Monday, August 15, 2011

Threats to Wildlife: Rhetoric vs. Reality


Wind energy poses less of a threat to birds than many other commonplace structures and is far less harmful to birds than the fossil fuels it displaces. In fact, the National Audubon Society has stated that it supports the development and use of wind power. Incidental losses of individual birds at wind farms will always be an extremely small fraction of bird deaths caused by human activities:
  • Wind is the only source of energy that does not present population-level risks to birds, according to a study of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind power.
  • Wind turbines are estimated to cause less than three out of every 100,000 human-related bird deaths in the U.S., and will never cause more than a very small fraction no matter how extensively wind power is used in the future, the National Academy of Sciences found.
  • Wind power causes far fewer losses of birds (approximately 108,000 a year) than buildings (550 million), power lines (130 million), cars (80 million), poisoning by pesticides (67 million), domestic cats (at least 10 million), and radio and cell towers (4.5 million).
  • Non-renewable energy sources "pose higher risks to wildlife" than renewable sources. Coal - which wind directly replaces - "is by far the largest contributor" to wildlife risks.
Despite the rhetoric, NextEra coordinates with the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Department of Natural Resources to design wind farms for minimal impacts to wildlife. 

Any people truly concerned with threats to wildlife should be looking at the billions of fish and other aquatic wildlife that are killed each year by water-intake systems on power plants.  Some areas face devastating economic repercussions as fisheries are threatened and recreational uses are diminished.

According to the Sierra Club, nationwide coal power plants suck more than 200 billion gallons of water a day from America’s waterways.  Forty-nine percent of all of the water use in America is from the power industry, that’s more water than all of our irrigation and public water supplies combined.  Each year, U.S. wind installations will save the nation over 20 billion gallons of water that would otherwise be withdrawn for steam or cooling in conventional power plants.

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