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.
As with all new technologies, there are problems. I wasn’t able to find a site I read before documenting oil leaks, tip-overs, etc, but I did find
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKkTUY2slYQ
http://www.responsiblewind.org/docs/wind_turbine_accidents_in_pictures.pdf
Compared to other electrical power generating plants, solar and wind are land area intensive.
Are you counting the surface area of strip mines? If so, then you can’t say that about the comparison between coal and solar thermal. What about the tar sand mines in Alberta? They occupy an area size of the state of Florida. The tailing ponds, which are EXCEEDINGLY toxic, occupy tens of thousands of square kilometers. Solar termal certainly does occupy significant surface area. Underneath the mirrors there’s… shade. HORRORS! Nothing lives in a strip mine. In fact, just living near one isn’t conducive to good health.
Five thousand of the turbines at Altamont require 50 acres of land.
Yeah, and except for the area occupied by the pillars, all of it is dual use.
Cleantech America, a San Francisco based developer, has launched a project to build the world’s largest solar farm. When completed in 2011, the 80-megawatt spread of solar panels will cover roughly 640 acres and be 17 times the size of the largest US solar farm in existence. The project, will generate enough power for nearly 21,000 homes.
That’s just nonsense. You haven’t been keeping up. Can I ask you what you light your house with? It wouldn’t by any chance be whale oil, would it?
I apologize for my snarkiness. But goodness, if someone were interested in mining luddite this thread would be a good place to start.
“But goodness, if someone were interested in mining luddite this thread would be a good place to start.”
That’s NUCLEAR luddite.
my best material got snipped by the mohel
Sigh… My Pickens joke flopped
Until we can find a way to store power efficiently then we can never depend on solar or wind. Geothermal is a much better alternative. Get this the watermelon greens are opposing the construction of power line to the wind and solar farms. Now isn’t that special.
Here is the link the the WSJ about this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121901822110148233.html
Imagine the kind of albedo changes such widespread solar farms will cause. Talk about Anthropogenic Climate Change.
Ricorun,
Perhaps you are right, and we will need some big huge transmission grid, but I really do not think that is the most efficient use of energy. I have been following the development of General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Turbine reactor with considerable interest. It seems to me that perhaps small scale nuclear reactors could be coupled into a cogen system, where excess heat could be used to heat and cool homes and businesses. This would result in a real cost savings making us common folk more wealthy by saving us money, rather than making the uber-wealthy even richer by government fiat and hoax carbon trading bourses. This would address the problems of energy efficiency from a supply side perspective by increasing the energy output as well as making the most efficient use of the waste heat which is simply not possible if the power plant is located too far away from population centers.
Would what I am talking about here mean placing nuclear reactors inside cities and suburbs? Yes it would, but considering the that the US navy has been placing sailors with in 1 football field of nuclear reactors for half a century on board moving vessels as well as tightly enclosed submarines, I fail to see the problem and believe that nuclear power has proven itself to be extremely safe.
The Russians have developed nuclear barges, were they are able to supply both fresh water and electricity to some of their most remote villages on the arctic ocean. Given that the United States has the finest nuclear ship yards in the world, aka Newport News. Perhaps, we are missing a really big financial opportunity by building similar barges and shipping them to coastal communities around the world. Providing everyone with fresh water and electricity, while making a tidy profit for ourselves and bringing more money into our country, which will increase demand for the dollar, the fall of which has certainly contributed to higher fuel prices.
Nuclear barges would also make great sense for California which always seems to be in need of water and power. Would eco-conscious California go for having nuclear reactors floating in the waters off shore? I do not see why not, given that a Google Earth shot of the San Deigo Naval Base reveals not less than half a dozen nuclear powered ships and subs, many of which carry multiple nuclear reactors, not to mention nuclear bombs. All of this has not hurt the market for San Diego real estate one bit, and it remains one of the most desirable places to live in North America.
I just happened to be reading this article:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul08/6376
and I ran across the intriguing comment:
On the other side of the globe, New Zealand already gets 60 percent of its electric power from renewables but wants to raise that figure to an amazing 90 percent by 2025.
Anybody know what renewables they use and how they manage to keep from destabilizing their grid with variable sources?
Ice on the windmill blades,
on the solar cells, thick snow.
Inside, safe and warmed
by a nuclear glow.
Jim Arndt, transmission lines are going to be contentious across the political spectrum. They always have been since the first utility megaprojects back in the 30s. You can treat WSJ editorial reports of anecdotal accounts as gospel if you wish, but that doesn’t change anything. Similarly, unconventional oil sources are going to be contentious across the political spectrum. The fact is, no matter what decisions are made for or against anything, there is going to be blow-back. And whatever else could be said, our energy future is going to make for some very strange bedfellows. We’re going to have midwest farmers pitted against coal interests, western ranchers pitted against oil companies, rust belt workers AND industry CEOs pitted against, well, the GOP (unless they smarten up). IMO, the future of energy has at least as much potential to provoke a political realignment as did civil rights back in the 60s. But unlike civil rights, the economic up-side vs down-side is far more consequential. In this case trillions of dollars hang in the balance.
I can’t prove it (because one can never “prove” the future), but IMO it’s not a question of if we’ll have to transition to renewable fuels, it’s a question of when. And to the extent the wrong choice is made it could be very, very expensive. Personally, I look at where the capital is, where the market is, and where the popular opinion is. And as it turns out, ALL THREE suggest that we should jump on renewables. Is it going to cost money? Of course. But everything is relative. And in this case, all signs indicate that whatever we spend (as long as it’s not too ridiculous), we’ll make it back. In spades.
johnnyb, did you ever wonder why the Russian nuclear barges only service remote villages on the arctic ocean? My guess is… it’s pretty freakin’ expensive. Actually, that’s not just a guess. There’s a difference between technical feasibility and economic feasibility. In fact, in most cases, that’s the essential question. At least it should be a primary one.
Similarly, you say you’ve “been following the development of General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Turbine reactor with considerable interest. ” Then perhaps you could share with us some cost estimates per MW nameplate, along with estimates about when they are likely to be certified. If you can do that I won’t question you on the materials, workforce, and supply chain issues.
But I don’t think you can. Because I’ve been following GA too — along with pebble bed reactors, liquid flourothorine reactors, and fast breeder reactors. And as far as I can tell, they’re (a) very expensive and/or (b) fall into that nebulous category of “3-5 years away”. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard the latter. That’s bad enough. But there is another difference: in the case of the nuclear options, only a small handful of groups are working on them (all of which are publicly funded, at least significantly). In the case of renewables there are hundreds (most of which are privately funded). On that basis alone, which one would you pick? And I”m afraid you do have to pick to one extent or another. Picking “none of the above” only means you pick the existing status quo. And that leaves you that much more susceptible to supply shocks of the sort that we recently experienced. And those, I’m afraid, are only going to get worse (according to most experts). So again, “doing nothing” isn’t a viable option.
[…] Now what will T. Boone Pickens do? Murphy’s Law in Action – Which to choose? Save the bats or save the planet? This presents an environmental […] […]
Anybody know what renewables they use and how they manage to keep from destabilizing their grid with variable sources?
My guess is hydroelectric.
jim Arndt (14:46:47) :
“Sigh… My Pickens joke flopped”
Some days, all you get is Slim Pickens.
Oh – I just went back – Pickens Institute for Space Studies, sorry, I was just catching up and wasn’t paying enough attention.
He’s not the only one who’s disappointed in the lack of humor response in this thread.
To Mark Nodine re NZ’s energy sources:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/6046
This country has a long-standing record of generating power from renewable resources – hydro-electricity (61 per cent), geothermal (5 per cent), windmills (1 per cent) and biomass (0.3 per cent).
The prevalent use of renewable energy underpins our clean green image.
Clear policy mandates for further harnessing renewable resources would make New Zealand an international model as well as providing clean blue energy throughout the 21st century.
The rest of our power is derived from non-renewable sources – gas (23 per cent), coal (8 per cent) and oil (0.5 per cent).
This was in 2005 – according to more recent news wind power is accounting for over 2% . (http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/wind-contributes-more-power-supply-32711)
To Ricorun,
Luddite: One who is especially opposed to technological change.
Sorry if I gored your bull.
Where in my posting did you find the ‘smoking gun” that I am opposed to technological change?
Coal fired power plants provide electrical as long as the coal miners “strip-mine” the coal and it is transported to the power plants. Solar panels provide power only when the sun shines, which is essentially half the day in good weather.
If you have a “beef” about the tar sands mines in Alberta, take that up with Canada.
The clip on the project to build the world’s largest solar “farm,” which you term to be nonsense, came from http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/07/09/cleantech-to-build-worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-in-california/. I suggest that you take up their “nonsense” with them.
I’m not sure what you mean about “keeping up.” In spite of your “luddite” reference, I have not seen anyone posting on this website who is opposed to technological change.
I said in an earlier post that, I am opposed to solutions to non-existent problems. The only problems that seem to come under this heading are that we need to be energy independent of foreign sources, anthropogenic CO2 is harming the planet and, according to T. Boone, we are transferring 700 billion dollars of our wealth to the oil producers, which I consider to be an exchange of value. As far as energy independence, the current Congress has stressed using alternate fuels, instead of developing the resources that the Nation has in abundance. I have yet to locate an alternate fuel station. I suspect that the political elite are sequestering the alternate fuel for their exclusive use.
Boeing has recently sold 70 billion dollars worth of their aircraft and are in the late stages of the development of the 787. I presume they hope to make a profit on their effort before Jet-A becomes unavailable.
Michael Crichton had it right in his book “State of Fear.” The state of fear as applied by Al Gore, Maurice Strong and the UN is an effective method for controlling populations with their consensus science of anthropogenic global disaster and at great expense to the population for a solution to a non-problem..
Pardon my plagiarizing, but I have rearranged the text of your next to last paragraph: Can I ask you what you light your house with? It wouldn’t by any chance be whale oil, would it? That’s just nonsense.
I have SCUBA’d off the coast of California, in Cozumel, in Hawaii and in Fiji and never been attacked by a shark, although they were plentiful in Fiji.
I make a posting on this website and get a “snark” attack. You never know.
Julie said:
I agree. Therefore we shouldn’t bother with wind turbines, and keep using oil until a really viable alternative pops up.
Hmm, more on wind turbines. Read some of the .pdfs off the first link.
http://www.windaction.org/faqs/17324 [noise and related health problems]
http://www.windaction.org/
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2005/10/69177 [2005 article]
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/9383316.html [2007 fatality]
http://www.city-data.com/forum/maine/50917-wind-turbine-noise-problem-mars-hill.html
A ploy by the anti-nuke crew 20 years ago was to ask “Do you want to live next to a nuclear power plant?” Having visited a couple, I’d rather live next to one of them instead of a coal plant, (especially a mine head plant), downstream of a hydro plant, and I guess I’ll have to add wind turbines to the list.
“Anybody know what renewables they use and how they manage to keep from destabilizing their grid with variable sources?”
From here: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/energy/renewable.html
Medium and large-scale hydro electricity generation, and geothermal power provide much of New Zealand’s electricity.
New Zealand only has a population of 4.1 million. A few decent dams and a few geothermal plants is all they really need.
“Moving to renewables” sounds “in” and “sexy”. It’s also very expensive and unreliable, if we’re talking about solar or wind power.
There have been two recent proposals made in the USA that involve a major switch to “renewables”:
· TBP proposal to free up natural gas for motor fuel by replacing gas-fired power generation with large wind farms (in order to reduce oil import costs)
· Al Gore proposal to shut down all fossil fuel-fired power plants within 10 years, making “maximum use” of “renewables”, bio-fuels, etc. (in order to “save the planet”)
Let’s forget the “bio-fuels”, “hydrogen cars”, etc. for now and just look at electrical power generation based on current uses. Here are some rough numbers based on published data.
Installed power generation capacity in the USA was 1,100,000 MW end 2007.
Total installed wind power generation was 17,000 MW
Fossil fuel fired power plants generated 3,000 billion KWH over the year 2007, out of a total of 4,100 billion KWH total.
Nuclear power plants generated around 800 billion KWH.
So let’s assume that 50% of all US households install solar panels.
Assume that new wind power installed in USA is 10 times the currently installed capacity.
All the rest will be covered by new nuclear power generation.
Overall power requirement will grow at 1995-2005 compounded annual growth rate of 3.2% (ignore the growth rate and just calculate the cost of the Gore proposal at current power consumption rate).
Let’s assume that 50% of all US households install solar panels. These are very expensive today and only make sense if they are being subsidized by someone (i.e. the taxpayer). If 50% of US households get subsidized solar panels, that means the other 50% of the households are paying this subsidy. This is obviously not a viable long-term plan, so solar panels should compete on their own merits without the “subsidy”.
The average household consumes: 1.3 KWH/hour.
The average installed solar capacity per household would be around: 5 KW.
The average “on-line factor” is: 26%
Total number of US households is: 115 million
So number of US households converted is: 57.5 million
Installation cost per household at today’s cost: $35,000
Future installation cost per household: $17,500 (assume costs come down by 50%)
Total investment = $1,006 billion
Total installed power (nameplate) = 287,500 MW
Total power generated (26% on line) = 74,750 MW
Investment cost per MW generated = $13.5 million
Wind
New wind capacity installed: 170,000 MW (=10x current capacity)
The average “on-line factor” is: 40% (a high estimate, even for windy West Texas)
Total power generated = 68,000 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $2,500
Total investment = $425 billion
Investment cost per MW generated = $6.25 million
Balance – Nuclear
Total fossil fuel generation shut down = 825,000 MW
Household solar added = 86,250 MW
Wind added = 68,000 MW
Balance replaced by nuclear = 825,000 – 86,250 – 68,000 = 670,750 MW
Total nameplate capacity (90% on line) = 745,278 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW = $3,000
Total investment = $ 2,236 billion
Investment cost per MW generated = $3.3 million
Total installation cost of Gore proposal = $3.7 trillion
TBP proposal
Shut down gas-fired stations to free up natural gas for motor fuel
Percentage of power generated by natural gas = 22%
Total to be replaced = 242,000 MW
Alternate 1
Replace gas-fired stations with wind (TBP proposal)
New wind power to replace natural gas = 242,000 MW
Total nameplate capacity (40% on line) = 605,000 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $2,500
Total investment = $1.5 trillion
Alternate 2
Replace gas-fired stations with nuclear
New nuclear power to replace natural gas = 242,000 MW
Total nameplate capacity (90% on line) = 268,889 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $3,000
Total investment = $0.8 trillion
So the Gore plan costs $3.7 trillion, the TBP plan (all wind) costs $1.5 trillion and the TBP plan (nuclear) costs $0.8 trillion.
But how about large-scale solar costs?
A large scale solar plant is being built in “sunny” Spain (subsidized by EU)
http://petrochemical.ihs.com/news-07Q2/eu-en-solar-plant-spain-4-07.jsp
It has a nameplate capacity of 11 MW
And will generate: 23,000 MWH/year
On-line factor = 23.9%
Installation cost is 35 million Euro or around $52 million
There will always be a limited niche for solar/wind, but they will not provide a large percentage of the world’s electrical power because of high cost and low reliability, as long as cheap nuclear fission is available.
The argument has been made that switching to nuclear is limited by uranium reserves, while there is “an unlimited amount of wind and sun”.
Uranium reserves are usually quoted as “X-million tons available at a price of Y”. If “Y” is increased, “X” goes up exponentially. And uranium is a small part of the cost of electrical power from nuclear generation, so its cost is not that important.
The picture shows that we are only scratching the surface on uranium reserves.
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/NuclearSlides/Uranium01.htm
Nuclear fission can draw upon a small percentage of the 40 trillion tons of uranium in the earth’s crust until it extracts a total of half a trillion tons, three centuries from now, when civilization will be using energy at 8,000 times the rate that it is today. That would be without breeder-reactors or any kind of fuel-reprocessing.
Adding breeder-reactors at that point, and a small percentage of the 160 trillion tons of thorium in the crust, would allow us to last until five centuries from now, when civilization will be using energy at 3.2 million times the rate that it is today.
So there is no practical limit.
Looks to me like that’s the way to go for growth and maybe to free up some natural gas for US motor fuel, if this can be economically justified (but not “to save the planet”, as Al Gore would have us do).
Just my thoughts on this. (And I’m not getting paid by the “nuclear lobby”.)
Max
statePoet1775…thanks, that was fun.
to mike mcmillan
earth revolution
there is a nice site in europe which carefully measures the rotation of the earth. it has been changing lately.
maybe you are right