Discussion > How can we protect birds (and bats?) from wind turbines?
high core loading det cord?
Green Sand
I see a two-stage approach to solve this problem, and a couple of others. First, remove the turbine blades, and pay the windfarm owners for the electricity they might have generated. They get their money, the grid is not put at risk of being shut-down due to instability, and the administration becomes simple. The second stage is to make similar arrangements for all new windfarms, in which the turbines need not be installed at all. The savings from not having to build and install them could be paid as a lump sum to the communities in areas that would have endured the most blight if they had been built, and the ongoing payments to those who would have owned and operated them would be as per the earlier arrangement. The owners and operators would be happy, the local communities would be happy, the grid operators would be delighted, and the birds and the bats would not be troubled.
John Shade
John Shade
I am speechless and on the floor laughing, brilliant!
Dung
The best answer, of course, is not to build them. Failing that, is there a simple modification that would reduce the collision rate? Consider the reason birds run into them. Could it be because they look almost transparent? The birds can look right through them, because the blades take up only a few percent of the total area they define. Suppose a mesh were put up on both sides of the blade area. It would be more visible to the birds (and perhaps more audible to the bats) who could then take evasive action. It should not reduce the wind velocity by more than a few percent, if at all. If the mesh were well designed (fairly taut but soft and giving) perhaps even birds running into it would be able to recover. No doubt the readers of this blog could come up with better ideas.