Energy in America: Dead Birds Unintended Consequence of Wind Power Development
By William La Jeunesse

Published August 16, 2011
| FoxNews.com

As California attempts to divorce itself from fossil-fueled electricity, it may be trading one environmental sin for another -- although you don't hear state officials admitting it.

Wind power is the fastest growing component in the state's green energy portfolio, but wildlife advocates say the marriage has an unintended consequence: dead birds, including protected species of eagles, hawks and owls.

"The cumulative impacts are huge," said Shawn Smallwood, one of the few recognized experts studying the impact of wind farms on migratory birds. "It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal, if not wipe them out."

California supports roughly 2,500 golden eagles. The state's largest wind farms kill, on average, more than 80 eagles per year. But the state is set to triple wind capacity in the coming years as it tries to become the first state in the nation to generate 33 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2020.

"We would like to have no bird deaths and no bird injuries. But, once again, we have to balance all the needs of society. All the people who want to flip their switch and have electricity in their homes," said Lorelei Oviatt, Kern County planning commissioner.

Kern County has identified some 225,000 acres just north of Los Angeles as a prime wind resource area. Unfortunately, the area's rolling hills and mountains are prime hunting grounds for raptors and a layover spot for migratory birds traveling between Canada and Mexico. The updrafts enjoyed by birds of prey are ideal for generating power.

"I'm not against wind power -- it is a viable form of energy generation -- but it needs to be developed more carefully," Smallwood said.

Case in point: In the Bay Area, when activists in the 1980s demanded a cleaner planet, the state responded with the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. The state-approved wind farm, built with federal tax credits, kills 4,700 birds annually, including 1,300 raptors, among them 70 golden eagles, according to biological reports generated on behalf of the owners.

Smallwood said replacing the small, older turbines with larger blades has cut some species fatalities roughly in half.

Oviatt said Kern County is trying to learn from Altamont's mistakes.

"We're requiring full environmental impact reports, which take at least 12 to 18 months," Oviatt said. "Can I promise that a bird will never be injured or killed? I can't. But again, we have this tradeoff in society, between the things we need to function as an economy and the fact that we wanna make sure we have an environment for future generations."

Pine Tree is one of the wind farms in Kern County and is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. According to an internal DWP bird and bat mortality report for the year ending June 2010, bird fatality rates were "relatively high" at Pine Tree compared to 45 other wind facilities nationwide. The facility’s annual death rate per turbine is three times higher for golden eagles than at Altamont.

"Politics plays a huge role here," Smallwood said. "Our leaders want this power source so they're giving, for a time being, a pass to the wind industry. If you or I killed an eagle, we're looking at major consequences."

Smallwood and others say it is almost inconceivable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, hasn't acted.

"There's a big, big hypocrisy here," Sue Hammer of Tehachapi Wildlife Rehab in Kern County said. "If I shoot an eagle, it's a $10,000 fine and/or a vacation of one to five years in a federal pen of my choice."

She's not far off from the reality.

In 2009, Exxon pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of about 85 migratory birds in five states that came into contact with crude oil in uncovered waste tanks. The fine for this was $600,000.

Likewise, PacifiCorp, an Oregon utility, owed $10.5 million in fines, restitution and improvements to their equipment after 232 eagles were killed by running into power lines in Wyoming.

And in 2005, the owner of a fish hatchery was ordered to serve six months in a federal halfway house and pay a $65,000 fine for shooting an eagle that was feeding at his uncovered hatchery.

Wind power in the U.S. generates 41,400 megawatts of electricity. California represents just a fraction of that total, suggesting the number of raptor kills is considerably higher nationwide. Yet according to records, USFWS has not prosecuted a single company for violating one of the many statutes protecting threatened and endangered birds.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/ ... z1VFLQ3WdB

wheres WJB? isn't this the part where he normally chimes in and states how ugly the wind trubines are? somehow this convo feels incomplete!

I think they're causing those wind storms in Phoenix

Obama: $43m more for ‘wind energy’ green jobs
Published: 12:47 PM 09/08/2011
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller

President Barack Obama’s administration rolled out a spending-heavy green energy package Thursday morning, just hours before the economically embattled chief executive will give his “jobs plan” speech to a rare joint session of Congress.

The new Department of Energy (DOE) program will spend $43 million over the next five years to “speed technical innovations, lower costs, and shorten the timeline for deploying offshore wind energy systems,” according to a DOE release.

“The U.S. has an abundant offshore wind resource that remains untapped,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “Through these awards, the Department of Energy is developing the critical technology and knowledge base necessary to responsibly develop this resource, enhance our energy security, and create new clean energy jobs.” (RELATED: Solyndra officials made numerous trips to White House)

The new spending package includes taxpayer funding for 41 different wind energy research and development projects. Funding recipients include several universities nationwide, consulting firms and energy companies like Duke Energy, a major democratic contributor.

Pennsylvania State University is among those recipients, taking in $1.2 million of taxpayer cash to “develop a computer model ‘Cyber Wind Facility’ to generate data over an entire wind turbine farm both on and offshore simulating wind and wave impacts on wind turbine structures.” Pennsylvania State University’s professor Michael Mann was at the center of allegations that he manipulated data to exaggerate climate change. An internal investigation by Pennsylvania State cleared itself of wrong-doing.

Another funding recipient, the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, got $4.5 million to study the effects of offshore turbines on “bird, sea turtle, and marine mammal abundance and movement in the mid-Atlantic.”

Obama has taken recent criticism for his administration’s continued use of government spending to spur economic growth. Americans for Limited Government spokesman Rick Manning told The Daily Caller this new Energy Department spending resembles the administration’s efforts to use taxpayer money to prop up now-failing solar company Solyndra, which was raided Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

“After the failure of the Solyndra solar venture capital effort, it’s shocking that Secretary Chu continues to want to play venture capitalist with taxpayer money,” Manning said in a phone interview. “If he [President Obama] truly wants to create jobs, he should immediately move to open up Shell’s Arctic oil leases as well as the Gulf for an immediate stimulus to America’s economy.”

Institute for Energy Research state and regulatory affairs director Dan Simmons echoed Manning’s comments, adding that the Obama administration hasn’t learned its “green jobs” lesson yet. He said the program won’t create any “real jobs,” only ones that “survive as long as the government provides subsidies.”

“We tried to warn them two years ago that following the Spanish green jobs model will not create jobs, but will waste taxpayer dollars and lead to a higher deficit and we have been proved right,” Simmons told TheDC. “Just look at the jobs numbers.”

Ads by Google“There is a reason why private companies aren’t keen to invest in offshore wind and instead companies are turning to the feds for financing,” Simmons adds. “According to the Department of Energy’s own Energy Information Administration, offshore wind is twice as expensive as onshore wind and four times as expensive as advanced natural gas.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/08/obama ... z1XNsAsVcA

That much I can't disagree with... Why subsidize energy? Oil, wind, all of it... If it can't produce at an economically viable #, screw it...