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Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

economist.com

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Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#151

Post by locallost »

itsoktocry wrote: post #110
locallost wrote: post #59

I am not a conspiracy theorist, it's just a simple case of "follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar per year business and their interest is to keep it this way. So poisoning the well is a good strategy for them. If you thought about it, it was clear the bird argument was always just a talking point nimby types were fed with, so they have something alarming to repeat and to get outraged, witho…

> "follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar per year business and their interest is to keep it this way. Meanwhile, the green energy industry is not-for-profit, volunteer, altruistic and unbiased. That's incredibly naive. If you don't think the global capitalists are moving towards a green transition, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Everyone is a capitalist today, not sure what else to say to that.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#152

Post by slingnow »

jeffbee wrote: post #72
gumby wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like oil drilling but even without your experience it’s clear GP’s assertion is nonsense. There are still oil wells all over Los Angeles in parking lots and tucked between buildings, which is a contradicting existence proof. I can imagine in a big oil field like in Midland, TX they have a lot of sprawling operations that take up a lot of room. But that doesn’t have to be the only way.

Even the drill site in Beverly Hills on W. Pico is 2 acres. But the wildlife impact of drilling for oil in Beverly Hills is zero, whereas the wildlife impact of drilling for oil in the middle of nowhere is higher.

So you're aware of a drill site that is much less than 5 acres, but you were comfortable stating:

"Every oil rig scrapes everything off five acres of land"

?

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#153

Post by wredue »

jfengel wrote: post #140
throwaway5752 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

deleted

The OP is pointing out that most pearl-clutching about the effects of wind turbines comes from people who don't care about birds in any other context. It's solely a way to continue fossil fuel production, using the language of environmentalism. A serious discussion of the safety of birds would sound very different, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to talk about anything other than reducing fossil fuel production.

Ridiculous argument. Why on earth would people care about the birds in the context of natural processes compared to unnatural processes?

This is a monumentally stupid apples and oranges “gotcha”.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#154

Post by jdybide »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #88

The title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive.

Your framing implies that the answer must be a single source, which is nonsense. The best answer is almost certainly a portfolio of multiple sources that allows for dramatically more innovation.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#155

Post by locallost »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #107
locallost wrote: post #59

I am not a conspiracy theorist, it's just a simple case of "follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar per year business and their interest is to keep it this way. So poisoning the well is a good strategy for them. If you thought about it, it was clear the bird argument was always just a talking point nimby types were fed with, so they have something alarming to repeat and to get outraged, witho…

Yeah but the alternative / green energy industry is also worth hundreds of billions; [0] says solar will be a $373B industry by 2029, [1] says wind will be $278B by 2030, and [2] says nuclear will be a tiny $38B by 2029. My point is that the alternative energy sector's financial interests are at least as big as the fossil fuel industry's, but they put a lot of effort into coming across as The Good Guys That Will Save…

Everything they say deserves scrutiny too. So if they say for instance "we are the cheapest form of energy" of course people should question it. But we are not talking about them here, it's simply a fact the fossil fuel industry is deploying the same tactic of sowing doubt for decades now. From birds to "we don't know definitely if climate change exists" to again "there is climate change but who says people can't adapt" and so on. Their talking points have been debunked and you won't change that by saying others are bad.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#156

Post by yellow_lead »

awiejrilawej wrote: post #90
janmalec wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I introduce you to our lord and saviour nuclear energy.

I'm genuinely curious, why are there so many extraordinarily pro-nuclear people on this forum? And how many of them have greater than zero experience with nuclear anything? I worked in the nuclear power industry for a decade and people in the industry are not as maniacally pro-nuclear as the people in this forum.

I think it's because the enormous costs of plant construction are not well understood. Or maybe, we think these costs can be reduced greatly.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#157

Post by slingnow »

kstrauser wrote: post #104
m0llusk wrote: post #78

This is broken logic. Working primarily with averages leads directly to repeating the mistakes of the statistician who drown in a lake that was an average of three feet deep. Currently one of the notably large wind farms being operated is in the Altamont Pass in California which also happens to be the preferred spawning site for golden eagles. Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficia…

> Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California? Yes. Boiling our atmosphere will harm bald eagles in addition to everything else. Bald eagles are cool birds, unless you live somewhere that they’re as common as seagulls and 20x as annoying. If forced to choose, I’d rather have a healthy wo…

If you honestly believe installing any number of wind turbines is going to stop our "atmosphere from boiling" I've got a couple of bridges to sell you.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#158

Post by gcheong »

pjc50 wrote: post #127
awiejrilawej wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, why are there so many extraordinarily pro-nuclear people on this forum? And how many of them have greater than zero experience with nuclear anything? I worked in the nuclear power industry for a decade and people in the industry are not as maniacally pro-nuclear as the people in this forum.

It's weird, isn't it? There's a lot of nuclear cheerleaders, and it makes me suspicious when they're also anti-renewables rather than "yes, and". Essentially everyone has forgotten the arguments of the nineties: nuclear weapons proliferation, waste dumping, and covering the entirety of western Europe in a thin layer of airborne radioactive particles. As well as the more practical cost overruns. Personally I think it…

"nuclear weapons proliferation,..." Seems like we got that anyway thanks to the military industrial complex without getting much in the way of nuclear energy generation.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#159

Post by jdybide »

emceestork wrote: post #106
l5870uoo9y wrote: post #88

The title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive.

Not sure I understand the objection. The research this article is about compared Wind vs Oil/Coal effects on birds. The title seems in line with the findings of the research. > I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive. Seems to me like examining externalities of different energy sources is a part of the nuance of this question. Feels like you're b…

[flagged]

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#160

Post by hotsauceror »

djleni wrote: post #149
hotsauceror wrote: post #143

The entire "it kills birds" feels like such a canard, to me. I don't understand to whom this kind of appeal is directed. It seems to me that the primary interests at stake are 1) the myriad financial interests in the extraction, distribution, and consumption of petroleum-based energy products, and 2) the negative impact on the environment of these same activities. So let's just have that discussion, on those terms? I…

Based on the people I’ve heard make points like this, I don’t think it does convince anyone. I think this type of argument fills a totally different role: “I don’t believe or care about climate change and would like to keep my life as is, but this creates cognitive dissonance when someone shows it’s bad. I can use this argument to say your idea is as bad too! Dissonance lessened.” At least when I’ve heard it it’s tha…

Yes, right. It seems like some sort of desperate, last-minute thing to fling in someone's face. "Oh yeah? If you care about nature so much how come you're in favor of these giant things that slaughter birds? I guess we can safely disregard all your arguments."
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