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<DIV><STRONG><U><FONT color=#80803f>WIND POWER:</FONT></U><FONT face=Arial
size=3> Bird and bat collisions continue to perplex researchers
</FONT></STRONG><FONT face=Arial color=#5f5f5f size=3><I>(Thursday, August
13, 2009)</I></FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>Scott Streater, special to
E&E</B></FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>A group of leading scientists and
wind power experts has joined forces to find out why so many birds and bats are
struck down each year by wind turbines and what can be done about it.</FONT>
<BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>Their task has urgency. In the next five years,
thousands of wind turbines are projected to be built across the country, thanks
to federal tax credits, grants and loans meant to expand renewable energy
sources and the environmentally friendly power they produce.</FONT> <BR><FONT
face=Arial size=1>But wind power has a decidedly unfriendly environmental side
to it, with already existing wind farms estimated by some researchers to kill
tens of thousands of birds and bats each year.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=1>Thirty researchers recently gathered at a meeting co-hosted by Cornell
University to identify key areas where more research is needed. Many of the
research questions are basic -- such as better understanding the migration
patterns of birds and bats -- underscoring how little is known about why birds
and bats are drawn to spinning wind turbines.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=1>"We don't know enough right now to know how big of a concern it is,
frankly," said Michael Burger, conservation and science director for Audubon New
York and an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "This group thinks it's
very important to figure that out, and then apply what we learn as wind power
develops in this country to make it as green as possible."</FONT> <BR><FONT
face=Arial size=1>The issue highlights perhaps the biggest obstacle to the
commerical-scale expansion of wind power: finding suitable places to site wind
turbines that can tower 240 feet high.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>Some
renewable energy projects, particularly proposals for solar power on federal
land in Southern California, have met stiff resistance from environmentalists
concerned about the effects to wildlife habitat. Wildlife issues have already
caused problems for wind farms in south-central Wyoming, where concerns about
impacts to sage grouse habitat have prompted at least one company to put the
brakes on a 300-megawatt wind farm (</FONT><A
title=http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/08/06/1/
href="http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/08/06/1/"><FONT face=Arial
color=#a00000 size=1><I><U>Land Letter</U></I></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=1>, Aug. 6).</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>Studies show that wind
energy has the potential to supply as much as 20 percent of the country's energy
needs. But in order to do that, millions of wind turbines would need to be
built, with the greatest concentrations stretching from Texas to Oregon. The
Bureau of Land Management already has a sizeable backlog of wind-power project
applications in Western states and as many as 200 locations have been identified
by developers for site testing of wind projects.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=1>"That portends a huge, massive expansion of wind development," said
Douglas Johnson, a research statistician and senior scientist at the U.S.
Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center and a member of
the coalition.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>"They're going to be all over
the place," Johnson added. "If you're putting up a dozen of them it probably
doesn't matter so much where you site them. But if you're putting up thousands
of them, then a little bit of difference multiplied by thousands can add up to a
substantial difference."</FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>Dearth of information</B></FONT> <BR><FONT
face=Arial size=1>No one is sure exactly how many birds and bats are killed each
year when struck by wind turbines. But experts believe the number is very
high.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>Albert Manville, a wildlife ecologist
with the Fish and Wildlife Service's division of migratory bird management, has
estimated that as many as 440,000 birds are killed by existing wind turbines
each year (</FONT><A title=http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/02/05/1/
href="http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/02/05/1/"><FONT face=Arial
color=#a00000 size=1><I><U>Land Letter</U></I></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=1>, Feb. 5). A September 2007 report, commissioned by the Wildlife Society
and written by Manville and other leading experts, concluded that wind energy's
negative impacts are often overlooked in the rush to expand renewable
energy.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>"There is a dearth of information on
which to base decisions regarding siting of wind energy facilities, their
impacts on wildlife, and possible mitigation strategies," the report
stated.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>One problem is that there are no
federal regulations governing the siting of wind farms with respect to birds and
bats. Rather, such decisions are based on voluntary industry guidelines devised
by FWS in 2002, and developers are not always required to complete pre-project
analyses of bird and bat impacts.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>But some
things are well known, including the fact that billions of birds migrate across
the United States each year using "the same wind currents that are most
beneficial for producing wind energy," Andrew Farnsworth, a postdoctoral
research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a member of the
coalition, said in a statement.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>That is
important, Farnsworth said, because those wind currents can be very specific
within a region. "We know that in some locations a small percentage of wind
turbines may cause the majority of bird and bat deaths," Farnsworth said. "As
wind power develops further, we need to know more about how placement, design
and operation impact birds and bats as well as how habitat and weather
conditions affect potential hazards."</FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>Possible solutions</B></FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=1>Ongoing research by FWS and the American Wind Energy Association,
however, holds promise for reducing the estimated tens of thousands of bat
mortalities caused by wind turbines each year.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=1>The research shows that slowing turbine blades at night, when the wind
speed are lowest but bats are most active, can cut mortalities by as much as 73
percent (</FONT><A title=http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/05/28/7/
href="http://www.eenews.net/Landletter/2009/05/28/7/"><FONT face=Arial
color=#a00000 size=1><I><U>Land Letter</U></I></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=1>, May 28). "That's something that looks very promising," said Johnson,
the USGS senior scientist.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>Still, experts say
more research is needed. One approach suggested by the coalition is to use radar
to track bird migration patterns. More bird-pattern studies are also necessary,
they say, to compare the effects of wind farms before and after they are
built.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=1>"Conducting this research will help
the wind industry make informed, science-based decisions about where future wind
energy projects can be built and how they can be operated to minimize the impact
on migrating wildlife, while still providing much-needed alternative energy,"
said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.</FONT>
<BR><FONT face=Arial size=1><I>Scott Streater is a freelance journalist based in
Colorado Springs, Colo.</I></FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial color=#a00000
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive
Director<BR><B>Pollinator Partnership </B><BR>423 Washington Street, 5th
floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial
color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#0000ff size=4 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="14"><B><A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></B></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"></B><BR><A
href="http://www.nappc.org/">www.nappc.org</A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 21-27, 2010. <BR>Beecome
involved at <A
href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></I></FONT></B></DIV></FONT><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="7dc51035f9f8925aa84b5021211e95fd"><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>