New Study Finds Seabirds Avoid Offshore Wind Turbines

[Sandy]

Would fish be able to avoid tidal turbines, I wonder?

Flying fish have it really tough, tidal turbines and wind farms!

 

[sarabande]

I forgot to add to my preceding post. The earliest commercial wind turbines are now reaching the end of their service life (around 20 years). There are substantial environmental concerns about how the blades, towers and generators and access roads can be recycled or re-used as early farms were smaller and built on less than optimal sites. Off shore farms have much higher infrastructure dismantling costs. It seems that digging huge pits and burying blades is the current favourite option. Madness.

Life-time costing is something with which my daughter is involved in the company for which she is the head of Strategy. In some cases the end of life costs had not been calculated in the rush to obtain planning permission and build. Fortunately EOL costs are now very much part of the commercial considerations.

 

[Bouba]

Don’t know if it’s true but I just read that each turbine uses a ton of rare earths....I hope it’s recoverable otherwise the dependence on China will be like our dependence on the Middle East....nothing changes we go from despot to despot

 

[jamie N]

For fish, doing underwater survey on windfarms we very rarely saw a fish; in hundreds of hours of video I saw fewer than 10 fish off of Helgoland, IJmuiden & Borkum, which were my areas.
Surveying offshore oil platforms with thousands of hours of survey, we'd frequently have to stop the survey in the early & dark hours of the day, because we were unable to video due to the enormous number of fish hiding the structure, making visual survey impossible, indeed explaining that to a client was somewhat tiresome. "If we can't see it, we can't survey it, and yes, it's fish!"
Vibration, heat and depth are the only variables that spring to mind.

 

[davidaprice]

Could they not scare off the birds by putting whistles on the tips of the blades? Not sure I'd like to live close to one, mind you.

 

[Bouba]

For fish, doing underwater survey on windfarms we very rarely saw a fish; in hundreds of hours of video I saw fewer than 10 fish off of Helgoland, IJmuiden & Borkum, which were my areas.
Surveying offshore oil platforms with thousands of hours of survey, we'd frequently have to stop the survey in the early & dark hours of the day, because we were unable to video due to the enormous number of fish hiding the structure, making visual survey impossible, indeed explaining that to a client was somewhat tiresome. "If we can't see it, we can't survey it, and yes, it's fish!"
Vibration, heat and depth are the only variables that spring to mind.

Perhaps it’s the shade ?

 

[Concerto]

With every report, on any subject, we must understand that most have a slightly underlying agenda. Was the report I posted as the OP, funded by the electricity generators, or by the RSPB, or Natural England, or Marine Management Organisation.

The only report I know that found interesting unexpected results was in the early 1950's when 2 doctors were looking into lung cancer. One thought is was due to tar from road building and the other thought it was due to the poor air quality. However they found almost all the lung cancer suffers also smoked, this was the first link between cigarettes and cancer, but it took 4 decades for most smoking bans to start to be put in place.

 

[Supertramp]

Over many years I cycled in and out of Holland via ferries at Europort. Every time I noticed a significant number of dead birds on or next to the cycle paths that run under the huge windmills. These were big gulls and geese. I always assumed they had been killed by the turbines as they travelled to and from Brielse Meer and the sea. So I find it hard to believe wind turbines do not kill birds. It also makes sense that they learn to avoid areas with many turbines. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought wind farms produced free energy with no environmental impact. Quantifying and evaluating that impact relative to other energy sources will keep many people occupied for many years.

 

[franksingleton]

Wind turbines are thought to kill seabirds, but this is the first study that disproves this as they found birds avoid offshore wind farms.

New Study Finds Seabirds Avoid Offshore Wind Turbines (gcaptain.com)

Perhaps, they are not bird-brained after all

 

[Dellquay13]

I’ve just listened to a bbc radio 4 programme (Flight of the Ospreys?) about migrating long wingspan raptors and how the land based wind farms on the Spanish side of the straits of Gibraltar have to be switched off to allow migration, and it has reduced fatalities by about 80% for some of the bigger species

 

[boomerangben]

There’s extensive survey activity around various potential Scottish offshore wind turbine sites at the moment. They are flying regularly to gather bird and cetacean movements.

 

[Yealm]

A press report of a single study conducted by a company who benefit from a negative result ?!

What's the consensus view by scientists in this field, who have studied all the existing evidence ?!

 

[Bouba]

You have to assume that the conditions that make an acceptable site to place a wind farm would also be where birds would also take advantage of the conditions. A collision between the two seems obvious and doesn’t require science only common sense

 

[HenrikH]

Monitoring of onshore windfarms, where there are many years of experience reports on average 7 birds per year per turbine. That is low compared to the takings of an average cat. (disputed by a former US president who has alternative facts)

 

[Laser310]

The main problem with windfarms is that they are a hideous eyesore - desecrating landscapes all over Europe that in some case hadn't changed much in a thousand years.

The other problem is that they require a lot of space; the turbines in terrestrial windfarns often have roads between each turbine, and much vegetation has been removed around them. Compared with an oil well, they don't produce much energy, so the relative use of land is much greater.

I just hate going into the countryside for a hike.., and seeing mountain ridges covered with turbines.

 

[farmer.leo]

I get the impression, though, that I'm wasting my time in doing that, as most people seem to have decided whether wind farms are a good or (more likely) bad thing, and are only interested in evidence, if at all, insofar as it supports their prejudice.

There are quite a few belief systems that we don't call "religion". They are not self identified as such, so perhaps politeness dictates we ignore the parallels.
Having said that, I've known a bartender working for 9 years - and he hasn't once seen a drunk driving accident.

Perhaps the animals at greatest risk from wind farms are Dolphins and Wales. I have not witnessed anything first hand, but have read about it.
Yet how are we supposed to believe anybody, anyway? It seems one certain truth after another, defamed during its blossom at your peril, is reversed each month.

 

[LittleSister]

The main problem with windfarms is that they are a hideous eyesore - desecrating landscapes all over Europe that in some case hadn't changed much in a thousand years.

The other problem is that they require a lot of space; the turbines in terrestrial windfarns often have roads between each turbine, and much vegetation has been removed around them. Compared with an oil well, they don't produce much energy, so the relative use of land is much greater.

I just hate going into the countryside for a hike.., and seeing mountain ridges covered with turbines.

If they were natural, wind generators and windfarms would be considered a wonder of nature!

I think they are often obtrusive, but sometimes they add drama and interest to a landscape (as, indeed, do lighthouses sometimes). There's a particular early UK wind farm on the road to Cornwall that falls (or did when I last passed) into that category.

You are mistaken if you think that much of Europe's landscape has changed little in 1,000 years!

An oil well isn't a relevant comparison. You'd have to add in pollution (and its impacts on vegetation), refineries, wholesale and retail distribution. Electricity distribution also has impacts, but generally lesser ones.

I'm interested in how you get to the countryside without roads, which are more ubiquitous and overall vastly more intrusive in the landscape (and townscape) than windfarms.

Windfarms are one of the prices we must pay for the comfort and convenience of our hugely energy dependent lifestyles. Easy enough to complain about from the luxury of not facing power shortages, having to change our lives or fight wars to maintain our access to oil and other energy resources..

 

[westernman]

The main problem with windfarms is that they are a hideous eyesore - desecrating landscapes all over Europe that in some case hadn't changed much in a thousand years.

The other problem is that they require a lot of space; the turbines in terrestrial windfarns often have roads between each turbine, and much vegetation has been removed around them. Compared with an oil well, they don't produce much energy, so the relative use of land is much greater.

I just hate going into the countryside for a hike.., and seeing mountain ridges covered with turbines.

There are very few landscapes anywhere in Europe which have not drastically been changed by man over the last 1000 years. Be that deforestation and replanting with different tree species, agriculture and grazing.

Just think of a wind turbine as a different species of tree. May be they should just paint them different shades of green/brown?

 

[westernman]

I don’t think that we need a wind farm to create a protected marine park or no fishing zone...unfortunately the sea where I live is almost devoid of fish...but there is a large national marine park that is close enough to see. But I suspect that without it the sea would be completely lifeless.

This is a few yards from my marina:-

There are actually a lot of fish in the marina as well.
If you throw a piece of bread into the water from the boat there is a tourbillion of fish fighting over it.

 

[Zing]

Wind turbines are thought to kill seabirds, but this is the first study that disproves this as they found birds avoid offshore wind farms.

New Study Finds Seabirds Avoid Offshore Wind Turbines (gcaptain.com)

This is like Pfizer producing a report to say their jab was safe. We would never believe them would we?