Peñascal Wind Farm, located in Texas, is going to attempt to protect birds and bats during migration peaks, according to the UK Guardian. A 200 megaWatt wind farm, built by Iberdrola Renewables, will be the world's first wind farm that will shut down the turbines if bad weather corresponds with the peak migration of thousands of birds flying through every hour. The shutdown system will be triggered by a monitoring radar system.
Wind turbines have long been perceived as a threat to wildlife, in particular bats and migrating birds that fly into the wind-turbine structures. It is particularly bad when adverse weather or poor visibility such as fog, occurs during migration. The birds become disoriented and drop lower in altitude, often coming in close proximity to the 400ft (130m) tall turbines. The rotating blades also cause low pressure fields that cause hemorrhaging in bats' lungs, another environmental black-mark against wind turbines.
In the Guardian article, it was stated that wind farms kill around 7000 birds a year. A Canadian Wind Energy Association summary states the average to be two birds a year per wind turbine which is claimed to be less than the mortality rate for normal buildings and other similar tower structures.
The radar proposed for this wind farm is the same type used by NASA to detect birds at their launch sites that analyze weather conditions and predict the bird flight path. DeTect Inc., Florida, is the company that makes the radar. The company expects that the downtime for the wind farm would be only 40-60 hours per year and is deemed an acceptable economic cost for good corporate citizenship – it would also possibly be an argument to mitigate conservationist and local opposition to the locating of wind turbines in sensitive bird flight paths based on ecological restrictions.
As part of a wind farm installation, there is usually a site survey done to determine bird and bat migration paths, breeding and feeding patterns. However, conservationists say that it still seems better not to locate wind farms directly in migratory flight paths, where warblers, waterfowl, raptors, and hawks are just some of the birds that take advantage of the winds in this region to assist in their migration.
Via: UK Guardian
Resources
Iberdrola Renewables: http://www.iberdrolarenewables.us/
Canadian Wind Energy Association: http://www.canwea.ca
Show/Hide comment form
