Murphy’s Law in Action – Which to choose? Save the bats or save the planet? This presents an environmental quandary. – Anthony
Wind Turbines Give Bats the “Bends,” Study Finds
August 25, 2008
Wind turbines can kill bats without touching them by causing a bends-like condition due to rapidly dropping air pressure, new research suggests. Scientists aren’t sure why, but bats are attracted to the turbines, which often stand 300 feet (90 meters) high and sport 200-foot (60-meter) blades.
The mammals’ curiosity can result in lethal blows by the rotors, which spin at a rate of about 160 miles (260 kilometers) per hour.
But scientist Erin Baerwald and colleagues report that only about half of the bat corpses they found near Alberta, Canada, turbine bases showed any physical evidence of being hit by a blade.
A surprising 90 percent showed signs of internal hemorrhaging—evidence of a drop in air pressure near the blades that causes fatal damage to the bats’ lungs.
In humans, the condition is called the bends and can affect divers and airplane passengers during ascents and descents.
(Related story: “Military Sonar May Give Whales the Bends, Study Says” [October 1, 2003])
The “Bends”
“As a turbine blade goes around, it creates lift—like an airplane’s wings—and there is a small zone of [dropping] pressure, maybe a meter or so in diameter, on the tips of the blades,” explained Baerwald, a doctoral candidate at the University of Calgary, in Alberta.
“Bats fly through this area, and their lungs expand, and the fine capillaries around the edges of the lungs burst.”
The bats’ lungs subsequently fill with fluid, and the animals essentially drown.
“We compare it to divers—they are pretty much dying of the bends,” Baerwald said.
Bats have no natural defense against the unnaturally dramatic pressure changes.
“Bats can actually detect pressure changes, but we’re talking large-scale, relatively slow changes, like the coming of a storm front,” said Baerwald. “This is something entirely different.”
Most bats that fall victim to turbines are migrating species, such as hoary bats, eastern red bats, and silver-haired bats.
There are not enough data to determine how wind turbine fatalities might be affecting populations of these slow-reproducing mammals.
Birds are also killed by blows from wind turbine rotors (see a related story), but their rigid, tubelike lungs can better withstand air pressure changes.
The study appears this week in the journal Current Biology.
Curiosity Killed the Bat
“They are the first to have done a large scale look at this [damage to the bat lungs],” Bat Conservation International (BCI) biologist Ed Arnett said of the researchers.
“It’s fascinating information,” said Arnett, who is not involved with the study.
“But ultimately it might not matter so much how [the bats] die but what is attracting them to the turbines in the first place.”
Preventing the bat deaths has challenged experts for years.
“We’ve partnered with industry and federal agencies to raise and spend about two million dollars looking for a solution,” said BCI founder and president Merlin Tuttle.
Laurie Jodziewicz, of the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, D.C., said where the turbines are placed may be the key.
“Bats are not being [killed] at all the wind projects all over the country—it is happening in some places and not others,” she said.
“We’re trying to determine before construction what areas might be risky.”
Turbines create drops in pressure drop during normal operations, so the problem could possibly be addressed by changing when the turbines run, according to BCI’s Tuttle.
“A large portion of the kills occur at the lowest wind speeds,” he said, “and at those low speeds [the turbines] are not generating appreciable electricity anyway.”
Bats also are at particular risk during migration periods in late summer and early fall, when many turbine related fatalities occur.
Arnett, Baerwald, and others are currently conducting tests to see if raising the “cut-in” wind speed at which rotors begin to turn will save bats—particularly during peak migration periods.
“It won’t eliminate the problem, but it’s a good step in the right direction,” Tuttle said.
Almost all high mileage vehicles (taxis, buses, etc) and many private vehicles here in Perth Western Australia run on LPG (liquid natural gas), for the simple reason it is a third the price of petrol or diesel.
Every service station sells it, right next to the petrol and diesel. You fill your own tank and I have never heard of an LPG accident at a petrol station. LPG is no more of a problem than petrol in an accident, and probably less as it doesn’t pool on the ground waiting for a spark to ignite it. Fires involving LPG vehicles are rare and those that do occur, generally seem to involve botched do it yourself LPG conversions.
statePoet1775 (19:57:02) writes: “Artificial Intelligence is always 50 years away too.”
Dont’ say that in front of Ray Kurzweil, Poet. Gets him kinda twitchy as he points out that in fact AI became a part of our everyday life a long, long time back. It is used in so many of our gadgets and gizzmos that we just accept it as “Oh, yeah. That…”.
Artificial intelligence is living and amongst us; but we want the ultimate AI… whatever that may be.
To Ed Scott,
That’s a very wild idea – rotational velocity, etc – what you don’t know is that the amount of wind has been steadily decreasing worldwide since the beginning of the industrial revolution. My data suggests that a point of “total stillness” will arrive on January 1st 2100. At this time, all migratory birds will fly sideways and the Dutch windmill tourism industry will become bankrupt. So I seriously disagree with your contention that shorter days are upon us.
@McGrats: Pickens was working on his water project long before the wind thing. He started that up maybe four years ago. Here are a few things to start with.
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/07/boone-pickens-thinks-water-is-new-oil.html
http://reporternews.com/news/2008/jul/22/pickens-wants-power-over-transmission-lines/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/water-not-wind-behind-tboone-transmission.php
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/051508/loc_279222425.shtml
Key quote from this story: Pickens’ ranch manager, Alton Boone, and his wife, Lu, cast the lone votes in November to create the 8-acre freshwater supply district. The couple and three other Pickens employees sit on the district’s board.
Update to the Congressional authority he received, DOJ blocked it temporarily: http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/gen/ap/TX_Pickens_Water_District.html
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/jul/18/49-billion-plan-supporting-wind-power-gets-ok/?show_comments=1
Texas electric customers will bear the cost of construction over the next several years, paying about $3 or $4 more per month on their bills, according to Tom Smith, state director of the consumer group Public Citizen. But he predicted that increase would easily be offset by lower energy prices.
what’s going to happen to flying insect populations if bat numbers drop?
Lower insect populations are what kills bats, not the other way around. Wind turbine bat mortality is less than a knats ass in size.
statePoet1775 (16:24:53) :
LOL. One of funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
During the height of the bird flu scare, I wrote a letter to the Rocky Mountain News with the humble suggestion of building a line of wind turbines enclosing the state of Colorado. While generating much needed electricity, it would also prevent the entry of bird flu vectors by chopping them up.
Killing two birds with one turbine, in a manner of speaking.
For some reason, the editor declined to publish my letter.
By the way, did anyone else notice the lack of any references to Chinese bird flu outbreaks during the Olympics? Has the problem been resolved or just not reported?
You have to love T. Boone’s hubris and chutzpa. I love Texas con men. They work on a breathtaking scale others can only dream of.
He is wrong about drilling our way out of the problem.
We now know the Shell in situ process for extracting oil from the oil shale of the Green River basin has a yield of 72% of the hydrocarbons in the ground. This process avoids all the drawbacks (economic and environmental) of mining and cooking the shale.
See http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/magazines/fortune/Oil_from_stone.fortune/index.htm
Now let’s see…
800 billion barrels of oil available. US consumes about 20 million barrels per day. Dividing the former by the latter, I get a reserve number of about 40000 days of supply or 100 years.
It’s just waiting to be drilled.
It only requires 3 barrels of water for each barrel of oil versus 100 barrels of water for 1 barrel of ethanol.
It won’t require any troops in foreign climes.
No spilling of oil on the high seas.
The heat for the heaters and coolers in derived from the natural gas as a by product of the oil shale recovery process.
No money going overseas.
Tax revenue for local, state, and federal govt.
No subsidies required.
And finally, and most importantly, bats are spared.
Pamela,
For the most part, the windmills you are talking about either were not used to generate electricity, or if they did, generated it for a single house.
They also did not have 50 foot blades.
By the way, wind turbines are not a new thing. Most of Wallowa County is still peppered with them. Some work, some don’t. Wind has been harnessed for centuries. Why all of a sudden is it some whacked out idea?
If you look around, you’ll notice that wind power was summarily DROPPED as soon as something better came along. At one point in the Northwest windpower was pretty common. There were even some old systems around the midwest with the old glass cased lead acid batteries to give you a little storage. Guess what, as soon as reliable mains power came along those systems were summarily abandoned. Wind power is not a step forward.
Pamela Gray, I do not see why it matters if they kill 3 dozen bats or 3 million bats. The point is that wind turbines are an absolutely worthless “technology”, and the key stone of the global warming scammers. Even if CO2 caused global warming were real, which it is not, the wind mills would do nothing (or at the most very little) to offset the CO2. The hoaxers need them because they are the most cost effective way to set up a carbon offset bourse where they can all get rich, and those of us who do not have billions of dollars and tons of political influence end up getting soaked.
Messing around with the electricity supply is not going to do anything to create energy indepence anyhow. What we need is a replacement for oil which drives everything in our transportation system, cars, trucks, planes, trains, tractors and ships. Without oil we are closed for business. Unless we live in an urban environment or telecommute to work, most of us cannot even get to the office without oil.
Wind, Solar and Nuclear are never, ever going to be replacements for oil. I like nuclear for power generation, but let’s face it, we are never going to have nuclear powered cars, tractors or planes. Yes, we can have nuclear powered ships (we can have wind powered ships too if you do not mind goods taking 4 months to cross the Atlantic or more to cross the Pacific) and we can use electricity to power trains, but still ships and trains are a small drop in the bucket.
If we really want to reduce CO2, and achieve energy independence, which I think is a more credable goal, then we need to forget about goofy idea’s like wind power which can never, ever work, and forget about electricity in general for the time being since it’s produced entirely with domestic supplies. Focus on transportation infrastructure, if we need a big government to “create” jobs. I’m sure that they could figure out some clever way to slip the rail companies some cash so that they motivate themselves to upgrade their tracks. Also they could build a European style high speed train, which would reduce short haul air travel. This way, if we get another 70’s style oil embargo we will not be caught waiting in lines at the gas station. This is a far more sound investment in our future, than wind farms, but then again cotton candy is likely a more sound investment than wind farms.
If we have to think about electricity, then let’s get serious about it and phase out coal plants as quickly as possible, and replace them with nuke plants. Nukes are by far the most cost effective “alternative” energy source out there. That way we can use the coal that we are currently burning to make gasoline in a pinch, just like Hitler did. Yeah, Hitler might have been a bad man, but the entire German War Machine was running on coal including the first military jet fighters.
I’m an Amarillo boy, so this monster wind farm is going in my backyard, and frankly I do not mind so much since the Texas Panhandle has always been ugly anyhow. The thing is that the whole thing is a scam, and a preamble to the carbon bourse which I believe to be very dangerous towards our future freedom and prosperiety, and I am not willing to trade short term local economic gains for what I consider to be a long term threat to our society. Luckily enough, one of our local high school mascots is already named the “Don’s” after you know who, so I can only hope and pray that fighting windmills is in our community spirit, unfortunately this does not seem to be the case, as our Big Red Republican Representative, “Mac Thornberry” has been coming home to district bragging about all of the government pork he got for these stupid things.
As far as bats go, I do not think that it will be much of a problem up here. Bats do not seem to be very common, and I seriously doubt that this was much a part of their native range since we have no natural cover like trees, caves or hills for bats. What I would think would be a problem, is the fact the this is big migratory flyway, and the fact that since we are a treeless plain these things will be an attractive nuisance for birds of prey, which might play a vital role in cleaning the land of diseased animals and keeping down the rattlesnake and coyote populations.
Oh well, maybe I should just accept the fact that nothing but pure greed and corruption is driving the whole game here and maybe try to figure out some way to get in on the action, but I have never been clever enough to be a theif or a liar so I guess that I am out of luck.
Best Regards
“Artificial intelligence is living and amongst us; but we want the ultimate AI… whatever that may be.” Roger Carr
I was thinking of “consciousness”. Something we would have to give civil rights to. Roger Penrose wrote a book about this called “The Emperor’s New Mind” where he makes the case that the current laws of physics do not explain “consciousness”.
Jeez: Thanks for that URL on the Kahuku Wind Farm. Sort of what I expected to learn, and it is apparently a good example of the experience with the first generation systems. Unfortunately, word continues to leak out about the present generation turbines having the same problems of (lack of) reliability and factory support. In 20 – 30 years, these will also revert to the land owners.
And as aextension of Jack Simmonds comments about domestic oil. There is plenty of it here in Texas also. I haven’t run the numbers like he has, but there are significent reserves, which are becoming more interesting to the land owners as the price exceeds $100 a barrel.
Full disclosure: Yes, I have an extremely tiny piece of that action.
Bats are for more negatively impacted from long, cold winters, then turbines.
That may be true Pamela, at least now. But, since we’re cooling now, and that will very likely continue, wouldn’t bat mortality due to turbines, which will only be increasing be even more of an issue? It certainly seems a legitimate concern.
Wind power is not a rational way of increasing our power supply. It is costly and unreliable, requiring standby power regardless of whether it is being used or not, which is wasteful.
Pickens is simply out to further line his pockets at the expense of Texans, and of taxpayers. Who knows why, and frankly I don’t care why.
Anthony,
It’s the old Bait and Switch. The enviros moan about the pollution of fossil fuels and extoll the virtues of alternative energy sources. When energy companies actually begin switching to geothermal and wind the enviros get lawyers to obtain injunctions against these energy sources. This currently is going on in both Indiana and California. Energy companies need to run new power lines to tie these newer energy sources into existing distribution grids. Federal judges, at the behest of enviro lawyers, have issued injunctions against the laying of new power lines. Companies in the process of developing alternative energy sources are now reluctant to develope these new sources due to costly decade long litigation.
Let’s face it, the Enviormental Left does not want any new souces of energy, period. They see energy as the life blood of a decadent bourgeosie life style. In the meantime, the US and Canada sit atop of 1 trillion barrels in untapped shale, not to mention some of the largest coal reserves in the world. AGW or Climate Change is just a front for a group of aging activists.
Johnnyb (22:33:06) : To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a hydro-plant in the State of Texas.
There are several dams in the highland lakes (Colorado River) that have hydroelectric capabilities: for example, the Mansfield dam below Lake Travis and the Tom Miller dam below Lake Austin, but we rarely have enough rain to turn them on.
Jack Simmons: Shale oil: All of your reasons are sound, which is why it will never happen. (some of them may be a bit of marketing hype, still won’t happen).
I’m not a fan of LNG in autos because I have seen far too many ‘close encounters’. Gasoline is bad enough, at least it doesn’t leap out of the tank at the slightest opportunity. Not sure I want Joe Sixpack filling his tank while smoking, either.
If we built enough turbines around Colorado, could we keep the Texans and Californians out? (The ones that stay in Texas and Cal are mostly OK, the ones those states deport seem to come here in disturbing numbers)
To Graeme Rodaughan,
you are correct I was not aware that the world-wide wind is steadily decreasing. If this is truly the case, I postulate that this is due to the global warmists “blowing in the wind” from east to west counter-acting the natural west to east air flow. I fear it will take some time to correct my computer model to account for the erratic behavior of Nature, due to anthropogenic influences.
While on the subject of my errors, I would like to correct the information in an earlier comment. Of the 15,000 wind turbines in California, 5,000 are located at Tehachapi, 7,000 are located at Altamont (not Altoona) and 3,000 are located at San Gorgonio. These turbines produced: In the year 2004, wind energy in California produced 4,258 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 1.5 percent of the state’s total electricity. In 1995, these areas produced 30 percent of the entire world’s wind-generated electricity.
I am not an environmentalist, but, having grown up in a farming community, I have respect for the environment and Nature. I strongly oppose knee-jerk solutions to “problems” which ultimately result in a problem, or problems, greater than the original “problem.” I also strongly oppose solutions for non-existent “problems,” such as anthropogenic global warming/climate change.
Engineer, is it okay if we come up to visit once in a while, and bring our tourist dollars with us? 😛 I rather enjoy partaking of your state once or twice a year.
As for the Panhandle, I quite disagree that it’s ugly, it’s as beautiful as the mountains of the Rockies, the Desert Southwest, the hills in the South, or anywhere else in this country. They’re just all pretty in their own way.
Can’t methane be easily converted to gasoline (given the right miracle catalyst)? There is plenty of methyl hydrate in the Gulf.
“If we built enough turbines around Colorado, could we keep the Texans and Californians out? ”
Been to Colorado a couple of times. Can’t say I was struck by the hospitality. California was friendlier. For a state that depends on tourism that seems counterproductive.
JP said:
Absolutely. And if anyone needs proof of this just look for the quotes of Maurice Strong, one of the higher ups in the IPCC, and quotes from founders of the Club of Rome, current Greenpeace leaders, WWF, etc. They want the world, not just the west, de-industrialized. Which means, as I’ve pointed out, the deaths of billions as we return to subsistence farming and hunter/gatherer lifestyles. A return to a time when life was brutal and short, instead of moving forward and eventually moving away from fossil fuels (when it makes sense to do so, and not being forced to for totally invalid reasons) to a point where life is easier for all humans, because all societies will eventually be affluent enough to afford clean technology.
because all societies will eventually be affluent enough to afford clean technology.” Jeff Alberts
Jeff,
Amen! (yes, I’m teasing you.)
Nuclear is good but it can be made much much better in the future.
Thorium nuclear is the “green” nuclear.
For those of you concerned about nuclear safety and waste products there is a much better alternative. Thorium based (rather than uranium based) nuclear power. This technology was demonstrate in the 50’s and 60’s but was abandoned because it was much harder to produce weapons grade material (compared to uranium). The military considerations favored the uranium fuel cycle.
More specifically LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactors) compared to uranium reactors burn fuel 100x more efficiently without reprocessing, result in ~100x less waste and are inherently safer and should cost less to build.
In addition, since LFTR is a high temp low pressure process it can use water or air cooling. Thus Ut/Nv etc, where water is scarce, could replace it’s coal fired plants with low cost, clean thorium power plants. Much more cost effective and reliable than the wind and solar plants that California is building. (fyi, California’s electricity currently costs 2x Utah’s and they are on a path to keep it that way.)
Uranium LWR : Thorium LFTR
Fuel Reserves (relative) __________________ 1 : 100 (1000s yrs)
Fuel Mining Waste Volume (relative) ____ 1000 : 1
Fuel Burning Efficiency _______________ ~1% : >95%
Radioactive Waste Volume (relative) ______ 40 : 1
Radioactive Waste Isolation Period __10000yrs : 80% 10yrs, 20% 300yrs
Plant Cost (relative) _____________________ 1 : <1
Plant Thermal Efficiency _____________ ~33% : ~50%
Cooling Requirements _______________ Water : Water or Air
Plant Safety _______________________ Good : Very Good
Weapons Grade Material Production ____ Yes : No(very hard)
Desalination with Waste Heat____________No : Yes
Burn Existing Nuclear Waste ___________ No : Yes
Development Status _______ Commercial Now : Demonstrated
for more info see
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/thoriumVsUranium.ppt
charlesH (BS Physics)
Orem, Utah
RE: Colorado un-natural resource:
Hot air and wind from DNC to be stored and gradually released over winter to heat homes. CO2 in Pepsi Center to be compressed for beverage carbonation.
These stories haven’t been properly explored.
Re: T Boone Pickens. The “real” motives get curiouser and curiouser.
Buys up “worthless” land in Texas panhandle, then rights to all the water beneath it, and beneath adjacent properties; bids up price of water against competing agencies, but can’t get it to the biggest market (Dallas); so,.. begins manufacturing windmills, promoting farms and the power conduits needed to carrry the power to the big city, which requires a declaration of eminent domain by Federal Government and the condemnation of private properties between Roberts County and Dallas, insists on control of the power lines, giving him rights to build his water pipelines…
Usually I’d be suspicious of such a “made-for-TV” drama. (See: “There Will Be Oil”) but the more I hear, the more I tend to believe it.
I’m still trying to figure why he was trying to promote his windfarm notions in Eastern Colorado a few weeks ago.
TBP plan is self and undoable. Don’t worry about its chances for implementation.
Firstly, T Boone owns the water rights below the ground he hope to construct windmills on. His investment in water was first and he wants to run a pipeline down from west Tx to DFW. With it he now hopes to run the transmission from his turbines.
He’s come up with a plan to get his gas fields in high demand then use the void in those reservoirs as carbon storage sites.
The problem is, his wind power will only generate 33% of the nameplate capacity on those turbines and during period of time which demand is not the greatest. Gas generation is then required to make that 33%, 100% reliable. W/o his intermittent resource being reliably backed up, his power contract will not only fetch less money, it will more short-term, to factors which impede the market penetration of exactly what his plan intends to accomplish.
Renewables are good w/o question, but they are going to cost a bundle. Not only does one have new capital costs in land and equipment, the cost for new transmission, plus the cost for the condemnation and purchase of new right-of-ways, has to be considered, plus the arrangement of existing or new backup generation, typically gas but could be older coal.
T Boone is just trying to shed light on his end goal, new utility right-of-way, the single greatest hurdle utilities face today. With his ad campaign he is trying to get Americans and Texans alike, to grow in the understanding of the transmission requirement necessary to get the energy sector more green.
Taken as a whole, his plan just like Al Gore’s 100% clean energy by 2018, is simply undoable.