Green Energy

[Arab Nights]

There is an article in today's Wall Street Journal titled: Windmills vs. Birds. I have heard talk of this, but never seen numbers.

77 organizations such as the American Bird Conservatory, Audubon Society, etc. are petitioning the Fish and Wildlife Service to tighten the rules on large scale wind generating projects.

Total golden eagle kills at the Pine Tree wind generating project in Kern Co., CA are 8. Total golden eagle kills at the Altamont Pass project, also in CA, is about 70 per year. A 2008 study found that about 2,400 raptors and 7,500 other birds, many from protected species, are killed annually at Altamont. The Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates that 10,000 bats are killed annually by wind turbinies. The Fish and Wildlife Service figures that 12 birds are killed per megawatt of electricity generated.

Does anybody know anything about wind projects? It seems to me now that there are really big towers with big diameter fans moving at a more stately pace. If yes, does the slower movement save birds?

If ultimately these numbers are accepted as true, one obvious question is why haven't those projects been hung out to dry. You can imagine what would have happened had an oil company, a mining company or an individual killed 70 Golden Eagles.

[moi621]

Biologist here.
Wind projects are conveniently built along windways also used by birds.
I do not windmills for centralized energy production, them having seen them scattered in California passes.
Although wind and solar might have great value on a small scale like one's home, business I do not believe these systems by nature to be 'good' centralized large energy producing systems like hydroelectric and killing off the salmon.

Moi
No Naked Roofs

[Dave]

>>Sigh!
>>

From HOW STUFF WORKS:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...kill-birds.htm

With U.S. dependency on foreign oil getting uncomfortably close to crisis levels, any viable alternative energy source is looking pretty good. With environmental damage from coal and gas-derived power already at crisis levels, even alternatives that are decades off are looking pretty great. Wind power, a viable energy source that costs far less than nuclear and coal power and contributes almost no pollutants to the environment, seems to many of us to be almost ideal.

But there are some people who disagree and are fighting the installation of new wind turbines in the United States. They cite bird mortality as an unacceptable side effect of wind-generated power. Through lawsuits and protests against pending legislation, they hope to save huge numbers of birds from death at the blades of massive wind turbines.

To most experts, though, there's a problem with the bird-mortality argument: The vast majority of research shows that wind turbines kill relatively few birds, at least compared with other man-made structures. The statistics are shocking if you consider just how many people are crying out against wind power for the birds' sake:

Man-made structure/technology____________Associated bird deaths per year (U.S.)

Feral and domestic cats__________________Hundreds of millions [source: AWEA]
Power lines____________________________130 million -- 174 million [source: AWEA]
Windows (residential and commercial)______100 million -- 1 billion [source: TreeHugger]
Pesticides______________________________70 million [source: AWEA]
Automobiles____________________________60 million -- 80 million [source: AWEA]
Lighted communication towers______________40 million -- 50 million [source: AWEA]
Wind turbines___________________________10,000 -- 40,000 [source: ABC]

[moi621]

Figures don't lie
but, butt, ( )0( )

This is the dawn of wind energy. Imagine the "kills" when it really gets going.
A real EPA review would consider the difference between the mountainous Altamont Pass in California and the endless featureless flat prairie. It is easy enough for the birds to take "the long way around" in the later situation.

I wish someone would re-invent the Turkish-Spainish-Dutch windmill. A slower moving higher mass wind catcher that acts as a flywheel. Storing kinetic energy between breezes.

Moi Quixote
Death to the Bird Killers.
And the Tortoise Killer Green Energy too

[Cainanite]

I'm a believer in Geothermal energy. It doesn't pollute. It doesn't require vast tracts of land like solar power. It isn't radioactive. It doesn't require tall, noisy spinning death machines like wind power.

It is available all around the North American Continent. (though much of it off-shore).

What you do is force water down into a known thermal layer under the earth. Think Yellowstone National Park, where those thermals are close to the surface.

The water is turned to steam, and the steam turns turbines, which create power.

Iceland already generates its power with Geo Thermal plants. We are already sitting on all the energy this planet would ever need, right under our feet. It can be done safely, cheaply and without pollutants.

Not every place is suited to Geo Thermal energy, some areas are harder to drill into than others. Not every place gets as hot. However, the western coast of North America is right on the Pacific Ring of Fire. Surely we could adapt some of that oil drilling technology to drill for steam, instead of oil.

With enough geothermal power stations, North America wouldn't have any need of any other source of energy.

[moi621]

What about planetary Core Heat Depletion? Will GeoThermals get a Core Heat Depletion tax credit?

More seriously, what about "waste heat". Heat is a pollutant. Consider a city's heat radiation and the effect of the weather around it.

Moi
<ppssst> Hydrogen. From electrolysis. From organics. Bang it. Fuel Cell it.
Just please condense your waste to a liquid. Water is a green house gas.

[Cainanite]

What about planetary Core Heat Depletion? Will GeoThermals get a Core Heat Depletion tax credit?

More seriously, what about "waste heat". Heat is a pollutant. Consider a city's heat radiation and the effect of the weather around it.

Moi
<ppssst> Hydrogen. From electrolysis. From organics. Bang it. Fuel Cell it.
Just please condense your waste to a liquid. Water is a green house gas.

Geothermal energy doesn't expel heat if it is done correctly. They don't vent steam into the air. They cool that steam back into water, purify it, and pump it back down to get heated up again. Very little water or energy (heat) is lost in that process.

As to cooling down the earths core? Nah. Gravity, continental shift, and even tidal forces are constantly renewing that heat.

As to Hydrogen fuel cells... My only experience was with some Hydrogen fuel buses my home town tried out. They worked great in the summer, but wouldn't run at all when the temperature dropped below -10 degrees Celsius. For Northern Saskatchewan, that was eight months of the year. That has left me negatively biased about the technology.

[Riverwind]

Yes Windmills kill birds however they are not the only ones. As Dave's post above here is another source.

http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf

But the real interesting number is this,

The fall population of birds may be in the order of 20 billion birds.
Deaths by all causes are in the millions, with CATS doing the most damage, Way to go Rupert doing his share to keep the population of birds down.

Build those Windmills, not a problem.


River

[Dave]

Figures don't lie
but, butt, ( )0( )

This is the dawn of wind energy. Imagine the "kills" when it really gets going.
A real EPA review would consider the difference between the mountainous Altamont Pass in California and the endless featureless flat prairie. It is easy enough for the birds to take "the long way around" in the later situation.

I wish someone would re-invent the Turkish-Spainish-Dutch windmill. A slower moving higher mass wind catcher that acts as a flywheel. Storing kinetic energy between breezes.

Moi Quixote
Death to the Bird Killers.
And the Tortoise Killer Green Energy too

You say you bought the property in Brooklyn that slick salesman offered you that's real near the Brooklyn Bridge?

How about that swamp land that's going to be developed in Florida?

Did you know that the car put buggy whip makers out of business?

And how about a thriving buggy industry?

[A-1]

moi,

You are SOOO full of it. How many, people, animals and fish, are killed by the use of coal, the use of oil and the mining, drilling and refinement of these fossil fuels?

The argument YOU seek to make is little more than excuses to maintain the energy status quo. You are so AGAINST progress, but then you turn around and claim to be a progressive. You are so inconsistent that I worry often about you...

[moi621]

You bleeding Liberals, so monosynaptic reflexive when some cerebration may achieve insight.

They sell their "Green" as Eco Friendly when it is NOT. And Liberals swallow it whole.
Green seems to apply to any environmental destruction associated with energy production that is not petroleum based.
Maybe Green should mean, Earth Friendly. Carpeting the desert is not Earth Friendly. Windmill systems today are small scale and one can imagine if the industry blooms into so many more wind farms and units per farm, so will the bird kills. Get it? NOT Green, Not Petroleum based. Seems untrue but, it is true.

Hydrogen can be used in a cylinder motor or fuel cell driven system. Fuel cells will no doubt improve with fuel availability. Hydrogen has so many sources as to be absurd to ignore.

Moi
Arnie was right about "the hydrogen highway"
But, Please condense your waste water. Atmospheric water is a green house gas.

[erikboy]

Despite windmills seem to turn very slowly their tip speed is unbelievably high reaching some mach 0,5. Any bird would not expect something like that turn toward their direction with unexpectedly high speed. Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw

[erikboy]

Hydrogen can be used in a cylinder motor or fuel cell driven system. Fuel cells will no doubt improve with fuel availability. Hydrogen has so many sources as to be absurd to ignore.

Any green enough hydrogen sources?

[moi621]

Any green enough hydrogen sources?

How Green ya want it?
Solar Electrolysis of Water on roof tops.
Refining organic material down to hydrogen and residue. Organic garbage or petroleum derived products or natural gas could be refined into hydrogen and residue. Any biofuel can be used as a hydrogen source.
Anything mechanical that can consume hydrogen would probably manage with natural gas. The computer chip automatically adjusts the mixture. Fuel cells development will probably grasp natural gas as well as today's hydrogen ones.
The exhaust of a hydrogen driven system is "water". Condensed, it is good for you and the planet.
Green enough?

Moi
Greenist

[Riverwind]

Moi, no system is perfect, what happens when that hydrogen is mishandled which it will be, and it explodes, which it will. Moi its not if, its when.

NOW

There is nothing wrong with wind farms, yes it kills some birds, oh well. Not nearly as many as cats, and Moi, if you run the numbers we would need a windmill in every yard to compete with the cats, if I remember you have several, you moi support BIRD KILLERS, SHAME ON YOU.

River