Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year!
Big Wind hides evidence of turbine bird kills and gets rewarded. Here is how they do it.
In 1984 the California Energy Commission .. the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.
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Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half - or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.
To hide this awful truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established - including high security, gag orders in leases and other agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.
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Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted: We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow ... It is easy to see how human "errors" keep bird mortality low.
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Studies worsen as turbines proliferate and increase in size .
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The result was significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and "greater windows of time." This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.
In fact, the illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10-20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow - but for their blade tips this translates into 100-200 mph
(Excerpt) Read more at cfact.org ...
Big Wind hides evidence of turbine bird kills and gets rewarded. Here is how they do it.
In 1984 the California Energy Commission .. the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.
...
Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half - or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.
To hide this awful truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established - including high security, gag orders in leases and other agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.
...
Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted: We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow ... It is easy to see how human "errors" keep bird mortality low.
...
Studies worsen as turbines proliferate and increase in size .
...
The result was significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and "greater windows of time." This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.
In fact, the illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10-20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow - but for their blade tips this translates into 100-200 mph
(Excerpt) Read more at cfact.org ...