Let’s see, they put up windmills to save the planet, then end up killing off endangered species, then have to limit the turbines to half days. FAIL
The Indiana bat is an endangered species and is protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.
Full story here
And it doesn’t seem to be limited to problems in Pennsylvania. Here’s a report about a wind farm in Canada:
Within 3/4 of a mile from the shores of Cape Vincent there already is an operational 86 turbine wind power plant on Wolfe Island, Canada. The Wolfe Island post construction bat mortality report determined that an estimated 1720 bats are killed per turbine per year. Cape Vincent can expect the same numbers because of similar habitat and shared species with Wolfe Island.
Probably helps to check the map first before building:
ACCIONA TURBINE AREAS
h/t to WUWT reader “bladeshearerJack Maloney”
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Well, it’s an endangered bat; jail the CEO of the wind park operator and tear the turbines down.
“estimated 1720 bats are killed per turbine per year”
86 windmills? thats not far short of 150,000 in total
No wonder they’re endangered.
Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking.
When I was a kid long before the current era of of rabies, we used to go down to a swampy bit of woods at dusk and watch the bats do amazing aerobatics feasting on the summer bugs, mostly mosquitoes. They would just gobble up gazillions of them continuously. Bats are pretty amazing. We would toss up a pebble to see if we could fool them and a bat would fly around it many times before darting off looking for something else. Very impressive.
A dead bat means lots of live mosquitoes (and other insects). Congratulations to the eco-lunatics. We really need more mosquitoes.
Yes, the reports from all over the country are wrong, you’re right. You two guys go back to sleep. We’ll wake you up when there is a pal-reviewed paper.
Only rotating buildings and flying cats do that. All the stationary buildings and terrestrial cats do not. I have seen the odd bat get inside a building but most times they escape. I have never seen a cat kill a bat, birds yes, bats never. But neither stationary buildings nor terrestrial predators can hold a candle to Windmill Cuisinarts. 🙂
It’s amazing how cold and callous the Windmill defenders are when these dead animal stories pop up. I think they know that it is their Achilles heel. Although they themselves have sold their own souls to the religion of eco-socialism, they fear that the ‘uneducated’ masses with their souls still intact, will not like to hear about these bloody sacrifices to their religion.
The article making a claim of 1720 dead bats per turbine per year is wrong. The report it references states an average of 20 bats per turbine per year are killed, which makes it 1720 bats per year for 86 turbines. It’s on page 3 of the executive summary:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47638969/Wolfe-Island-Wind-Post-Construction-Avian-Bat-Mortality-MonitoringReport-2011-01-24
Taken from the document cited in the linked blog post, The Wolf Island Plant document on bat and bird kills, the number of average deaths per turbine is almost 2 orders of magnitude lower than what you quote here. Using the actual estimate of 20 bats per year per turbine, multiplied by 86 turbines, you get 1720 bats per year from the whole plant, not the astronomically high numbers suggested above. Please adjust your post accordingly, because as it stands, you give out completely incorrect numbers.
In the end, after the slaughter of millions, (eco-)socialism just looks stupid, throws up its arms and exclaim: But we meant well.
Let me get this right…wind turbines run mostly at night, when electricity demand is at it’s lowest. Now we have to shut them down to protect the bat. That makes their output cost about 100% higher than it is now.
Uh-oh.
The ultimate stupidity is that the authorities will close down wind turbines at night for bats but not for Humans who are having their sleep destroyed and their health harmed.
Thank you for pointing out the typo, I have amend it.
There are many factors involved in collecting the bat kill data. Things such as scavengers removing the carcasses, tall grass may make it difficult to spot the carcasses etc. The information in these reports is only an estimate. It has been speculated that the bat fatality rate for Wolfe Island could be much higher maybe as high as 10,000 bat deaths per year.
The Point is that the bat population is declining at a rapid rate large numbers of bats are being killed by wind turbines.
The number of bat deaths is higher than any fatality rates seen in this species in the past. The turbine bat kills seem to have been accepted, virtually ignored by most people. What is the threshold that is considered unacceptable? How many bats need to die for people to take notice and decide that it is unacceptable? 1720 bat deaths at one 86-turbine project per year apparently was not enough to garner much attention but 1720 per turbine per year has made a few people sit up and pay attention. Whatever the number is, it is unacceptable
Anonymous person who actually read the cited document says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:54 am
You are correct, but 1720 bats killed is still 1720 too high! Not to mention, the bird kill and destruction of acres land to build the turbines…
By the way, a message I repeat frequently for all of our “green” visitors…
Please stop ALL USE OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS or ENERGY DERIVED FROM FOSSIL FUELS. TODAY. NOW! I can provide a list of such products and energy sources if you need them. Thank you for your cooperation (we wouldn’t want you all to be hypocrites, after all…).
Bats are very cool animals. We have a nature center not far from us that has dozens of bat houses with thousands of bats. You can stand right in the middle of hundreds, thousands, of bats pouring out of these things and not a single one will hit you. Then you can enjoy a giant dogfight in the sky as the bats feed.
I know we have several living in our attic, one escaped through our in ceiling fan one night (still not sure how he did that). The cat managed to catch him until I could toss a box on him. Not a great way to be awakened at 3 in the morning, but they are very entertaining on summer evenings in the back yard.
I drive by those PA mills on occasion and most of them are idle. They are never idle in being an eyesore on a very picturesque landscape however.
One more thing about bats is that they are already of grave concern due to White-Nose Syndrome so I’m not surprised that they would halt night time operations. The cause is a fungus that thrives in cold environments, so there’s no pinning this on AGW. This link gives some good info on it, including a map showing its geographic extent. I know that Illinois has closed all caves that are under state jurisdiction, and imagine other states are taking action as well.
http://www.fws.gov/WhiteNoseSyndrome/
@Anonymous person who actually read the cited document says: October 19, 2011 at 2:54 am
So the number of bats actually killed compared to the number allegedly killed is pretty much in the same proportion as the amount of useable and useful electricity produced by the turbines compared to the nameplate rating of the turbine.
And 20 bats killed per turbine and enormously increased electricity bills are both good things?
Have I got that right?
\sarc
Shouldn’t somebody be prosecuted for this? Isn’t there some federal law being violated? Was there an environmental impact study done on the effects of the turbines on the Indiana bat? How about impact upon migratory birds?
Ontario geenrates 1% of its energy from biomass and wind. (Warning, extreme bias in favour of wind)
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~whulet/OGN/Vol1Issue1/Glen_Estill.htm
The gas portion is rising. As the home of the CANDU reaction which can burn a variety of fuel, obviously Ontario could be 100% powered by nuclear sources any time they choose to do so.
The conclusion at the link above is that massive wind programmes could supply all thje power needed if they could just overcome that pesky problem of storage … and stand-by power and the grid capacity and the capital cost and, oh yeah, tripling the cost of the power. Well that’s all right then, isn’t it. Let’s do it tomorrow.
/sarc
Several have made comments suggesting if the turbines are shut down at night, power production will be only 50%.
Not so.
The best business models for wind turbines I’ve seen count on the ability to generate power one day in three. Thus, shutting the turbines down at night to save the bats would reduce the best estimate of power generation to 16.7%.
So, a business that is most assuredly not green, produces extremely high priced electricity very intermittantly, survives only because of govt subsidies and rate payers surcharges (other people’s money), and requires backup power capacity to operate in cold spinning mode (using power but generating none) is a rational response to the unproven theory of anthropogenic CO2 driven global warming?
I think not.
Blade says:
October 19, 2011 at 1:35 am
It’s amazing how cold and callous the Windmill defenders are when these dead animal stories pop up. I think they know that it is their Achilles heel. Although they themselves have sold their own souls to the religion of eco-socialism, they fear that the ‘uneducated’ masses with their souls still intact, will not like to hear about these bloody sacrifices to their religion.
———————————–
That was worth repeating. I am reminded of the birds that (unfortunately) tried to land in an oil sands treatment pond. A few hundred birds…this was to have been a wake-up call to shut down the oil sands. Now wind turbines kill a measly 1,720 bats per year.
I lived in a 120 year old house that loved to let bats in. A neighbors butterfly net did the trick. Even when captured I found them remarkably non-aggressive. Although one time I let a bat out around 3:00 am and it didn’t want to venture off my front porch. Believing in vampires I knew it would be sorry when the sun came up, so I went back to bed. A few hours later I heard the paperboy cry out, obviously startled by the bat as he dropped off my paper at my front door. Haha, such a little creature can scare the best of us into a girly scream. Too bad it wasn’t a cuddly polar bear, like the one in the Suzuki commercial that travels all the way from the North Pole to hug the guy who buys an electric car.
Think of the possibilities Hollywood: Erect windmills to keep away the vampires!!!!
Well now I know how I’m getting rid of the damn bat around and in my house. I didn’t notice any reference, but is there a certain size windmill I should use?
From the article…
“Within 3/4 of a mile from the shores of Cape Vincent there already is an operational 86 turbine wind power plant on Wolfe Island, Canada. The Wolfe Island post construction bat mortality report determined that an estimated 1720 bats are killed per year. Cape Vincent can expect the same numbers because of similar habitat and shared species with Wolfe Island.
Aubertine’s land is slated for transmission lines to facilitate St. Lawrence winds 53 turbine project.”
——————————————
I wonder what would happen if a proposed natural gas facility suggested that an estimated 1,720 birds would die each year per installation?
I have a solution…..reopen Solyndra, move the entire operation, and have their new task change to (DBT) Daylight Bat Training so these bats can fly during the day….that way not only can we see them and have immediate shut down capabilities but they will be able to “see”(using their new daylight solar radar as trained by Solyndra) the spinning Windmill blades.
It will create new jobs under Obama’s jobs bill, not only for the training and the moving vans for Solyndra move from California but for those that will now have to be hired to clean Bat guano off of the blades…..
Brilliant!!!!
Falstaff says:
October 19, 2011 at 12:17 am
Buildings and structures kill far more birds and bats than turbines; so do cats. Why isn’t Fish and Wildlife driving around with its wrecking ball demolishing buildings and cell towers, capturing stray kitties?
Have you ever in your life seen or even heard a report of a bat flying into a building or fixed structure and killing itself? If not, by what other mechanism do buildings and structures inflict mortality on bats? We used to use a tennis racket on the ones who got into the house when I was a kid, but it was always a matter of a lot of swings and more luck than brains if you did manage to hit it. Nowadays, if one gets in, I just open the sliding door to the deck and they usually exit in fairly short order.
It seems that wind farm operators fear enforcement of Endangered Species Act much more than enforcement of specific law designed to protect virtually all birds, especially eagles. How can this be?
There are 3 US laws that protect eagles: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; and the Lacey Act. Violators of these laws are subject to both civil and criminal penalties for “taking” (includes killing, injuring, harassing, etc protected birds. Regulations per the BGEPA, require environmental assessments of projects the pose potential harm to eagles and development of eagle management plans that protect eagles from injury or death. A 4th law, the Endangered Species Act only protects listed species, but there are some raptor and vulture species that are listed, meaning that both the animals and their critical habitat are protected and regulated per the ESA.
Compliance with these laws and implementing regulations is time consuming and quite expensive. In addition, NEPA and similar state laws apply and compliance is required for all wind farms. NYMBYs and environmental organizations have citizens suit rights and can intervene in environmental assessment procedures for wind farms.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service of DOI is the designated regulatory and enforcement agency for the bird protection laws. It is ironic that wind farm developers and operators can “take” protected birds in complete disregard of bird protection laws. Have wind farm developers and operators made the proper analysis of the jeopardy that wind projects pose to birds in project environmental assessments? Have they prepared and obtained approval from USF&WS of eagle management plans? Have they received “take” permits to kill them? Is USF&WS authorized to in effect waive compliance with the myriad of laws and rules intended to protect virtually all birds?
To date why has USF&WS limited its enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to oil and gas projects? Where are the environmentalists screaming for USF&WS to protect birds from the giant cuisinarts in the sky?
For starters Ken Salazar, Secretary of Interior should be impeached for flagrant dereliction of duty. Then USF&WS should be purged.
A bit off topic but relevant to wind power;
“Wind power is not like riding your bike to work and leaving your car in the driveway. It’s like
riding your bike to work and having someone follow in your car. When you get tired of
pedaling (70% of the time in this analogy) you ride in the car the rest of the way.”
To see a handy synopsis of 7 Wind Turbine Myths – click on the link below;
http://windconcernsontario.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/7_wind_turbine_myths.pdf
I don’t follow. If it generates power one day in three, having the windmill shut down in the evening of the one day out of three that you are generating power means you have lost 50% of your power for that three day period.
If the wind happened to be blowing only at night on that one day, you have lost 100% of it.