Just when the green energy movement thinks they have it all worked out, along comes a snail-darteresque moment that throws a monkey wrench in green plans. These are the big fanboys in the panhandle, which I snapped a photo of near the Oklahoma- Texas border when I was doing USHCN site surveys in December. – Anthony
(From Bloomberg) — Iberdrola SA and E.ON AG’s turbine dreams for the windswept Texas Panhandle may be stymied by the mating rituals of the Lesser Prairie Chicken, a bird whose future could slow the pace of U.S. renewable energy growth.
Developers are scouring the sagebrush and grasslands of potential turbine sites for the ground-dwelling chickens, E.ON chief development officer Patrick Woodson said. Once plentiful in the southern high plains, the bird now has a high priority for listing under the Endangered Species Act, a move that will affect where as much as $11 billion in turbines can be built.
Federal protection for the chickens will hamper Texas’s plan to add 5,500 megawatts of wind power in the region by 2013, a 60 percent increase for the state. President Barack Obama wants to double all U.S. energy from renewable sources such as the wind and sun in three years to reduce dependence on imported oil and the greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming.
“The windiest parts of some of these states seem to be the areas that still have bigger concentrations of prairie chickens,” Woodson said in an Aug. 13 interview. “We need to plan for a worst-case scenario, which would be a listing.”
There may be as few as 10,000 Lesser Prairie Chickens left in the U.S. from an estimated 3 million in the 18th century. Many are still found in the panhandle, Texas’s northern tip that also boasts the best prospects for wind power, said Heather Whitlaw, a biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Electric-generating wind turbines inhibit the bird’s spring mating rituals, Whitlaw said on Aug. 11. Males jump, fight and show off bright yellow eye combs and reddish esophageal air sacks as they court females in an elaborate dance. The chickens have learned to avoid such mating displays around structures like turbine towers or utility poles where predators may perch.
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Ouch, listing under the ESA? That’s gonna hurt. Read the complete article here
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According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept., the hunt is on for Lesser Prarie Chicken habitat.
The Texas Panhandle area supports a large proportion of the remaining populations of Lesser Prairie-Chickens, so we all have an important opportunity to ensure conservation of the grasslands that support this icon of the Southern High Plains. It is important that we all work together to conserve and manage this unique grassland species. One of the challenges facing biologists and managers is the need to collect accurate census data in order to address the questions and concerns of whether Lesser Prairie-Chickens should be listed as a threatened species across their range. With your help and reports of observations, we will be able to determine how many prairie-chickens we have in Texas.
If you see this bird please contact any of the following:
Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.
(http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/habitats/)
Heather Whitlaw
Box 42125, TTU
Lubbock, TX 79409-2125
Please provide details of the date, location and number of individuals seen. If possible include GPS coordinates. Did you happen to get a photograph or digital image? Your information is valuable and will help ensure the continued survival of this unique
grassland bird.
I’m sure WUWT readers would be glad to help.
h/t to Jeez
I suspect that all the harmonics drive the flying mice batshit crazy and away from windmills, but don’t birds have pretty good hearing, too? What does the wind sheer do to insects? I’ll bet toads sit under them, just like they do at streetlights. The thumping frog of Caliwindmill County.
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If a coal plant was chopping up scarce raptors like this, the envirowacko lobby would go ballistic: click.
That is only one windmill’s daily production of sliced & diced hawks and eagles. Add to that the thousands of bats killed by the turbine blades every day, and you can see how the food chain is destroyed in the name of alternate energy.
But the AGW religion provides indulgences that forgive the raptor carnage, because windmills are in a good cause.
nogw 06:00:47
Yes, I’ve seen the trains go by; oversized cars carrying gorgeously shaped clubs sticking out fore and aft. Immense, blunt force instruments. The real damage is the weakened winds distal to the windmills; they create regional climate change and damage directly proportional to the amount of energy stolen from the wind, and worth far more. The cure for the regional destruction is worse and more than the benefit from the energy ripped off from the wind, one of the globe’s premier climate regulating mechanims.
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Well, at least I didn’t say mechanikims.
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This story was out in Texas in early August. Notice how these headlines portray the native wildlife as the villian.
“Native Prairie Chicken Threatens Wind Energy Expansion In Texas”
“Prairie grouse could hamper wind energy growth”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1XABXkmxXarxZDRzr_IrO5FtkkgD99S7KU82
And I don’t like this part of the story.
“For energy companies, it’s a race. If transmission towers to bring the energy from the turbines to utility companies are up before the bird is listed, the structures would be grandfathered. If not, they probably would have to avoid the birds’ habitat.”
Balderdash. I have been an avid bird watcher all my life and especially of raptors. Ever see a hawk chasing pray through dense and tangled canopy on a windy day? They are amazing. Fighter pilots would give up their first born to be able to fly like that. Bats are exactly the same. Amazing flyers. Wind turbines do not kill hawks and bats. Period. Unless the hawk is just plain old and can’t see or the bat is daft. Cars kill WAAAYYYYY more birds in one day than wind turbines could in a century. Why? Most birds get killed because they refuse to leave the smashed and mangled deer hide they are feasting on when I come along with my car. Hell, I HAVE KILLED MORE BATS than wind turbines have.
Bats can fly outside all night long and I will not bother them. Sneak into my bedroom and their ass is mine. You knock um down with hornet spray than broom them to death.
And don’t even get my started on prairie chickens. Ever see a covey of quails in flight? They hate to fly. Its just an emergency mechanism to get them across the road when running isn’t enough. Prairie chickens are NOT raptors. They do not fly or soar high enough to be caught in wind turbine blades. The day I see a prairie chicken soaring will be the day I see pigs fly.
Utility transmission and distribution lines, the backbone of our electrical power system, are responsible for 130 to 174 million bird deaths a year in the U.S.1 Many of the affected birds are those with large wingspans, including raptors and waterfowl. While attempting to land on power lines and poles, birds are sometimes electrocuted when their wings span between two hot wires. Many other birds are killed as their flight paths intersect the power lines strung between poles and towers. One report states that: “for some types of birds, power line collisions appear to be a significant source of mortality.”2
Collisions with automobiles and trucks result in the deaths of between 60 and 80 million birds annually in the U.S.3 As more vehicles share the roadway, and our automotive society becomes more pervasive, these numbers will only increase. Our dependence on oil has taken its toll on birds too. Even the relatively high incidence of bird kills at Altamont Pass (about 92 per year) pales in comparison to the number of birds killed from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. In fact, according to author Paul Gipe, the Altamont Pass wind farm would have to operate for 500 to 1000 years to “achieve” the same mortality level as the Exxon Valdez event in 1989.
Tall building and residential house windows also claim their share of birds. Some of the five million tall buildings in U.S. cities have been documented as being a chronic mortality problem for migrating birds. There are more than 100 million houses in the U.S. House windows are more of a problem for birds in rural areas than in cities or towns. While there are no required ongoing studies of bird mortality due to buildings or house windows, the best estimates put the toll due collisions with these structures at between 100 million and a staggering 1 billion deaths annually.4
Lighted communication towers turn out to be one of the more serious problems for birds, especially for migratory species that fly at night. One study began its conclusion with, “It is apparent from the analysis of the data that significant numbers of birds are dying in collisions with communications towers, their guy wires, and related structures.”5 Another report states, “The main environmental problem we are watching out for with telecommunication towers are the deaths of birds and bats.”6
This is not news, as bird collisions with lighted television and radio towers have been documented for over 50 years. Some towers are responsible for very high episodic fatalities. One television transmitter tower in Eau Claire, WI, was responsible for the deaths of over 1,000 birds on each of 24 consecutive nights. A “record 30,000 birds were estimated killed on one night” at this same tower.7 In Kansas, 10,000 birds were killed in one night by a telecommunications tower.8 Numerous large bird kills, while not as dramatic as the examples cited above, continue to occur across the country at telecommunication tower sites.
The number of telecommunication towers in the U.S. currently exceeds 77,000, and this number could easily double by 2010. The rush to construction is being driven mainly by our use of cell phones, and to a lesser extent by the impending switch to digital television and radio. Current mortality estimates due to telecommunication towers are 40 to 50 million birds per year.9 The proliferation of these towers in the near future will only exacerbate this situation.
Agricultural pesticides are “conservatively estimated” to directly kill 67 million birds per year.10 These numbers do not account for avian mortality associated with other pesticide applications, such as on golf courses. Nor do they take into consideration secondary losses due to pesticide use as these toxic chemicals travel up the food chain. This includes poisoning due to birds ingesting sprayed insects, the intended target of the pesticides.
Cats, both feral and housecats, also take their toll on birds. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) report states that, “recent research suggests that rural free-ranging domestic cats in Wisconsin may be killing between 8 and 217 million birds each year. The most reasonable estimates indicate that 39 million birds are killed in the state each year.”11
There are other studies on the impacts of jet engines, smoke stacks, bridges, and any number of other human structures and activities that threaten birds on a daily basis. Together, human infrastructure and industrial activities are responsible for one to four million bird deaths per day!
turbine deaths:
The report found that over the study period, 25 bird carcasses were found at the sites. The report states that “the resulting mortality rate of 1.29 birds/tower/year is close to the nationwide estimate of 2.19 birds/tower.16- The report further states, “While bird collisions do occur (with commercial wind turbines) the impacts on global populations appear to be relatively minor, especially in comparison with other human-related causes of mortality such as communications towers, collisions with buildings, and vehicles collisions. This is especially true for small scale facilities like the MG&E and WPS wind farms in Kewaunee County.”17
The report goes on to say, “previous studies suggest that the frequency of avian collisions with wind turbines is low, and the impact of wind power on bird populations today is negligible. Our study provides little evidence to refute this claim.”18
So, while wind farms are responsible for the deaths of some birds, when put into the perspective of other causes of avian mortality, the impact is quite low. In other words, bird mortality at wind farms, compared to other human-related causes of bird mortality, is biologically and statistically insignificant. There is no evidence that birds are routinely being battered out of the air by rotating wind turbine blades as postulated by some in the popular press.
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
Richard (23:14:32) : and Anthony.
Yes indeed. The individual, who chooses to go by the name of ‘dhogaza’, appears to be particularly unpleasant. I made a post on RC about him once saying that I thought that he seemed to have what are called ‘issues’ in these politically correct days.
My question to ‘dhogaza’ still stands – I think that you probably continue read WUWT despite being banned from commenting here due to rule violations – what is your take on the huge bird-kill caused by wind farms?
Why don’t you publish a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal on the subject? ‘Anthropogenic Global warming and its effect on wild bird populations.’ – there’s a working title for you. You could use your skills as a professional wildlife photographer to illustrate. I’m sure we’ll find the paper when it is published.
Pamela Gray (06:55:24) :
“Bats can fly outside all night long and I will not bother them. Sneak into my bedroom and their ass is mine. You knock um down with hornet spray than broom them to death.”
I spent a couple of years working in the mountains of North East Venezuela. One time me and a couple of other guys were staying in an old farm house and one of the guys was woken up by what he was convinced was a vampire bat. He ‘broomed’ it to death.
Frankly, I imagine prairie chickens will live a lot of places besides short grass prairies . . . if you let them. Hunting pressure is relaxing all over the country for various species, and those species are turning up in all sorts of unexpected places. A raccoon or 5 routinely tries to move in with us now. I have coyotes in my driveway looking longingly at my teenage daughter. Deer run down the street in front of my house.
Put a million or two prairie chickens out there on their own, andsome of them are going to find niches in places that were unexpected and that will give them a solid hold on life that no greenie can grant them with some monolithic reserve waiting to be wiped out by a single plague.
Time ago a poster here gave the figures of Finland´s windfarms actual yield of about 2.5% (two and a half per cent!). He gave a link. I would like to get that link again as it is a real important data.
It’s fun to see the tables turn.
A little over a year ago I served on a jury in a civil case here in Montana with an individual, a wildlife biologist, who worked for one of the many environmental organizations that infest this state. In a break conversation he told me, with unconcealed glee, how his organization was going to destroy any potential development of the Bakken Oil Formation by the use of this very same Prairie Chicken and the Endangered Species Act.
More and more, it seems, the enviro’s are getting wrapped around their own axles. Their cumulative and reckeless excesses are now attacking friend and foe alike. The flush may have occurred and now they’re circling the drain (I can hope, can’t I?)
wes george (00:52:49) :
Surely, that’s why a chicken that can’t really fly represents the only weapon neo-Luddites can wield as an axe to chop these beautiful machines down.
Prairie chickens are excellent fliers, highly wary of movement, and spook easily. In my experience in Nebraska, the actual numbers are vastly underestimated.
For example, the American flying squirrel is a listed specie. In Arkansas there is a $500.00 penalty for cutting a tree down that contains a nesting site. The Ark. Game and Fish estimated, alledgely from field counts, that on average there was roughly one nesting pair/100acres. Unfortunately these nests are extremely hard to spot from the ground. When I owned a sawmill I followed BMPs and selective cutting (as opposed to clear cut) and instructed my crews to keep an eye out for nests. We found a nest or two a week or one nesting pair/10 acres (unfortunately usually after the fact). The point: the squirrels only come out at night, and do not fly when predators are around (read man). The numbers were seriously underestimated. There’s a simple solution if you want to increase Prairie chicken numbers,
1.Improve the habitat. They like a 1-2 acre plot with short grass (2″ or less, ie buffalo grass or mowed area) surrounded by taller species to strut their stuff.
Plant some forb food species:alfalfa Illinois bundleflower, prairie coneflower, etc and some wild plum, sumac, etc for nesting sites.
2. Kill coyotes. The number of Prairie chickens is highly associated with the decline in sales of fur coats and price of pelts.
Another unintended consequence of envirogreenie policies.
If the birds don’t kill the windmills (a nice about face), the Greens will block the transmission lines. Can’t have those big ugly things running across the open space, and everyone knows electromagnetic fields cause cancer and all sorts of other diseases that trial lawyers can use to extract big bucks from the power companies.
Looked at flywheels for energy storage on my hypothetical retirement refuge. To store any decent amount of power, they need to be really big or really fast. Bearing failure (magnetic or mechanical) will bring new meaning to the phrase “All H— breaks loose.” Fun to watch. From a distance.
bill (07:02:40) :
1. Agricultural pesticides are “conservatively estimated” to directly kill 67 million birds per year.10 These numbers do not account for avian mortality associated with other pesticide applications, such as on golf courses. Nor do they take into consideration secondary losses due to pesticide use as these toxic chemicals travel up the food chain. This includes poisoning due to birds ingesting sprayed insects, the intended target of the pesticides.
2. Cats, both feral and housecats, also take their toll on birds.
1. If you add up all your numbers, the total exceeds the number of birds on earth (10, 11). But I’ll just take these two scenarios. Since the EPA eliminated the use of pesticides with an LD50 below 2500, I’ll have to see the actual reference and sampling techniques to believe this scrod.
2. Colorado Game and Fish studies determined that feral cats (released or abandoned domestics) were the number one predator of quail and pheasants.
Pamela Gray (06:54:23) :
“Balderdash. I have been an avid bird watcher all my life and especially of raptors. Ever see a hawk chasing pray through dense and tangled canopy on a windy day? They are amazing. Fighter pilots would give up their first born to be able to fly like that. Bats are exactly the same. Amazing flyers. Wind turbines do not kill hawks and bats. Period.”
So all those trees and branches in the canopy are moving at the 200mph that the tip of those turbine blades are moving?
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/04/20/turbine-blade-tip-speed-is-what-kills-birds/
Split Atoms -not Birds…
.
Can we drop this ‘windmill’ business? Windmills grind flour.
Technically, they are ‘wind turbines’. But since this is a bit wordy, can I suggest ‘windturbs’ or ‘windelecs’?
.
ERCOT, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is responsible for operating and regulating the Texas electric grid. They have now determined that the capacity value of all the wind farms in Texas is only 8.7%. Although wind promoters claim that 3.5% of the the electricity generated in Texas is from wind, ERCOT has determined that Texas will really only receive 1.2% from wind through 2014.
http://bx.businessweek.com/green-energy/view?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.energytribune.com%2Farticles.cfm%3Faid%3D2159
>>>So all those trees and branches in the canopy are moving
>>>at the 200mph that the tip of those turbine blades are moving?
Evolution has ill-equipped birds to escape man-made projectiles. With jet aircraft, birds try to dodge it, darting left and right. Useful with an eagle on your tail, perhaps, but not much use to evade a bl***y great RB-211 doing 400 kph (on take off).
I imagine the blade problem is somewhat similar.
.
Geoff Sherington (03:13:39) :
““Denmark trades power in the same Nord Pool, which has announced that from October the spot floor price for surplus power will drop from zero to minus EUR 20 cents/kWh. In other words, wind generators producing power in periods of low demand will have to pay the network to take it…
Wind generators may be losing EUR 0.20 per kWh, but they’ll make it up in volume.
Jeff L (05:46:22) : “There is always trade-offs with anything in life – There is no free lunch. Take your choice – chickens or wind power.”
Jeff L, I apologize for picking on you, but you are way too simplistic, although I think your statement is probably tongue-in-cheek. I guess short-grass prairies should be lunched on either by chickens or humans. Simple choice. Chickens lose. How about regional land use change and its effects on the environment, natural energy distribution systems and, therefore, climate?
Kim (06:43:06) speaks to the issue of natural energy distribution systems: “The real damage is the weakened winds [also read tidal and ocean current for other green energy projects] disital to the windmills; they create regional climate change and damage directly proportional to the amount of energy stolen from the wind, and worth far more.”
A necessity for all energy-supplying corporations. They must restore the environment when their energy product ends/fails, e.g., windfarm owners must take down every out-of-commission windmill. They must post a bond to do this, i.e., part of the corporation’s “profit” must be put aside from the beginning for the end of this viable energy production project. (ROM 3:05:58 – “A reserve that will be used to dismantle and clean up after the wind farm has ceased oeprations or the operators/owners have gone bankrupt… [no more] massive taxpayers subsidies”).
I also like this next one, mentioned many times in many ways on wuwt. Profit? Did someone mention profit? No major energy project should be built without a reasonable expectation of operating profit. No government subsidies to run a large-scale energy project. Government subsidies only for R&D.
Given some other comments, I also want to add:
1. Zero-population growth is not so bad. There are too many people on Earth for “quality of life” and preservation of regional variety and sustainable land use. How do we get there? Voluntarily. Affluence and opportunity. Proven.
2. Sustainable growth is not a bad idea. Regulations are necessary for this possibility and corporations/entrepreneurs/individuals must have to live with a “no” that comes from community discussions (representative democracy- frustrating, however). Don’t let the marxist-maoists take away this interesting idea that enhances liveability, the second law of thermodynamics notwithstanding. We all know that their use of the phrase is only a cover for elite control of government ownership of all means of production — all profits and power into their pockets.
Tim Clark (08:23:50) : the figures are not mine but from the reference given.
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2009/07/wind-birds-and-bats.html
http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/index.asp
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2227411/wind-farm-impact-bird-life
It all depends on which agenda you are pushing