![Bats-graphic[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/bats-graphic1.jpg?quality=83)
I wonder how many bats coal and nuclear power plants killed last year?
From the University of Colorado Denver
Bats pollinate crops, control insects
DENVER (Nov. 15, 2013) – More than 600,000 bats were killed by wind energy turbines in 2012, a serious blow to creatures who pollinate crops and help control flying insects, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Denver.
“The development and expansion of wind energy facilities is a key threat to bat populations in North America,” said study author Mark Hayes, PhD, research associate in integrated biology at CU Denver. “Dead bats are being found underneath wind turbines across North America. The estimate of bat fatalities is probably conservative.”
The study, which analyzed data on the number of dead bats found at wind turbine sites, will be published next week in the journal BioScience.
Hayes said areas near the Appalachian Mountains like Buffalo, Tennessee and Mountaineer, West Virginia had the highest bat fatality rates. Little information is available on bat deaths at wind turbine facilities in the Rocky Mountain West or the Sierra Nevadas.
The bats are killed when they fly into the towering turbines which spin at up to 179 mph with blades that can stretch 130 feet. Earlier estimates of bat deaths ranged from 33,000 to 880,000.
Hayes said his estimates are likely conservative for two reasons. First, when a range of fatality estimates were reported at a wind facility, he chose the minimum estimate. Secondly, the number of deaths was estimated for just migratory periods, not the entire year, likely leaving out many other fatalities.
“The number could be as high as 900,000 dead,” he said.
There are 45 known bat species in the contiguous U.S., many of which have important economic impacts. Not only do they control flying insects like mosquitoes, they also pollinate commercial crops, flowers and various cacti.
Those suffering the most fatalities are the hoary bat, eastern bat and the silver-haired bat.
Hayes said there ways to mitigate the killings. One is to have the turbines activated to spin at higher wind speeds when bats don’t tend to fly.
“A lot of bats are killed because the turbines move at low wind speeds, which is when most bats fly around,” said Hayes, who has studied bats for 15 years. “In a recent study in Pennsylvania, researchers adjusted the operating speeds from 10 mph to 18 or 20 mph and decreased fatalities by 40 to 90 percent.”
Hayes said with the expansion of wind energy in the future, more bats will likely die.
“I am not against wind energy. It’s clean, it reduces pollution and it creates jobs. But there are negative impacts,” he said. “Still, I think this is a problem we can solve.”
This is another reason I get angry every time I see a commercial for an oil company, such as BP or Exxon, that tries to portray them as being sensitive and caring about the environment. They ALWAYS show wind turbines.
Bob Tisdale said @ur momisugly November 15, 2013 at 8:13 am
But the consequent increase in mosquito numbers means blood-sucking is conserved, so it’s all good 🙂
AJ says November 15, 2013 at 9:01 am
At the height of a wind turbine? Not many.
It is estimated that cats kill an up to 1 million birds a year in the UK. Approx. 2 thirds of Robins are killed by cats.
WolvInOhio: “They ALWAYS show wind turbines.”
On the upside, the beef industry can save a shedload of money on butchering if it loads cattle in a trebuchet and launches them at green energy sources. Waste not, want not; and all that rot.
Jolan, the bats at the height of a wind turbine are not the same birds (or bats) at the height of a cat’s pounce. Except, perhaps, Macavity.
Cats are a different threat to bat populations. But cats aren’t subsidised on environmental times.
This reminds me of big tobacco and lung cancer. I can see lawsuits in future years as Big Wind gets hammered for billions of Dollars. Do not invest in windpower, you will lose your hard earned money.
TonG(ologist) says:
November 15, 2013 at 8:25 am
Wind energy creates jobs?
Yes, there are plenty of job openings for bat carcass collectors around the country.
🙂
As noted often by commenters, the hypocrisy and delusional groupthink is staggering, the same media presstitutes who screamed and wailed over some common ducks dying in Syndcrudes tailings ponds, can not be found as their prized and obsolete “solutions” are shown to be killing endangered species at an unprecedented rate.
Windmills are an economic failure, the technology is not up to producing a product consumers desire, this is obvious even to the eco-nasties, who now insist that we consumers will have to modify our electricity usage.
Translation, when the sun shines and wind blows, use power; but when it is dark cold and windless, so sorry.
This is the money quote right here …
“I am not against wind energy. It’s clean, it reduces pollution and it creates jobs. But there are negative impacts,” he said. “Still, I think this is a problem we can solve.”
Clean and reduces pollution huh? Try this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
How many coal mining jobs and coal fired power station jobs have been lost to this ineffective, costly and environmentally damaging menace?
They lie to themselves and then pass those lies on. It does not matter how much they believe them, they are still lies coming out of their mouths.
Pssst, want to buy a robot bat carcass collector? It was invented by this guy named Gore and he can sell you one.
Bats are not cute, therefore Greenpiece , WWF ,etc do not care.
When was the last time anyone saw them advertising to save an endangered lizard?
So the EPA has lowered its ethanol required in gasoline for 2014. Maybe they can do something for the bats as well.
At least the people in Austin let those bats stay under that bridge.
That is really a sight to see.
Yes, let’s do be scientific. A 130 foot blade sweeps a circle, at the tip, of 817 feet. With a tip speed of 179 mph, that’s 262 feet per second. So, at any given point the little feller has about 3 seconds to “shoot the gap” and avoid the blade. But wait! These Blendmasters usually have three blades. Now he’s down to just over 1 second. I suppose it’s doable, as long as we’re not worried about turbulence or the bat getting entrained in an eddy or vortex which flings him back into the blade path or a support structure. Not odds I’d care to face.
Supervisiors OK deal to dim distracting turbine lights
By JAMES BURGER The Bakersfield Californian
Hazard to man, beast, and even the meaner creatures of the world.
And did you get that this optical sea of red was impacting America’s only civilian spaceport?
It’s another case of 13th century tech inhibiting the future progress of mankind, or delaying it long enough for the Chinese to catch up.
BATTY, or
FOR THE GOOD
The problem can be solved by bat behavioral psychologists.
Paid from the federal $2.7 billion/year for climate change studies, if not from a new fund altogether.
All what one has to do is to transmit, through loudspeakers mounted on the turbines, to the bats, before impact, the message:
“It’s for the good of your grandchildren!”
Poor analogies hint at shoddy work. Decompression Illness (the bends) is not related to equalizing pressure in the lungs with surface pressure. DI is caused by dissolved gases in the blood and other tissues expanding to create embolisms. What they are attempting to describe are injuries associated with rapid ascent due to over expansion of the lungs. A VERY different issue. Shoddy research.
I wonder how many Hiroshima units of CO2 are released in 600,000 dead bats per year. I need research money!
News flash (very old news):
Bats are not hit by the blades; their lungs are popped by the turbulence behind them as the bats hunt for insects swarming there. Duh.
I do wonder if the wind turbines had ultrasonic sound generators within the frequency range of the bats is there some frequency that drives them away? For cats, dogs, and people the upper end of the frequency range hurts and drives them away.
Hayes said areas near the Appalachian Mountains like Buffalo, Tennessee and Mountaineer, West Virginia . . .”
This caused a jolt in my reading insofar as Buffalo is “near” the Appalachian Mountains only if one asks Bill Clinton for a definition of near. However, a little sleuthing reveals the mentioned Buffalo is not the well-known second city of New York State and icon of Buffalo Wings but, rather, the site of a TVA wind farm in, appropriately enough, the Appalachians.
I’m the only one on the planet that did not know this – thus, the jolt in my reading!
(And yes, I see the comma.)
While many are piling on (Gary Pearse says: November 15, 2013 at 8:24 am) regarding the manner of death of bats from blades, no one seems to have mentioned the “metal” in the blades.
Modern blades are mostly glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) in layers over a structural filling. Not that this matters to the bats and the birds.
You must have been comma-tose the first time. ;P
CRS, DrPH says:
November 15, 2013 at 9:10 am
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I’m sure that white-nose fungus is due to a drastically warming climate….
And I thought it was the brown-nose fungus.