AP IMPACT: Wind farms get pass on eagle deaths
CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. (AP) -- It happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground.
Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.
But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.
Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's energy plan. His administration has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WIND_ENERGY_EAGLE_DEATHS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-14-03-22-38
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Birds tend to have poor hearing and smell, relying on their eyes. They are exceptions (Buzzards use their sense of smell to locate dead animals for example), but Eagles are some of the most dependent on eyesight as opposed to smell or noise. Now this does NOT mean they sense of hearing or smell is bad (It is reported both are quite good) but Eagles depend mostly on their eyesight.
This dependence on their eyesight is the problem. Combined with birds tendency to use the wind to help them fly, a wind turbine becomes a death trap for them. Birds can clearly see any blade from a three blade wind that is in front of them. The birds then adjust they flight pattern to stay away from that blade, but then miss the bland coming behind them. Noise or Smell would be an ineffective defense, a better defense would be something that aid birds dependence on their sight.
The problem with the safer bird wind generators is they all tend to be less efficient. They either have more blades (that for birds gives them a clearly picture of what they are flying into) which tends to be heavier and thus loses some energy in moving the greater weight. Another factor is the three blade wind generator is design to turn into the wind, to being able to use the wind the most efficiently (Which also increases the blades tendency to hit birds)
http://inhabitat.com/powerwindow-new-bird-safe-turbine-can-generate-clean-quiet-affordable-wind-power-in-cities/
A more recent invention uses vertical blades (more like window blinds), that turn and generate power:
http://inhabitat.com/powerwindow-new-bird-safe-turbine-can-generate-clean-quiet-affordable-wind-power-in-cities/
Neither is as efficient as the three blade generator, but both provide better visual clues to birds to stay away from the blades (and thus safer for birds).
