Jack Clarke: Fossil-fuel burning, not wind turbines, is the huge threat to birds

Via ecoRI News (ecori.org)

President Trump recently criticized “windmills” as a source of energy, claiming: “They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like a killing field.”

All this while he attempts to prop up a fading coal industry that is responsible for killing 24 times as many birds as wind energy.

But do wind turbines really “kill so many birds?” It’s one of the most commonly repeated criticisms of wind power: that they are giant Cuisinarts for birds.

Last winter, Trump’s secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, told an oil and gas industry audience that wind facilities kill 750,000 birds a year. Yet his own Fish & Wildlife Service put the estimate at less than half that number. Meanwhile, Zinke is doing away with century-old protections under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Estimated bird deaths from wind turbines are small when compared to other human-caused sources of avian mortality. In contrast to the 5 billion birds killed annually as a result of encounters with a variety of hazards ranging from domestic cats to building glass, turbines are a much smaller risk.

The greatest threat to birds today is climate change. Of Massachusetts’s 143 breeding bird species evaluated by Mass Audubon, 43 percent are “highly vulnerable” to its impacts.

Climate change produces warmer temperatures that alter the length of seasons, interrupting traditional migration patterns. It also causes accelerated sea-level rise and stronger ocean storms, which wreak havoc on coastal bird habitats, drowning out the nesting and foraging areas for species such as the federally protected roseate tern and piping plover.

The impacts of climate change on birds will become even more severe unless we reduce our over-dependence on fossil fuels, which are clogging the atmosphere and heating up the planet.

We can do this by increasing conservation and efficiency, and producing more renewable energy. Wind energy is now among the most cost-effective, competitive, and reliable technologies available.

Today, the U.S. wind energy industry is primarily comprised of land-based turbines. As the third-most densely populated state, Massachusetts isn’t a very hospitable place for big, terrestrial wind-energy development — we’re just too crowded. So, we look offshore where there’s more space, fewer people, and stronger winds.

Europe can boast a 24-year history of successful offshore wind-energy development, with more than 4,000 turbines in the water. In comparison, the United States has just five operating structures, planted in the seabed off Block Island, R.I.

Bay State voters support offshore wind, as a WBUR/MassINC September poll showed, with an overwhelming 80 percent of those tallied saying we should rely more on wind for our electricity.

Consistent with this opinion, Beacon Hill lawmakers recently passed legislation that will hopefully result in at least 3,200 megawatts of offshore wind energy, as we work to reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In response, the Vineyard Wind company aims to build the first U.S. industrial-scale wind farm 35 miles south of Cape Cod. Its 80-100 turbines would remove 2 million tons annually of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, in addition to thousands of tons of poisonous nitrogen and sulfur oxides. That’s good for people, birds, and wildlife.

For this wind facility to be viable, however, it must first demonstrate that it will pose no significant threat to the marine life and environment in and around the project area.

That doesn’t mean the wind facility can have absolutely no affect on the region’s wildlife and habitat, as any development of energy will entail some level of impact. However, the project must be designed to avoid any significant environmental damage, and anticipated impacts need to be minimized and mitigated. That’s the sequence to success and the review standard for this project and those in the future.

If Vineyard Wind gets it right, others will follow as leases in two more deep-water areas off Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been granted, with a fourth sale scheduled next month.

And while Mass Audubon supports the deployment of renewable wind-energy projects off our shores, that commitment can’t and will not be at any cost. With appropriate design, siting, and mitigation, the industry can grow and prosper as Massachusetts does its part to combat the devastating impacts of global climate change.

Birds, other wildlife, and people will all reap the benefits.

Jack Clarke is the director of public policy and government relations at the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Frank Carini: Fossil fuel, cell towers, windows MUCH more deadly to birds and bats than wind turbines

Via ecoRI News (ecori.org)

As wind power spins forward in the United States — the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm is the first offshore wind-energy facility in the country — the giant turbine blades that generate energy are often blamed for the death of birds and bats.

Turbines certainly do kill flying creatures, but how does this oft-maligned form of renewable energy stack up against other sources that are used to power our society? Plenty of research still needs to be conducted — especially concerning bat mortality caused by energy production — but most of the research already done shows fossil fuels are more lethal than spinning blades.

North American wind turbines kill an estimated 140,000 to 328,000 birds annually, according to a 2013 study. Another 2013 study claimed every year 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats are killed by wind turbines. A 2014 report claims turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually.

The peer-reviewed 2014 study by two federal scientists and the environmental consulting firm Western EcoSystems Technology Inc., however, found that number is small compared with the estimated 6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers. The study’s authors estimated that on an annual basis less than 0.1 percent of bird populations in North America die from collisions with turbines.

Collisions with windows, on the other hand, kill between 365 million and 988 million birds in the United States annually.

“Properly sited wind turbines are relatively bird-friendly, especially when compared to fossil fuels,” according to the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “However, they are far from benign.”

The Virginia-based organization has noted that wind turbines and their associated infrastructure, notably power lines and towers, are among the fastest-growing threats to birds and bats in the United States and Canada. At the end of 2016, there were more than 52,000 operating, commercial-scale, land-based wind turbines in the United States, according to the ABC, producing about 66,000 megawatts of power.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to kill any bird protected by the act, even if the death is incidental, such as being struck by a spinning turbine blade, killed during a mountaintop mining explosion, or suffocated in an oil spill. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act recommends that to avoid eagle deaths companies should seriously consider where they site energy projects.

Wind-energy development, like all energy projects and infrastructure, can contribute to habitat loss, which can have significant impacts on birds, bats and other wildlife.

The ABC recommends “bird-smart” wind-energy development that ensures turbines are sited away from bird-collision risk areas; employs effective and tested mitigation to minimize bird fatalities; conducts independent, transparent, post-construction monitoring of bird and bat deaths; and calculates and provides fair compensation for the loss of ecologically important, federally protected birds.

Six decades ago hydroelectric power was celebrated as a source of renewable energy. Hydroelectric power includes both massive hydroelectric dams and the smaller mill dams that once powered the Industrial Revolution, most notably in New England. Now, many dams are being torn down because of their unintended environmental and wildlife impacts, such as changing ecosystems and impeding the path of migratory fish.

A bigger problem for birds and bats is the continued burning of fossil fuels. A 2014 National Audubon Society report noted that hundreds of bird species in the United States, such as bald eagles, are at “serious risk” because of climate change.

A 2009 study using U.S. and European data on bird deaths estimated the number of birds killed per unit of power generated by wind and fossil-fuel sources. It concluded that wind facilities are responsible for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour of electricity, while fossil-fuel power power plants are responsible for 5.2 fatalities per gigawatt-hour.

Another study, published four years later, found that wind turbines kill 0.27 birds per gigawatt-hour, nuclear plants 0.6, and fossil-fuel power plants 9.4.

Bat deaths attributed to wind turbines aren't as well documented, but limited research has shown this renewable-energy source does have an impact. In Rhode Island, for instance, turbine owners have reported dead bats at the base of their structures.

Besides the dangers spinning blades pose for the only mammals that can fly, a 2011 study found that bats can succumb to the pressures created when turbine blades pass through the air, a phenomenon known as barotrauma.

While bats normally live for a long time, they, like sharks, are slow reproducers, meaning their populations rely on high adult survival rates.

All energy production comes with costs, especially to ecosystems and wildlife. Source and siting should be about making decisions based on more than just price and profit.

Frank Carini is editor of ecoRI News.