Q: What is your opinion of wind
energy’s environmental and health effects?
A:
First let us say that we very much favor wind power and all other
sources of environmentally friendly, renewable energy. They are
crucial alternatives to fossil fuels, which are major contributors
to global warming, and to nuclear reactors, which, among other
problems like heavy water usage, have an unsolved dangerous waste
hazard. We have found that many of the criticisms of wind energy are
inflated. And a much greater threat to birds, animals and humans
comes from allowing climate change to create floods, drought, forest
fires, severe storms and other catastrophic occurrences.
The controversy that sometimes surrounds wind
energy often relates to scale. As in many situations, small is often
better. For the past few decades, there have been many research
studies about the effects of wind farms on bird mortality and the
quality of life for nearby residents.
In the U.S., these studies were prompted by the
relatively high number of raptors that were found dead at the
Altamont Pass Wind Farms near San Francisco – a situation that even
prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit by the Center for Biological
Diversity in 2004.
The Altamont Pass site was one of the first
locations in the U.S. to be developed for commercial wind energy
generation. Recent research indicates that the large-scale bird
kills at that site are an unusual and possibly unique phenomenon
caused by a number of factors, including bad siting and the
particular wind turbine and tower technology used when it was built
in the early 1980s. The wind farm consists of lattice-like towers,
which provide attractive perches for birds, supporting 4,800 small
turbines, as opposed to newer farms consisting of larger turbines
constructed on taller tubular towers.
Properly sited, today’s wind farms seem to present
much less danger to bird populations. Nevertheless, studies show
that in the U.S., turbines kill between 40,000 and 70,000 birds per
year. However, these numbers must be put into perspective with the
generally far greater hazards posed by land clearing due to
residential sprawl, road traffic, large buildings, power lines,
traffic, hunting and agricultural pesticides, which together account
for...
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Wendy Priesnitz is the Editor of
Natural Life Magazine and a journalist with 30 years of experience.
She has
also authored nine
books.
Read her
blog.