By studying certain articles I came to know that wind turbines are killing flock of birds. Is it so much harmful to our ecosystem that the benefits of using it as a cleaner source of energy can be ruled out?
There are no windmills in my country, and our ecosystem suffers from water pollution, not air pollution because of the dumping of industrial waste of all kinds, so water pollution effects both birds and humans.
Sovacool, Contextualizing avian mortality: A preliminary appraisal of bird and bat fatalities from wind, fossil-fuel, and nuclear electricity, 2009, Energy Policy.
The above study suggests that deaths of birds per GWh of electrical output is higher at fossil fuel power plants compared to wind power facilities. Bird death estimates were 0.3/GWh at wind farms, and 5.2/GWh at fossil fuel power plants. If that estimate is correct, you save 5 birds for each GWh transferred from fossil fuel power plants to wind.
In an updated article ( Sovacool, Benjamin K. "The avian benefits of wind energy" Renewable Energy 49 (2013): 19-24),
the same author estimated that in 2009, wind farms would have killed approximately 20,000 birds, while fossil fueled power plants would have killed 14 million birds.
Dear Shantanu,
In France, when we turn on the light in 2020, much of the electricity will come from renewable energies and, in particular, wind turbines. This is the meaning of the French official guidelines that provide 32% renewable electricity by 2030. In this new 'mix' electric wind is on the rise and fears must be dispelled: no, wind turbines do not
kill birds in large quantities. But do they kill them more than can be acceptable? This is the question that new studies are trying to answer, including the first comprehensive analysis and consolidated by the league of protection of birds throughout the country, published Tuesday, June 20, 2017.
Fortunately, bird clusters at the foot of each windmill mast, you will not see. Verdict of the League of protection of birds: "The number of cases of collisions found is extremely variable from one park to another and appears relatively low compared to the exploration effort implemented: 37,839 documented prospecting allowed to find 1.102 corpses of birds. The estimation of the actual mortality (taking into account the length of persistence of the cadavers and the detection rate) varies according to the parks from 0.3 to 18.3 birds killed per wind turbine and per year, results comparable to those obtained in the United States (5.2, Loss et al., 2013) or Canada (8.2 according to Zimmerling et al., 2013). This is much less than the hecatomb caused by power lines or buildings for example: a study has estimated bird mortality in the Netherlands at 163 to 217 deaths per kilometer of high voltage power line! According to the same authors, the estimated mortality would be 130 and 174 million birds per year by power lines in the United States. Astonishing that bird lovers are concerned about the windmills that hide the forest from the electricity pylons, do not you think?
Regards
Bachir ACHOUR
I think that generating power through the wind is an excellent and inexpensive process that does not cause any harm to the environment.
As for the birds that are killed by the turbines, consider ways to prevent or at least reduce the setting that is being killed to the least possible.
There are no windmills in my country, and our ecosystem suffers from water pollution, not air pollution because of the dumping of industrial waste of all kinds, so water pollution effects both birds and humans.
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