good intentions and good work.

Certainly the impact of the planned wind farms will be nothing like the impact climate change, habitat destruction and spring hunting/trapping are having and will have if we don't address them.

Mick

MTem said:

Mark it sickens me too, and I'm not in favour of wholesale wind farm development, but it also saddens me when rational perspective is lost. Literally millions of birds are killed in the UK annually by domestic cats, hitting lit or reflective glass buildings, car strikes, hunting etc etc. Yet there is no evidence that I've heard of that any of these things have population level impacts on global or national bird species. Nor is there for wind farms as far as I know. They (wind farms) do kill birds and damage habitat and therefore need to be carefully controlled and planned as has been said, but to suggest (as the OP did) that the RSPB, WWT and BBC Autumnwatch were being disingenuous and 'covering-up' is to my mind both inaccurate and disrespectful to their good intentions and good work.

Certainly the impact of the planned wind farms will be nothing like the impact climate change, habitat destruction and spring hunting/trapping are having and will have if we don't address them.

Mick

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Cats are not a threat to large, rare soaring birds like storks,eagles etc. Wind turbines certainly are. Add in the fact that wind power has done little to reduce emmissions and you have the very definition of "greenwash"

markspirito said:

The evidence Craig is that it took less than a minute to watch 2 short videos posted by Robert involving the impact to a Vulture and the death of several Bats you now need to multiply time in minutes by the number of wind turbines in the world, and its not going to be a pretty picture generally is it ? I am no scientist and I know we need clean energy, bit it sickens me to see these bird impacts, and then I think of migration over the North Sea it must be like trying to fly through a kitchen blender :C

Mark

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Sorry but that video just shows birds/bats in the vicinity being hit. I want to see evidence that birds and bats are attracted from "great distances" to these turbines. Roberts video show no more than birds in the vicinity with no evidence they have been 'attracted'.

Don't think the wind turbines will be too much of an issue soon, very expensive to construct and site and the government recently removed the huge subsidies it pays to have them installed.

Carefully managed and regulated nuclear power has to be the way forward for me, preferably not sited on a major fault line!

Andy

andyadcock said:

Don't think the wind turbines will be too much of an issue soon, very expensive to construct and site and the government recently removed the huge subsidies it pays to have them installed. Carefully managed and regulated nuclear power has to be the way forward for me, preferably not sited on a major fault line! Andy

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If I understand the latest statements in the Commons (Oct 2015) correctly, after some 60 years, we are still subsidising existing and closed nuclear power stations. We (the public) have never been allowed to see the files on government nuclear power support costs (both direct in design and construction, and indirect as top-up payments once nuclear power stations were up and running - maintenance, radioactive material storage, short- and long-term repair and problem-funding at such as Windscale).

However, I would not be at all surprised to learn that the yearly average government-subsidised funding of the nuclear industry were to be two or three orders of magnitude greater than the yearly 'huge subsidies' to the wind power industry - the government is happy to provide the latter figures without the context of the former.

Central to the debate about costs is the strategic question of the financial plan to deal with radioactive waste over the next few centuries, an item that should be near the top of any government annual budget.

The reduction in wind power subsidies already has lost 2000 jobs in UK, yet the government intends to build a Chinese-design nuclear plant at Hinkley Point and has guaranteed a cost figure for the power produced at almost three times current rates. So, if power from this reactor is fed into the National Grid at current rates, we the taxpayers will see our government (of whatever political colour) locked into an agreement to pay the Chinese almost twice the amount on top of that (And that's after the production and building costs not exceeding their first estimates....).

In effect, that's an everlasting subsidy! Not a shred of evidence of 'careful management' there....
MJB

Subsidies may appear huge for nuclear by comparison to wind but considering that renewable energies are currently providing c3% of our power it seems relative to me?

I'm not particularly pro nuclear but central to this debate was the impact on birds and Nuclear seems to have the least, cost aside.

What are the cost implications of waste removal, storage or disposal of spent rods etc? Seems to me that the greatest risk in this regard is making sure that they don't end up as part of the recipe for a dirty bomb? Don't they currently sink a lot of it to the unreachable depths of the ocean?

Lots of questions but no answers, sorry!

Andy