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Post by glennkoks on Dec 10, 2013 14:00:14 GMT
sigurdur, We can't afford to lose both bees and bats. The estimate of 600 thousand appears to be for all bat death associated with wind turbines in the US. Apparently how many bats there is a lot more elusive than the number killed by wind turbines. But it appears to work out to a handful or two bats per wind turbine, I can't find any bat population figures to match any death by bat or death by species figure to total bats. Best I could do was 20 million bats in one cave in Texas. A Univ of Colorado study estimated that the 600k bats killed is having a serious impact on bat populations. However, they completely neglected to provide any information on how that estimate of impact was arrived at. Experience suggests that there is no scientific basis for the dire estimate. When they have have some relevant figures to toss around is about as good of grant bait as you can get so they seem to never forget to march it out at every opportunity. All forms of energy have pro's and con's. I think our future should focus on all of them: wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas and clean coal. I work in the industry so am clearly biased but natural gas makes the most sense as it is clean, cheap and plentiful. But if the wind turbines are killing bats and birds we need re-evaluate the energy source. Even more so considering they are heavily subsidized.
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Post by trbixler on Dec 10, 2013 14:27:58 GMT
More on kill those eagles. "‘Green’ Energy Kills Eagles" "We have to kill eagles in order to save them. That’s now the official policy of the U.S. Interior Department. On Friday, the agency announced that it would grant some wind-energy companies permits that will allow them to kill or injure bald and golden eagles for up to 30 years without penalty. The move is an unprecedented gift to the wind-energy industry, which has been lobbying for the 30-year permit for several years. Shortly after the deal was announced, the wind-energy lobby issued a statement that would make George Orwell proud. An official with the American Wind Energy Association declared that this “is not a program to kill eagles.” It is, he claimed, “about conservation.”" "Want more outrage? The federal government wants to give decades-long permits allowing the wind industry to kill the bird that has been our national symbol since 1782. Never mind that the Continental Congress spent nearly six years haggling over the design for the Great Seal of the United States before finally settling on the one we now have. Never mind that the bald eagle has been a protected species under federal law since 1940. The golden eagle gained similar protection in 1962. Never mind that, under the Endangered Species Act, the bald eagle was protected from 1976 to 2007. It finally graduated from the federally protected list — it’s among only a handful of species ever to do so — thanks only to the investment of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in conservation efforts, including captive-breeding projects. Some of those efforts were sponsored by the Fish and Wildlife Service." link
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Post by trbixler on Dec 28, 2013 16:14:52 GMT
Pay to kill the birds when the wind blows lightly, pay to not produce energy when you don't need it, then pay someone else for the energy when you do need it. Government skyrocketing the cost of energy. "£30million for wind turbines that don't work when it's windy: Cost is £25million higher than last year and paid for by household bills" "‘Unfortunately, there are no cheap solutions, and, ironically, paying wind farms not to produce energy may actually be cheaper than building more grid. ‘At some point government will have to face the fact that wind power is simply too expensive to provide more than a minor share of UK electricity.’ Under EU law, Britain’s energy consumption from renewables needs to reach 15 per cent by 2020 – meaning thousands more wind turbines may be built. There are already 4,000 on land and a further 1,000 at sea." link
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Post by nonentropic on Dec 28, 2013 19:20:59 GMT
So if there were 100,000 wind turbines all would blissful. The radio could tell people when to heat or cook or work seems fine to me.
The GDP would be predicted by the met office and we know how clever they are.
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Post by sigurdur on Dec 28, 2013 20:36:38 GMT
nonentropic: IF there were 100,000 wind turbines, someone is going to get vastly wealthy at the public's expense.
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birder
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 223
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Post by birder on Feb 18, 2014 18:24:52 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Mar 2, 2014 7:28:15 GMT
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Post by karlox on Mar 2, 2014 10:15:28 GMT
Most similar to what has happened in Spain with solar farms which growth exploded under State covered guaranteed benefits for 30 years. Most of this solar-farm were real farmers joining in cooperatives for solar farms and were convinced by the government it would be of great benefit for their future retirement to invest in such industry; they were built when solar panels were much more expensive than today so they had to put their homes and properties as final guarantee to get loans from the Banks. Now the game is over, Spain is bankrupt -though not officially- and government changed the rules without warning. From small owners to big investors judiciary claims against spanish government has yet to be settled... many people are about to loose everything due to this erratic policies... Meantime Spain currently has TOO MUCH capacity to produce power from: -wind farms -hydro -nuclear -solar farms. -brand new gas burning power plants (got them working half capacity which rises cost of production). These are used to ´compensate´wind farms and solar uncertain output... But a politically grounded lousy connection to French Grid (mainly nuclear based) makes it possible that all this energy is being actually wasted while we have highest EU power prices, after Malta... Over two million families have either power cuts due to unpaid bills or are suffering from "energy poverty" obliguing them to cut down the use of heaters and other restrictions... (and gas, water, medicines, food...) Main driver of any socially admittable energy policy should be producing cheaper energy to the people and industries, while encouraging reasonable volunteer energy saving measures. That´s the most disgusting and criminal consequence of CO2 Scare Tale
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Post by nautonnier on Mar 2, 2014 13:30:41 GMT
So as these are subsidy farms there is concern amongst the subsidy farmers that there may be less to farm. A whole life cost exercise would show that these things could never be profitable, especially those out at sea as the maintenance will become prohibitively expensive; not to mention a distinct shortage of volunteers to work 400ft up a mast on a wind turbine 10 miles offshore. I doubt that any of the politicians setting the contracts for these things had the foresight to have the subsidy farmers put money in escrow for removing defunct wind turbines. I expect that in a decade the country side and inshore waters will be littered with abandoned wind farms with corroding wind turbines.
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Post by magellan on Mar 3, 2014 3:49:34 GMT
So as these are subsidy farms there is concern amongst the subsidy farmers that there may be less to farm. A whole life cost exercise would show that these things could never be profitable, especially those out at sea as the maintenance will become prohibitively expensive; not to mention a distinct shortage of volunteers to work 400ft up a mast on a wind turbine 10 miles offshore. I doubt that any of the politicians setting the contracts for these things had the foresight to have the subsidy farmers put money in escrow for removing defunct wind turbines. I expect that in a decade the country side and inshore waters will be littered with abandoned wind farms with corroding wind turbines. toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/
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Post by magellan on Mar 3, 2014 3:52:32 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Apr 22, 2015 2:40:50 GMT
notrickszone.com/2015/04/21/beleaguered-industry-wind-parks-coming-under-fire-due-to-health-impacts-from-infrasound-danish-permitting-halts/The debate on the effects of infrasound on the health of people and animals living near wind parks has been raging on with more intensity than ever – especially since Denmark unexpectedly halted the permitting of new wind parks due to “health concerns” from infrasound. Infrasound is defined as low frequency sound under 16 Hz – below the threshold of human hearing. Wind farms are notorious for generating these potentially harmful sub-audible frequencies. It is said that infrasound can be sensed as pressure to the ears or to the stomach, or as a slight vibration. There’s a Swedish report available on the hazard, click here. It calls for the legal framework for the creation of wind parks to be revised
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Post by sigurdur on May 14, 2015 23:36:42 GMT
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Post by magellan on May 16, 2015 0:34:41 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on May 16, 2015 1:00:06 GMT
The idea of renewable energy isn't nuts, the idea of spending vasts sums of borrowed money on renewable energy TODAY is nuts.
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