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.
Manaker, that was awesome.
I just saw a VESTAS add on TV(windturbine company) They showed an aerial view of a wind farm on some ridges somewhere. There was one spinning very slowly. The rest??? Sitting still. I think they need some new PR people, but they certainly illustrated the problem quite well.
And is a very small geographical area. The problems of supplying power over vast areas doesn’t exist down there.
Give the Bats something better to do like a huge Count Chocula party complete with the Adams family… if scaring them doesn’t work. Otherwise, ignoring the issue in weight of human existence as a diguise is ludicrous. When do we stop holding our own egos over others on the earth? Ans; Not until I kill the whole lot of them, Huh. How much is guano pulling on the market today?
manacker, I don’t know where you’re getting your numbers for your analysis or how old they are, but Here’s a nice summary of the current costs of various options provided by the National Energy Regulatory Commission.
Regarding my previous comment, here’s the entire NERC report:
http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/06-19-08-cost-electric.pdf
Here are some entirely different figures regarding the cost of various types of power. This chart is from Forbes magazine, a financial publication. I trust Forbes’ accuracy more than the government’s, because if Forbes is wrong, readers lose money and the magazine loses circulation. But if the government spins its numbers, nothing happens to them: click
Hi Ricorun,
Yeah. NERC was one of the sources I used for capital investment costs of various types of power plants.
For large nuclear plants I got the data from a August 2008 report by the World Nuclear Association entitled, “The Economics of Nuclear Power”
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
It lists nine major new nuclear plants now under construction or recently completed worldwide, ranging from 1650MW to 4320MW, with an average investment cost of $2,500/KW. I rounded this up to $3,000/KW.
Nuclear plants are quoted as having a 90+% on-line factor. I used 90%.
On household solar panels I got several sources and assumed that the long-term costs could be cut in half due to improved manufacturing technology and economy of scale.
Larger scale solar plants are quoted at 23-25% on-line factor. I used 26%.
On wind farms I took the NERC figure plus some costs on UK, US, Egypt and China plants. These investment costs range from $1,800/KW to $3,000/KW excluding the cost of the land. I used $2,500/KW.
I’ve seen on-line factors from 25% to 40% quoted. I used 40%.
Hope this clear it up.
Regards,
Max
Hi Smokey,
Thanks for link to power generation costs in US cents per KWH.
What I was quoting were the capital investment costs for building new plants rather than the operating cost (fuel, retirement of capital, etc.) after they have been built.
That’s another can of worms (especially when you read the footnote, “after government subsidies”).
Your numbers show that coal is still the most economical alternate.
But I was trying to come up with a “price tag” for Al Gore’s plan to shut down all USA fossil fuel power plants in ten years. At $3.7 trillion (without any net increase in power generated) it seems a bit steep. Of course, if we “save the planet” by doing it…
But wait! To “save the planet” we not only have to shut down all US fossil fuel fired plants, but those of the whole world.
The USA represents around 24% of the world’s fossil fuel fired power generation, so the “price tag” for Gore’s proposal to “save the planet” is really $15 trillion.
OUCH!
Regards,
Max
retired engineer (09:01:37) :
There are lots of jokes about Texans and Californians in Colorado. Sometimes they can be a little irritating, but basically I love to have visitors to Colorado.
It’s fun to comment on the geology of Glenwood Canyon, while explaining the Grand Canyon is another state away. Or, I might let a little kid bring in a trout I’ve hooked. Or tell some low landers at the peak of Mt. Evans what a marmot is.
I’ve personally had only one bad experience with a Texan intruding on my privacy while fly fishing up by Taylor Park. He kept parking behind me and fishing just above where I was fishing. I would leave the stream to him, pull away and find another spot. Every time, he would be next to me within 10 minutes.
To my shame and regret I resolve the issue by playing dumb and waded right down the middle of stream to where he was fishing and asking, “How’s fishing?” All the while dead drifting my line down to where he was fishing.
How would I handle this today? Just walk up to him, chat with him for a few minutes, perhaps share a fly or two and ask where he would like to fish. I might throw in the ‘old man’ on the stream act as well, pretending to know where the best fishing is and suggesting he take that portion of the stream as my guest.
Oh well, the mistakes of youth.
Ricorun (12:36:12) :
There is only one way to determine what the behavior of Shell’s in situ processing of oil shale truly is: let them build a full scale operation. Perhaps a single lease to be monitored by all parties concerned.
That way we will know what the true costs and benefits will be.
All the rest is talk until we give it a real trial.
Nice part about it, it will all be on Shell’s nickel. In fact all of this has been on Shell’s nickel. No subsidies required.
So when will they get permission to find out the true parameters of oil shale processing?
To Jack Simmons
I am a Californian and I certainly took no offense to your reference to Californians and Texans. Rudeness is not exclusive to us. The problem with “immigrants” is, when they arrive, they immediately want to create the evironment from which they have “emigrated.” Californians, especially, should be carefully watched for any signs that they may be trying to change Colorado to be more like California. I have a sister in Longmont and she is perfectly happy with the Colorado environment. Good luck on your fishing.
“I might throw in the ‘old man’ on the stream act as well, pretending to know where the best fishing is and suggesting he take that portion of the stream as my guest.”
Charming, I’m sure.
[go ahead and snip this]
manacker, thank you for your thoughtful comment — and link. Smokey, do you have the link to the Forbes article that figure was taken from?
Ultimately, it’s the levelized cost/kWH that should be compared between alternatives — recognizing of course that some alternatives are more susceptible to variations in fuel price than others. Another thing I pay attention to are the cost trajectories over time for each alternative. In other words, the figure I linked to gives a sense of how costs are changing over time. The last figure in your article (pg 12 in the pdf version) gives a sense as well. And Smokey’s figure, providing as it does the current share of output, indicates which alternatives are likely to benefit most from increases in economy of scale, namely biomass, wind, geothermal and solar. Of those I’d say solar (both solar thermal and solar PV) is poised to drop significantly in the next few years — assuming it’s helped along until it expands enough to capture a reasonable market share.
Finally, since Smokey’s a fan of Forbes, I thought I’d throw in this article about the biggest, fattest, lowest-hanging fruit on the energy tree: energy efficiency.
Fully exploiting wherever practical the best available efficiency techniques throughout the U.S. economy could save half our oil and gas use, and three-fourths of our electricity, at about an eighth of their current price.
Jack Simmons: There is only one way to determine what the behavior of Shell’s in situ processing of oil shale truly is: let them build a full scale operation.
My understanding is that Shell doesn’t think they’re ready to do that. And as that GreenCarCongress article I cited earlier pointed out, “In 2007, Shell withdrew the application for a mining permit on one of its three oil-shale research and demonstration leases for economic reasons: costs for building the underground freeze wall of frozen water to contain melted shale had ‘significantly escalated.’” That doesn’t bode well.
And Smokey’s figure, providing as it does the current share of output, indicates which alternatives are likely to benefit most from increases in economy of scale, namely biomass, wind, geothermal and solar.
I wouldn’t count on that. Especially with Biomass, Wind, and Solar. There’s enough production now that any more advances in scale will be incremental at best.
Fully exploiting wherever practical the best available efficiency techniques throughout the U.S. economy could save half our oil and gas use, and three-fourths of our electricity, at about an eighth of their current price.
I’ll have to read the article, but seriously doubt those claims as well.
O.K.
I read the Forbes article on efficiency. High energy costs will do what he is proposing, probably already are. That’s the nature of free markets.
Checked out Ed Scott’s 80MW CleanTech / PG+E solar power generation plant being planned for Fresno, CA.
This plant is expected to have an on-line factor of around 25% and is being justified on the basis that it will provide “peak power” during hot, sunny summer days for AC, etc., which appears to makes sense. Plus, it’s green and clean (and “sexy”).
I couldn’t find any investment cost figures, but the next largest solar plant is being built in Moura, Portugal, using essentially the same modular photovoltaic cell technology. This plant has a nameplate capacity of 62MW, and is also expected to have a 25% on-line factor. It is expected to cost $400 million.
So let’s assume the slightly larger PG+E plant at 80MW will cost $500 million (keep your fingers crossed).
For this same investment you could build a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant of 650MW with an on-line factor of 92%. These plants are very flexible, and such a plant could also be used to provide “peak power”. But the main difference is that it could provide this power whenever needed, not just when the sun is shining.
Yes, the gas-fired plant would need natural gas while the solar plant could use “free” solar energy, but the difference in investment cost and on-line availability still makes solar power a “long shot”, which still has a long way to go to be truly competitive on a cost basis.
Wind power appears to be considerably more competitive than solar, but also suffers from the on-line availability problem, and cannot compete today with either conventional fossil-fuel or nuclear power. In addition, wind farms cannot be built near the largest demand centers and peak winds are usually at night, when power demand is lowest.
So it looks like the solar/wind proponents still have a lot of homework to do.
Max
LPG is a propane/butane mix, not natural gas (methane).
Ricorun (15:40:00) :
Seems odd, doesn’t it, for Shell to allow all the publicity to go forward on something they are not going to do?
I was quite surprised to see such a detailed report on their efforts, not only in the Forbes article, but in the Denver Post.
In any event, the decision needs to be based on the economics, not politics. Again, it is all on Shell’s nickel.
Waiting for further developments.
Prolly meant LNG.
To manacker,
I could not find a mention of the subsidies that make projects such CleanTech’s Fresno solar project possible. I did find a reference to the necessity of subsidies at: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/jan/1023355.htm
Government Subsidies Vital in Making Solar Power Technology Price-Competitive
Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Patricia Seifert. “Subsidies will be necessary for another three to five years until solar power can compete with more common energy sources such as natural gas or oil.”
The consumer pays at both ends, as in the subsidizing of ethanol.
No, LPG is a very common fuel for high mileage vehicles in Australia – particularly in Victoria. It’s considerably better as a vehicle fuel than natural gas, for a number of reasons. First, higher energy density. Second, it’s a liquid at room temperature and only fairly low pressure – meaning you can carry more fuel at the same pressure, which is much safer. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find see an LPG equipped vehicle that has caught fire and the LPG tank is intact and still containing fuel – it was the petrol (gasoline) that caused the fire! And third, because it requires very little engine modification to run a petrol (gasoline) engine on LPG (propane), it’s possible to run on both fuels, switching between them as required/desired.
It’s a very common and popular fuel, and is a favourite of high mileage drivers because, even though you consume about 10% more to cover the same distance compared to petrol, it’s only about about 50% the price per litre of petrol, making it extremely cost effective. It would be even more so, considering we (Australia) export it in bulk for less than 10c/L, yet retail pricing at the bowser is around 70c/L!
Further, because it’s delivered to the engine as a gas, and because of it’s lower carbon content, it’s a very low emissions fuel on *all* fronts – HC, NOx, CO and CO2. So low, in fact, that vehicles using purely LPG as fuel are not as severely tested for emissions, and one can register such a vehicle in NSW (strictest state for registration requirements) with only a basic CO check. So “green”, in fact, that there is a Govt. subsidy of $2000 to convert a vehicle to this fuel. You can even buy vehicles brand new with factory fitted LPG only engines.
Because it’s a mix of propane and butane, it also allows the refineries to get rid of significant amounts of butane that they would otherwise flare off as waste product.
Neil Fisher wrote about West Australia using LPG as a motor fuel. From his post it appears that LPG is pretty big in Australia today.
LPG as a motor fuel has been going on for some time in many parts of the world. The Dutch were among the first to start this back in the 1980s.
http://www.envirogas.co.uk/faqs.htm
Quoting from the article, “LPG is used to power about 4 million cars and vans around the world [2001 statistics]. Larger markets include Italy with 1.1 m vehicles, Australia with 490,000 and The Netherlands with 360,000 -the highest percentage of the total number of vehicles of any country.”
These statistics are from 2001, and the numbers are significantly higher today. I have seen the figure for 2008 of “over 9 million vehicles world-wide” running on LPG.
Nearly all the taxis in Japan run on LPG, and India, Brazil, Turkey and the USA all have significant numbers of gas-fuelled cars. Hong Kong has been replacing diesel driven taxicabs with LPG taxis since 2000 and completed the process in 2006. This was done in order to reduce real smog pollution from CO, unburned hydrocarbons, NOx and soot from the diesels (not “greenhouse” CO2 emissions, which were of no concern).
The article states, “Buses, light vans and heavy duty trucks can be converted to run on the fuel, as can diesel-engined boats, fork lift trucks and generators.”
Here is a link to a June 2007 writeup from Perth, which describes a more recent move to natural gas vehicles:
http://www.pakcng.com/cng-news/International/news-intl-main-05.asp
”West Australian based Advanced Engine Components Limited (AEC) has commenced a development and promotion strategy for Isuzu trucks, fuelled by liquefied natural gas (“LNG”), for the Australian market. The initiative will benefit significantly from the new LNG capacity and infrastructure becoming available in Western Australia. The first LNG refueling station, for the heavy duty vehicle market, is planned to be operational in Perth, Western Australia by the last quarter of calendar 2007. The site is to be the first of a planned refueling infrastructure, for heavy duty vehicles, throughout WA and into the Eastern States.”
So it looks like West Australia is already using LPG and may be going to LNG as well.
I’ve seen another report that states that there are apparently around 4 million vehicles worldwide running on natural gas today. Most of these run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and a few on liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Max
manacker: Yes, the gas-fired plant would need natural gas while the solar plant could use “free” solar energy, but the difference in investment cost and on-line availability still makes solar power a “long shot”, which still has a long way to go to be truly competitive on a cost basis.
It might be worth mentioning that that’s pretty much what they said about nuclear back in the 80s, too. It wasn’t as much “greenies” that killed nuclear power (not to mention wind, solar thermal, and solar PV) as it was economics. The cost of fossil fuels tanked, and every indication at the time was that they would stay tanked. And they did — until fairly recently. And no one gave it much of a thought — until very recently. At least in the US. Other places (Iceland, France, Brazil, Denmark, etc.) weren’t so easily suckered. They got into various technologies while the getting was good. Who woulda thought back in 2003 that anything French woulda smelled sweet? Lol!
Be that as it may, since costs today are primarily driven by demand, not artificial supply manipulation, prices aren’t likely to tank again. It’s more likely that costs of fossil fuels will continue to rise. Likewise, it’s also likely that costs of wind, solar thermal and (especially) solar PV will continue to fall (relatively speaking) — but only if one of two things happen: (a) they are assisted (while fossil fuel prices remain relatively low) until they sufficiently penetrate the market, or; (b) we can wait until fossil fuel prices go through the roof and we start scrambling around. Hmmm… which to choose.
Going back to Forbes again, this article mentions that “Over the last two decades, the cost of manufacturing and installing a photovoltaic solar-power system has decreased by about 20% with every doubling of installed capacity.” … and… “As a result, solar power has been creeping toward cost-competitiveness in some areas. California, for example, combines abundant sunshine with retail electricity prices that, partly as a result of the state’s policies, are among the highest in the country–up to 36 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential users. Unsubsidized solar power also costs 36 cents per kilowatt-hour, but support from the California Solar Initiative cuts the price customers pay to 27 cents.”
In terms of solar thermal, in the southwestern United States, the cost of electricity from CSP plants (including the federal ITC) is roughly 13-17cents per kilowatt-hour, meaning that CSP with thermal storage is competitive today with simple-cycle natural gas-fired power plants. The U.S. Department of Energy aims to reduce CSP costs to 7-10 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2015 and to 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020, making CSP competitive with fossil-fuel-based power sources.
But of course, none of that would happen if current costs were allowed to be the only thing driving the market. And I suppose you could say therein lies the dilemma. Pure free market types insist that there be no drivers except unfettered supply and demand, and any attempt to manipulate either is a big no-no. On the other hand, there are others who recognize that that whole notion is a fantasy unto itself for any industry with significant impacts beyond (i.e., external to) the transaction itself. And perhaps with the exception of national defense, in no industry are those externalities more obvious than in the energy sector. Under those circumstances,
if the free market is left alone it often leads to entrenchment of vested interests, not innovation. Manipulation is often necessary to change the nature of the equation and drive innovation. If you think about it seriously, if it weren’t for government investment in the biomedical industry, pharmaceuticals, transportation… heck, just about any major industry you can think of — even oil and gas (and nuclear, of course), the world would be a very different place. And the US (along with Europe, Asia, and any other advanced country) would not be technology leaders. Governments that don’t invest in RD&D (research, development and deployment) aren’t technology leaders for long.
Getting back to your original point… yes, the cost of utility scale solar PV is high. But five years ago, anyone even contemplating a utility scale solar PV plant would have been considered nuts. I suspect that five years from now it will look like a wise investment. As the costs of these technologies approach grid parity all kinds of good things happen — patents obtained along the way become more valuable, jobs are created, manufacturing opportunities open up, energy prices become essentially locked in, exports increase, imports decrease, energy security improves. And eventually we can tell the Saudis, and others of their ilk, to go pound sand. Wouldn’t that be nice?
One more sort of nitpicky thing… you suggested that a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant has an on-line factor of 92% while also being flexible enough to provide “peak power”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the on-line capacity factor represents the percentage of the nameplate capacity that the facility could produce if it runs at maximum production all the time. In which case it wouldn’t be very flexible, correct?
Ricorun (15:33:04) :
It’s here: click
Here’s another interesting Forbes article that shines some needed daylight on the pop-opinion, error-prone site Wikipedia: click