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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

#341

Post by MattGrommes »

EasyMark wrote: post #339
Grimburger wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domesticated cats are by far the biggest threats to birds worldwide. You won't see anti-wind advocates talking about curfews or outright banning them though.

Ban my cat and you'll likely lose someone who does regularly vote for environmentally friendly politicians and you may get a new voting pattern out of me, and a lot of other people I suspect.

Nobody wants to ban cats. A lot of people would like to keep them indoors though, which would be great for birds and also for the cats. I live on the southern edge of Portland, OR and coyotes make meals of a lot of people's precious fur-babies.

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

#342

Post by palisade »

jacquesm wrote: post #312

Note that there has been a concerted effort to discredit windmills by the oil-and-gas industry to portray them as meat grinders for birds with the same photographs and handy boilerplate text distributed to various "special interest groups" (read: astroturfers) all over the globe to try to stave off the inevitable. And all of this is perfectly legal. They did the same with whales.

The problem is that they're not wrong, turbines and even solar towers wipe out vast bird and bat populations. Obama had to pass a last minute law approving the numerous deaths of bald eagle populations unfortunately. Water desalination projects leave behind dead zones of salt in the water that wipe out fish populations. Another example is recycling centers grinding up the plastic and releasing a scary amount of microplastics into the environment. I think we need a little bit of self introspection when it comes to environmentalism. When our green tech isn't so green we need to "do better" and make it healthier for the environment. I don't think we should ever stop trying to figure out how to make it less harmful. Hiding our collective heads in the sand and saying, "Look it is green so it can't be causing the same problems," is going to put us into an echo chamber where we can do no wrong. And, in the end justify doing damage we'll regret later. We all live on this planet together we should be good shepherds of it.

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

#343

Post by jiggawatts »

MrEd wrote: post #297
foxyv wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who, me?

Everyone complaining about oil & gas, and how wind turbines are so much better for wildlife. But SpaceX gets a free pass for the carnage done and law-free territory they established down there in TX, because muuuh supposedly good tech. Most silly comment in this whole 'discussion' was that remark about birds supposedly getting shredded in cooling towers, or flying into them. Oh the insanity!

I'm guessing you are the same disgruntled guy Elon fired from Twitter that regularly spams anti-SpaceX nonsense here.

One launch, once, sent some concrete debris onto a beach. Literally some rocks.

You're still going on about it, as if it was some sort of catastrophe that wiped out all of the native wildlife in Texas.

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

#344

Post by ajmurmann »

VintageCool wrote: post #268
loceng wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you unconsciously keeping nuclear energy out of the equation, or why is nuclear not an option in your mind - where then bird populations will be better off, and where solar also isn't destroying the surface environment where life and forests could otherwise thrive [if we're talking about having energy generated locally, then most of the world doesn't have convenient desserts nearby, which arguably we could also t…

Based on the past 30 years, I think the safe assumption is that there will not be much nuclear built in the US+Europe in the next 15 years.

Meanwhile in France: https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240109-france-drops-ren...

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

#345

Post by jacquesm »

palisade wrote: post #342
jacquesm wrote: post #312

Note that there has been a concerted effort to discredit windmills by the oil-and-gas industry to portray them as meat grinders for birds with the same photographs and handy boilerplate text distributed to various "special interest groups" (read: astroturfers) all over the globe to try to stave off the inevitable. And all of this is perfectly legal. They did the same with whales.

The problem is that they're not wrong, turbines and even solar towers wipe out vast bird and bat populations. Obama had to pass a last minute law approving the numerous deaths of bald eagle populations unfortunately. Water desalination projects leave behind dead zones of salt in the water that wipe out fish populations. Another example is recycling centers grinding up the plastic and releasing a scary amount of micro…

> The problem is that they're not wrong, turbines and even solar towers wipe out vast bird and bat populations. > Obama had to pass a last minute law approving the numerous deaths of bald eagle populations unfortunately.

316K Eagles vs 150 confirmed deaths due to windmills over a decade.

So yes, they're wrong. And amplifying this sort of thing is exactly what those campaigns hope for, so you're doing their work for them. You're in good company, Donald Trump did the exact same thing (and made up a number to go with it rather than to claim 'vast' numbers).

Does it mean that any numbers of Bald Eagles killed by windmills is acceptable? No, of course it doesn't. But either we have a different idea when we hear the word 'vast' or 'vast' is exaggerated.

edit: here is an article to back this up:

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagle...

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

#346

Post by jes5199 »

badpun wrote: post #293
jes5199 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you're coming from but in 2024, solar is the cheapest source of power on earth, and wind is second-cheapest. Economics and survival are aligned for once, we just gotta actually build the new system and deprecate the old

Solar and wind are pretty expensive a lot of the time, e.g. on windless nights.

you can either fall back to natural gas peaker plants or grid-battery. Batteries keep getting cheaper, too

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

#347

Post by sunshinesnacks »

beaeglebeached wrote: post #294
sunshinesnacks wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I originally thought you were arguing that wind turbines should not be able to be installed on someone’s property if they can’t also go on the neighbors property, but now I’m not sure. Was your first comment sarcasm? Maybe I’m just misreading.

It was sarcasm.

Ah, well never mind then :)

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

#348

Post by standeven »

jairuhme wrote: post #253
standeven wrote: post #250

I worked in oil/gas for a long time. In addition to "windmills are killing all the birds", here are a few of the top green energy lies I've heard: 1. Solar panels are toxic, require more energy to produce than they generate, and can't be recycled. 2. EV's are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles. 3. Lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling. 4. Solar/wind prices are skyrocketing and everyone is abandoning…

Do you have sources as to why they are lies? I'm not doubting you, but simply saying they're lies is just as disingenuous as the people making the statements in the first place

I can provide many sources for each point, let me know if there's a specific one that you find questionable.

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

#349

Post by ajmurmann »

standeven wrote: post #250

I worked in oil/gas for a long time. In addition to "windmills are killing all the birds", here are a few of the top green energy lies I've heard: 1. Solar panels are toxic, require more energy to produce than they generate, and can't be recycled. 2. EV's are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles. 3. Lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling. 4. Solar/wind prices are skyrocketing and everyone is abandoning…

I thought 1 was potentially legit depending on how they are manufactured and where they'll need deployed. I understand that 80% of solar cells are produced in China which still gets most of its energy from coal so there is a huge carbon footprint. If you now deploy those in a place that doesn't get much sun, like Germany, the equation isn't great. I'm no expert on this though and am mostly parroting Peter Zeihan on this.

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

#350

Post by hatthew »

Loughla wrote: post #319
Grimburger wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domesticated cats are by far the biggest threats to birds worldwide. You won't see anti-wind advocates talking about curfews or outright banning them though.

That's because cats are not a power source? I'm genuinely confused how they would even be part of this conversation.

> cats are not a power source

until you involve buttered toast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc

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