Western Resource Advocates had filed comments on wind power and environmental
issues with regard to BLM’s Programmatic Wind Energy Environmental Impact
Statement (Wind PEIS) and Congressional proposals to “streamline” or “expedite” the
application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to wind projects. A
synopsis of our comments:
WRA supports initiatives at the federal, state and local level to develop wind and other
clean, renewable energy sources. Examples include BLM’s Programmatic Wind Power
EIS (PEIS) at the federal level; Colorado’s passage of Amendment 37 in 2004; and the
support of communities like Lamar for local wind power projects. BLM’s PEIS is a
strong first step toward developing renewable energy sources on our federal lands. WRA
advocates that “green power” be green on the ground, as bad planning or inappropriate
siting will set the cause back for wind power by eroding public support.
Smart decision-making and project siting – including protection of habitat, species and
special places – is in everybody’s best interests. Accordingly, recent Congressional
proposals to limit the application of the National Environmental Policy Act to wind and
other renewable energy projects would be counter-productive. Wind proponents should
acknowledge that high levels of migratory bird or bat mortality are real possibilities for
poorly designed projects. Rigorous analysis of proposed project locations - including
participation by the public, wildlife biologists and other agency experts - are essential to
realizing the immense potential of wind power. A strong wind industry that supplies a
significant percentage of our energy needs is in the best interests of consumers, the
environment, economic prosperity and national security. Good decision-making can reap
the twin benefits of energy independence and environmental protection.
VINCE CARROLL, Rocky Mountain News
Eye of the beholder
When Congress streamlined the process for issuing oil- and gas-drilling permits
earlier this year, there was an outcry from environmentalists worried about the
impact on federal lands. Now that the Interior Department has announced plans
to shorten the approval process for new wind power plants on public land, will
there be a similar eruption of concern?
Of course not. Wind turbines are the height of fashion on federal lands, and
environmental groups actively support their installation outside sensitive areas
such as wildernesses and national monuments. Meanwhile, those other tall metal
towers that produce energy, known as oil rigs, apparently must be opposed at all
costs. As Napoleon Pig might have said in an updated Animal Farm, some forms
of visual pollution are more equal than others.
Wyoming Outdoor Council, Frontlines Newsletter, Winter 2005
Wind Power:
Clean Source of Energy or Blood-Tainted Killer?
by Molly Absolon
In 1997, when the libertarian think-tank the Cato Institute
quoted a Sierra Club representative for calling wind turbines the
“Cuisinarts of the air,” defenders of wind power groaned. It was
a colorful, graphic quote that did not represent the club’s
position and oversimplified the problem of birds and turbines.
But it did grab headlines.
Today, eight years later, some people still question whether the
bird mortality linked to wind turbines is worth the power they
generate. The idea that wind turbines are killers has stuck. The
question is how accurate is this perception?
Birds do die from collisions with turbines, but the numbers are
far less than one might expect. The Cheyenne-based research organization Western
Ecosystems Technology Inc. (WEST-Inc.) put out a report in 2001 on avian mortality
stating that from 100 million to as many as one billion birds are killed annually from
collisions with human-made structures such as vehicles, buildings and windows,
power lines, communications towers and wind turbines. Of these numbers, WEST’s
report states that between 10,000 and 40,000 can be attributed to wind farms. In
comparison, collisions with buildings kill anywhere from 98 to 980 million birds each
year. [These numbers were based on a study of fatalities from birds colliding with
house windows. The study found 1 to 10 birds were killed per house per year. There
are approximately 98 million residences/buildings in the U.S. according to census
figures, hence the range of 98 to 980 million.]
Until recently, Colorado’s Xcel Energy Windsource customers paid about $6 per month more for
power than customers buying electricity produced from coal and natural gas. Not anymore. After
a recently approved pay hike of 33 percent goes into effect this December, wind customers will
be paying about $9.75 a month less than their counterparts. Xcel signed up 300 new customers
the day after this differential was announced. The company has started a wind power waiting
list.
Collisions aren’t the only thing killing birds. Domestic cats account for approximately
100 million bird deaths annually, while habitat loss and global climate change are
having a devastating impact on many species. Furthermore, no research has been
done to determine how birds are affected by other forms of electrical generation. But
10,000 to 40,000 birds is not insignificant, particularly with bird numbers declining
worldwide, so increasingly wind energy companies are paying close attention to
where they place their turbines.
“Information is now available to help in micro-siting turbines, which means
determining specific locations for individual turbines at a wind farm, as well as in
determining appropriate sites for the farms themselves,” says Wally Erickson, a
statistician for WEST-Inc. who has been the lead author on several reports on wind
power. At the Foote Creek Rim Wind Power Project near Arlington, Wyo., WEST-Inc.
determined that an average of 1.5 birds are estimated to be killed per turbine each
year or approximately 100 birds. These numbers are in marked contrast to Altamont
Pass in northern California where one of the nation’s earliest wind farms is located.
Here between 880 and 1,300 birds of prey and more than 3,000 passerines are
estimated to be killed each year according to California Energy Commission and
National Renewable Energy Laboratory-funded research.
WEST Inc.’s report ‘Avian and Bat Mortality Associated with the Initial Phase of the
Foote Creek Rim Wind Power Project’ explains, “Early wind energy facilities in the
U.S. such as those at Altamont Pass were placed without regard to factors such as
avian use, and some of the sites were located where birds are abundant and the risk
of turbine collisions high.”
Turbine design has also changed since Altamont went in. The original wind turbines
stood on an open-lattice structure that served as an attractive perch for birds. The
blades rotated rapidly making them difficult for birds to see. Early research
suggested these factors might be related to higher raptor mortality. Today’s turbines
are tubular offering no spots for perching and the blades move slowly. How these
changes affect bird mortality remains debatable, however.
“The general belief is that the new turbines are less risky for raptors,” says WEST’s
Erickson. “However, to date, there are few wind projects that have both old
generation and new generation turbines that have been studied concurrently. So
until we have good empirical data comparing the risk of old and new turbines within
the same wind project, we cannot say anything conclusively. Differences in risk of
collision between old turbines and new turbines likely vary by bird groups as well.”
What WEST-Inc. has found is that Altamont’s high raptor mortality numbers are not
the norm. Nationally, WEST found that there are an average of 2.19 avian fatalities
per turbine per year for all species combined and 0.033 raptor fatalities. The
majority of the raptor deaths have occurred in California where approximately
11,500 turbines exist including those at Altamont.
Wind power opponents like the Cato Institute have seized upon the blood, however.
An advertisement in the New York Times by the Washington Legal Foundation, a
perennial critic of so-called “environmental radicals,” asked, “How many acres of
land must be despoiled to erect enough windmills—and how many birds must be
shredded flying through their giant blades—to keep California from becoming a third
world country?” This negative press taints the industry. In addition, many supporters
who consider themselves conservationists find themselves torn between their desire
for clean energy and their concern about wind power’s wildlife impacts. But the
American Bird Conservancy says their concern, while well intentioned, is misplaced
at least with regard to birds. According to conservancy’s newsletter, if people really
want to save birds, they should keep their cats indoors.
Bats and Wind Power
In late summer of 2003, it was estimated that several thousand migrating bats had
been killed by wind turbines lined up along the crest of Backbone Mountain in
northeastern West Virginia. Researchers hoped the high number was a fluke, but in
2004 a more thorough study came up with a similar estimate.
“Take the most conservative estimates of mortality and multiply them by the number
of turbines planned and you get very large, probably unsustainable kill rates,” Merlin
Tuttle, the president and founder of Bat Conservation International told the
Washington Post in January 2005.
Researchers from a variety of organizations working together as the Bats and Wind
Energy Cooperative began to theorize about what was going on. Infrared imagery
showed that bats were actually attracted to wind turbines. Evidence also indicated
that mortality rates were much higher on low-wind nights, perhaps because of higher
insect activity. Scientists hypothesized that shutting down turbines on calm nights or
creating some kind of deterrent might cut mortality rates, but these ideas need to be
tested.
However, in 2005, Florida Power and Light (FPL)—the largest generator of wind
power in the United States with 45 wind farms in 15 states—denied access to its
wind farms by scientists working with the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative.
WIND POWER AND WILDLIFE CONFERENCE
Sponsored by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, January 23-25, 2006, Fort Collins, Colorado
The conference includes an optional field trip to a wind farm; speakers on issues ranging from
landowner concerns to habitat fragmentation, avian and bat mortality, turbine design, wind farm
siting and other issues related to wildlife and wind power; as well as day-long workshop aimed
at gaining a deeper understanding of wind power’s impacts to wildlife.
For more information visit here or contact David Klute (303-291-7320, david.klute@state.co.us).
“I’m not going to answer why I think FPL made this decision,” says Ed Arnett, a
researcher for Bat Conservation International. “But I would guess that they saw it as
a slippery slope. If they shut down turbines for bats, why not for other creatures?”
“I’d like to believe there are safe places to put wind turbines,” Arnett continues, “But
the jury is still out. Personally I feel curtailment or shutting down select turbines
under certain conditions looks promising, but we need the data to support it. We
need to test it.”
Steve Stengel, a spokesman for FPL, says it frustrates him to hear Arnett frame FPL’s
decision as a lock out. “We feel we’ve been very cooperative,” Stengel says.
FPL has been generous in its funding and support of bat research in the past,
something Arnett is quick to agree with. According to Stengel, the reason for this
year’s decision was that FPL wanted the first research projects to focus on using
deterrents to keep bats away from turbines as opposed to testing experimental
shutdowns. When this was unacceptable to the researchers for the Bats and Wind
Energy Cooperative, FPL declined to allow the proposed studies to take place.
Arnett says they need to do more than just test deterrents. He says there is a bit of
a “gold rush” in wind energy going on right now and his concern is that the science
on the effects of wind farms on wildlife, particularly bats, is not adequate to make
the best decisions. Bats are particularly vulnerable to large losses because they are
long-lived and have low reproductive rates. Waiting to see if deterrents work without
testing other options simultaneously seems shortsighted in Arnett’s opinion.
WEST-Inc.’s Erickson says turbines appear to be less of a problem for bats in open,
prairies sites like those found in Wyoming.
“People haven’t raised the same concerns about bats in open-habitat wind farms. In
general their levels of mortality are low in the West and Midwest. Much lower than
the three specific wooded ridge tops studied in the East,” Erickson says.
Arnett agrees that the current research supports the contention that bat mortality at
wind farms in open prairie and farmland habitats is lower than along timbered ridges
in the East. However, he says this contention is based on a handful of studies and he
isn’t ready to say the evidence is conclusive. He says that tree-roosting bats have
been killed at a wind farm in northeastern Colorado where there isn’t a tree in sight.
What bats are doing there he doesn’t know. What it tells him is that more research is
imperative.
“It would be hypocritical for any biologist to be against renewable energy
development,” Arnett says.“We need energy. But wind energy is not a panacea. It
needs to be part of our energy portfolio, yes, and right now it seems to me as if the
science is lagging. We need sound science and responsible development for all forms
of energy.”
Writers on the Range:
The windy West gains influential support
By Auden Schendler
As There’s a joke about Wyoming that could just as well apply to all of America’s
plains states. It goes like this:
What does a Wyoming airport use for a windsock?
Answer: An anvil on a chain.
The wind blows constantly across the Western plains, as anyone who’s driven north
from Denver and across Wyoming can attest. You feel your car needs alignment until
you see the tumbleweeds bustling towards Kansas City. That’s why America’s
heartland has been called the Saudi Arabia of wind, and that’s why we should be
looking closely at expanding efforts to drill for electricity in that big sky, not in the
ground.
The wind that famously drove pioneers crazy still blows straight across the upper
Green River basin, where antelope populations are coming into conflict with natural
gas drillers. They’re looking underground for methane to generate relatively clean
electricity. But wind power is cleaner, and leaves the antelope alone.
The wind blows across North Dakota, a state in which declining population belies the
fact that separated from the nation, it would be the world’s third largest nuclear
power. North Dakota’s economy isn’t exactly cranking these days, with big
mechanized farms covering most of the state and an aging population. (You’ll often
find summer sausages next to the checkout stand there, not Bic lighters and People
magazine. If you’re 80 and drive a Lincoln Continental, the sausage is probably more
appealing.) Wind power generation could help farmers make more cash but keep
farming, and provide a new economy in the West that taps the mechanical expertise
of ex-agricultural workers and gas drillers.
The wind blows across cattle range in Nebraska, where family ranchers often find it
hard to go beyond break-even business. Ranchers in Weld County, Colo., have put
up turbines to bring in a little more cash: The cows graze around them.
There is another big reason to make the West a wind power Mecca -- a big and
growing market for renewable power. On Jan. 11, the No. 1 natural foods grocery
chain Whole Foods stunned the business world by purchasing renewable wind energy
credits equal to all the electricity the company uses in its 180 stores. That’s about
458 million kilowatt-hours, or enough to power 54,000 homes all year. Those credits
subsidize renewable electricity generation. As more businesses and individuals buy
credits, the demand will cause more wind to be generated.
On the same day that Whole Foods made its announcement, FedEx Kinkos
announced it would expand wind energy purchases to cover 14 percent of its U.S.
electricity needs. The list of big, smart businesses buying wind power goes on:
Starbucks, Safeway, Johnson and Johnson, Staples. Each is profitable, well managed
and the leader in its business sector. Unless the top corporate minds in the country
are wrong, wind power makes sense.
Some Western states get it, and have passed "renewable portfolio standards" that
require a certain amount of renewably generated power by a given date. Texas,
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, California and most recently, Colorado, have such
standards.
Still, some "free market" politicians oppose renewable energy targets because they
see them as mandates. But that presumes wind energy and other renewables have
been competing on a level playing field. Not even close. The watchdog group
Taxpayers for Common Sense has highlighted 16 federal subsidies that give coal, oil,
and natural gas over $5 billion per year. And the new federal energy bill, which New
York Times columnist Tom Friedman calls "the sum of all lobbies," is chock full of
fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies. A renewable portfolio standard simply levels the
playing field. At least, that’s what George Bush thought when he enacted a similar
standard in Texas.
Wind isn’t the be-all of energy solutions. After all, the wind only blows about a third
of the time, a fact that has probably spared many plains-dwellers from insanity.
Wind is also inextricably linked to its opposite: fossil-fuel generated electricity, which
is required to cover a windmill’s downtime. But wind is a part of the solution, and it’s
an approach to energy supply that taps a long Western tradition of using our
bountiful resources to benefit humanity. Used to looking down at coal seams, ore
deposits, aquifers and forests for prosperity and hope, Westerners don’t need to
change their approach, just the angle of their head.
Auden Schendler is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). He lives in Basalt, Colorado, and is the director of environmental
affairs at Aspen Skiing Co., which buys 5 percent of its electricity as wind power.
Center for Biological Diversity
BECAUSE LIFE IS GOOD
Protecting endangered species and wild places through
science, policy, education, and environmental law.
LAWSUIT SEEKS REDRESS FOR MASSIVE ILLEGAL BIRD KILLS
AT ALTAMONT PASS, CA, WIND FARMS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 12, 2004
Contact:
Jeff Miller (510) 663-0616 ext. 3 or cell (510) 499-9185, Center for Biological Diversity
Richard Wiebe (415) 433-3200 or cell (415) 505-8793, Attorney for Plaintiffs
More Information and Photos
Livermore, CA – The Center for Biological Diversity (“CBD”) filed a lawsuit today against Florida energy
producer FPL Group, Inc. (NYSE symbol: FPL) and Danish wind power company NEG Micon A/S for
their part in the illegal ongoing killing of tens of thousands of protected birds by wind turbines at the
Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (“APWRA”) in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Through
their subsidiaries and associated entities, FPL Group and NEG Micon own or operate roughly half of the
approximately 5,400 wind turbines at the APWRA. Each year, wind turbines at the APWRA kill up to 60
or more golden eagles and hundreds of other hawks, owls, and other protected raptors. These bird kills
have continued for 20 years in flagrant violation of the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and several California Fish and Game Code provisions. The lawsuit alleges
that these violations and bird kills are unlawful and unfair business practices under the California
Business and Professions Code.
“Altamont Pass wind turbines are causing extremely high levels of bird mortality along a major raptor
migration route and are likely depleting eagle, hawk, and owl populations not only locally but throughout
the western U. S.,” said Jeff Miller, spokesperson for CBD. “We absolutely support wind power, but it is
past time for the primary turbine owners, FPL Energy and NEG Micon, to address this problem.”
“Altamont Pass has become a death zone for eagles and other magnificent and imperiled birds of prey.
Recent studies have proposed numerous recommendations for mitigating the devastating effect of
Altamont Pass wind turbines on birds, yet the industry is blindly charging ahead replacing existing
turbines with new and much larger turbines without any requirement of effective preventative measures
or remediation for ongoing bird kills,” said Richard Wiebe, attorney for the plaintiffs.
The APWRA was established in 1982 on 160 square kilometers of private cattle ranches in eastern
Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Due in part to the local abundance of raptor populations in the
region, wind turbines at APWRA cause more bird deaths than any wind facility in the world, a result of
poor planning that allowed wind turbines to be built along a major raptor migration corridor and in the
heart of the highest concentration of golden eagles in North America. Wind turbines at Altamont Pass
kill over a thousand birds each year, including up to 60 or more golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks,
270 burrowing owls, and additional hundreds of other raptors including kestrels, falcons, vultures, and
other owl species. In 20 years of operation, the wind power industry has yet to implement any effective
measures to reduce the killing of protected raptors or come up with meaningful mitigations to protect
bird populations affected by the wind farms. In recent months, the County of Alameda approved
repowering and renewed permits for the majority of the wind turbines at APWRA without conducting any
public environmental review or requiring any meaningful mitigation measures to reduce or compensate
for bird deaths. CBD and CAlifornians for Renewable Energy filed a formal appeal of the permit
renewals with Alameda County in November 2003.
The extraordinary numbers of raptor deaths continue unabated, due in part to the complete regulatory
failure by federal, state, and local officials to enforce wildlife protection laws. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, U. S. Attorney’s Office, California Department of Fish and Game, and Alameda and Contra
Costa Counties bear equal responsibility for the ongoing bird atrocity at Altamont for their failure to
impose any meaningful mitigation requirements or protective measures on the Altamont Pass wind
power industry,” stated Miller.
To add insult to injury, the Altamont Pass wind power industry has been receiving massive tax credits
as well as government cash grants funded by surcharges imposed on California’s electricity consumers
as part of the state’s flawed deregulation plan, all of which serve to subsidize the killing of birds. “The
wind power industry receives tens of millions of dollars in revenue from California’s consumers, as well
as enormous tax credits and government subsidies, based on the perception that it provides ‘green’
energy, yet continues to kill thousands of protected birds annually,” said Miller. “The Altamont
companies routinely kill rare birds that are the natural heritage of all Californians, and take taxpayer
subsidies home to Florida and Denmark.” According to wind industry reports, the Altamont Pass fiasco
has tainted public perception of wind energy and hampered wind power development, as concerns
about bird impacts has delayed or discontinued other wind facilities.
The magnitude of bird kills at APWRA has been known since at least 1988, when the first of many
studies of raptor mortality was published. To date, the industry has not implemented effective mitigation
measures to reduce bird kills, protect and maintain existing bird populations, or to compensate for killing
large numbers of birds from imperiled populations, despite numerous studies by the California Energy
Commission, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and others. “The birds have literally been
studied to death, yet the Altamont Pass turbine owners have failed to take action to reduce the risk to
birds of prey,” said Miller. In fact some efforts at APWRA, such as a small mammal poisoning program,
have actually increased the risk to raptors while also threatening other endangered species inhabiting
Altamont Pass such as the San Joaquin kit fox and California red-legged frog. Recent research at
APWRA determined that bird mortality has not lessened over time, that the industry’s minimal mitigation
measures have been ineffective, and that the actual number of bird deaths is likely 8 to 16 times the
industry-reported number of bird kills.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco, is brought under California’s Unfair
Competition Law (California Business and Professions Code section 17200), which prohibits
businesses from violating other laws, in this case federal and state wildlife protection laws, in the course
of their business activities. The lawsuit also alleges that FPL has violated California’s false advertising
laws and the federal Lanham Act by making untrue or misleading statements in publicly asserting that it
complies with all federal and state environmental laws.
The issue at Altamont is not wind power versus birds, but rather whether the wind power industry is
willing to take simple steps to reduce bird kills. Raptor experts have suggested numerous measures to
reduce bird deaths, including retiring particularly lethal turbines, relocating turbines out of canyons,
moving isolated turbines into clusters, increasing the visibility of turbines to birds, retrofitting power
poles to prevent bird electrocutions, discontinuing the rodent poisoning program, and managing grazing
to encourage rodent prey away from turbines. Raptor experts have also suggested mitigation through
raptor habitat preservation to maintain the stability of the bird populations that are being depleted.
Concerns about the potential for wind turbines at Altamont Pass to kill endangered condors recently
scuttled plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce condors into the Diablo Range east of
Morgan Hill and Gilroy. The turbines may also be severely impacting local populations of the western
burrowing owl, a declining species for which the CBD and bird conservation groups are requesting
protection under the California Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to the protection
of native species and their habitats. The Center works to protect and restore natural ecosystems and
imperiled species through science, education, policy, and environmental law. For more information
about the impacts of wind turbines on raptors and the Altamont Pass issue visit our web site.
(end)
Altamont Pass Report Encourages Wind Farm Changes (August 17, 2004)
[photo]
Bird deaths caused by wind turbines at Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California
started a chain reaction of worries across the nation about how wind power effects bird
species. After four-years of study to address the effects of wind turbines on bird
mortality, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has released a report that details
their findings and could be a guide to wind farms across the country.
Sacramento, California - August 17, 2004 [SolarAccess.com] Bird deaths caused by
wind turbines at Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California helped contribute to a
chain reaction of worries across the nation about how wind power effects bird species.
After four-years of study to address the effects of wind turbines on bird mortality, the
California Energy Commission (CEC) has released a report that details their findings and
could be a guide to wind farms across the country.
According to research data, an estimated 1,766 to 4,721 birds, of which 881 to 1300 are
protected raptors, are killed annually at Altamont Pass. Researchers studied bird
behaviors, raptor prey species availability, wind turbine and tower design and location,
landscape attributes, and range management practices to try and explain the variation in
bird mortality. The goal was to develop models that could be used to predict high
collision-risk situations and site new turbines in lowest risk locations.
Measures identified in the commission's report to reduce bird deaths include: relocating
selected, highly dangerous turbines; removing broken and non-operating turbines;
installing structures at the ends of turbine strings to divert birds around the turbines and
blades; and rodent management practices - other than poisoning - to control food source
populations that congregate around the base of turbines. If successfully put in place
throughout the Altamont Pass area, these measures may reduce bird mortality by up to 50
percent for some species.
"This finding echoes the recommendations of other researchers who have studied
Altamont Pass extensively over the past decade," said Tom Gray, the communications
director of American Wind Energy Association. "Wind energy companies with projects
in the pass have been engaged for some time with local, state, and federal agencies in an
intensive effort to understand the causes of raptor collisions with wind turbines and to
identify ways to reduce them, and we expect that effort to continue."
To compensate for continuing and unavoidable losses, CEC researchers also
recommended securing habitat to protect affected bird species for the long term. In
addition, the new turbines and any new mitigation measures implemented should be
monitored for at least three years to determine if they result in a reduction in bird
mortality.
There's heightened urgency to resolve the environmental concerns, according to the
report. California's goal of producing 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources,
including wind, by 2010 could be hindered without the harnessing of wind power
available in Altamont Pass. Alameda County will not allow permits to increase electrical
production at Altamont beyond the existing capacity of 584 MW until there is
demonstrated progress toward reducing bird kills.
The perception among the some of the general public that wind farms can harm birds has
been partially cultivated by these findings at Altamont pass -- and wind power foes often
use this example to characterize all wind farms as having the same potential for conflict.
"It's important to make clear that the highly publicized problem in Altamont Pass is not
representative of wind farms across the U.S.," Gray said. "Wind farms do coexist
successfully with wildlife in many other locations."
Overall, wind turbines in California have an installed generating capacity of 2,000 MW,
including a potential of 800 MW of energy generated at Altamont Pass. Wind turbines
provide up to 3.5 billion kWh annually of emissions-free electricity in California. Some
wind operators in the Altamont Pass had applied for re-powering permits in 1998, but
never completed the process partially because of the bird mortalities. Implementing new
methods and technologies to reduce the collisions in Altamont Pass will help producers
increase wind electricity yield at the site, and effective measures could be applied as
mortality-reduction methods at other sites around the state and country.
Some turbines in the Altamont Pass area are an old design that relies on a lattice style
tower for height, which look similar to towers used for high-tension wires. As opposed to
the new, larger tower designs, the older lattice style towers offer birds many places to
perch - putting them in danger of the spinning blades. New towers and vertical and
smooth, preventing this possibility.
Researchers also found that turbines at the end of turbine rows, on either end of a gap in
the row, in deep canyons, and in isolation caused disproportionately more collisions than
other turbines. However, birds that would perch on turbines and horizontal towers were
less of a factor than previously suspected.
These and other findings led the researchers to conclude that the most effective solution
to reducing bird collisions in the Altamont Pass area is to replace the numerous small
existing turbines with fewer, larger turbines on taller towers. The newer turbines are
much more efficient, with one turbine generating the same capacity as seven to 10 older
ones, thus allowing for more generation and fewer opportunities for collision.
The Altamont study was funded by the commission's Public Interest Energy Research
(PIER) program, and conducted by BioResource Consultants from Ojai, California.
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic
newsletter.
June 15, 2005
Report on Bat Mortality at Wind Plants Yields New
Insights
The Bat and Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC) released its 2004 report
on bat interactions with wind turbines in early June. The peer-reviewed
study involved daily and weekly searches for bat carcasses at wind
power sites in Pennsylvania and West Virginia from July 31st to
September 13th of 2004. In addition, thermal imaging cameras were
used to study bat, bird, and insect activity at the West Virginia site for
most of August.
The study found a total of 765 dead bats at the two sites, but
estimated the total number of bat fatalities at between 1,764 and
2,900 for the six-week period. None of the bat species found are listed
as threatened or endangered. The study found that most of the bats
were killed on low-wind nights, when power production was minimal
but the blades were turning near their maximum speed. Bat fatalities
increased just before and after the passage of storm fronts, and bat
activity was highest in the first two hours after sunset. The presence
or absence of aircraft warning beacons on the wind turbines did not
affect the results. The researchers recommended that future studies
be conducted over the entire season of bat movement and activity,
namely April through October, to further study these correlations and
to help determine "high-risk" times that may be used to mitigate the
impacts of wind turbines on bat populations.
BWEC was formed in late 2003 by the American Wind Energy
Association, Bat Conservation International, DOE's National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Based on
the 2004 findings, the BWEC scientists recommended studying the
effects of "feathering" wind turbines during low winds to cut their
speeds, but no wind project owner has been willing to conduct such
experiments. The BWEC also plans to test the reliability of acoustic
detectors at wind power sites and to evaluate the potential for using
alerting or deterring devices at wind power sites. See the full report, a
summary of findings from the report, and a joint BWEC statement on
the report on the BWEC Web site.