Windmills
kill far more wildlife than has been previously reported:
“There is strong evidence that many insect populations are under serious threat and are declining in many places across the globe,” notes Extinction Rebellion. “A 27-year long population monitoring study in Germany revealed a dramatic 76% decline in flying insect biomass.”
What Extinction Rebellion does not mention is that scientists in Germany say wind turbines appear to be contributing significantly to what it calls the “insect die-off.”
Germany’s leading technology assessment research institute published a study last October concluding that the rapid expansion of wind farms threatens insect populations.
Dr. Franz Trieb of the Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics concludes that a "rough but conservative estimate of the impact of wind farms on flying insects in Germany" is a “loss of about 1.2 trillion insects of different species per year” which “could be relevant for population stability.”
It seems that this hammer of Green Doom falls most strongly on migrating insect populations (i.e. kills breeding populations). OK, but it's just insects, right?
“Wind energy facilities kill a significant number of bats far exceeding any documented natural or human-caused sources of mortality in the affected species,” writes Cryan.
Cryan is emphatic on this point. “There are no other well-documented threats to populations of migratory tree bats that cause mortality of similar magnitude to that observed at wind turbines.”
Another leading bat expert, Patricia Brown, agrees. More than a decade ago she warned California energy regulators that wind turbines could be the “nail in the coffin” for some migratory bat species.
But bats are icky, right. No biggie.
Wind turbines have also emerged as one of the greatest human threats to many species of large, threatened and high-conservation value birds, after habitat loss from agriculture.
Wind energy threatens golden eagles, bald eagles, burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, Swainson’s hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites, peregrine falcons, and prairie falcons, among many others.
The expansion of wind turbines could result in the extinction of the golden eagle in the western United States, where its population is at an unsustainably low level.
Any additional mortalities to the golden eagle threatens the species with extinction, scientists with US Fish and Wildlife warned 10 years ago, before the last decade’s massive expansion of wind farms.
Oh, damnitall. How come we haven't been hearing this?
Aren’t bats protected from wind turbines by government agencies enforcing the Endangered Species Act and other conservation laws? They're not.
“None of the migratory bats known to be most affected by wind turbines are protected by conservation laws,” writes Cryan, “nor is there a legal mandate driving research into the problem or implementation of potential solutions.”
No research funding? Hmmmm.
Where government agencies routinely require permits for development near wetlands, in order to protect bird species, they rarely require the same for wind farms, even though the wildlife impacts can be far greater.
Nor do governments require that wind developers disclose when they kill birds and bats, or count the dead. Wind developers have even sued to prevent the public from accessing data about bird kills.
Incredibly, wind developers are allowed to self-report violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The data are self-reported by interested parties, not by scientists? Hmmmm.
Environmental journalists deserve a significant amount of blame for suggesting the problem is either small or has been solved. “Wind farm works to reduce eagle deaths from old turbines,” reads the headline of a PBS Newshour story that typifies journalistic bias.
But greater responsibility for the threatened extinction of birds and bats lies with environmentalists who promote wind energy as good for the environment.
Against the best-available science, Sierra Club claims that “the toll from turbines is far from a major cause of bird mortality.”
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently endorsed a massive expansion of wind turbines on the Great Lakes against the opposition from local wildlife experts, birders, and conservationists, who note that the lakes are one of the world’s most important sanctuaries to many migratory bird species.
Environmentalists sweeping environmental impacts under the rug? Hmmmm.
What gives with all this? These people are acting in precisely the opposite manner than you would expect. Why?
Remember this commercial? It used to be on the Sunday talking heads shows in the 1990s. That's T. Boone Pickens, modern industrial Robber Barron. Why is he pushing wind power, which is a lot more expensive than goal or gas. What's his deal? Why was he pushing wind power so much?
Subsidies:
It gets lots more complicated when you consider that the wind farms are being subsidized by the government with the Production Tax Credit (PTC). A tax credit should not be confused with a tax deduction. A deduction reduces the amount of income you pay taxes on. is paying taxes on. A credit is money back. And the PTC is a “Refundable Tax Credit” which means the company does not just get to pay fewer taxes but actually gets paid by the government even if it does not owe any taxes.
The PTC subsidy has been in effect now for 27 years. Congress has adjusted the PTC many times through the years but today the subsidy is about $.02/kWhr. So, the power company gets money back in the form of a subsidy for roughly 67% of what they produce – i.e., the company gets money back to the tune of $.02/kWhr after it sells the electricity for $.03/kWhr. If the company sells $3 million of electricity they get the $3 million plus a PTC subsidy of $2 million. That is a huge subsidy! In fact, I think it is the biggest subsidy ever given for anything.
T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett both have huge investments in these things and both have openly said that wind farms would not be economic without the PTC.
(There's a
lot of information at that link and you should definitely RTWT. It's actually much worse than this)
So the Robber Barons are driven by fithy lucre, in the form of sweet, sweet "green" subsidies which inflate the value of the investment by 2/3. What are the chances that Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club get a lot of donations from corporate foundations?
Hmmmm. At this point I'm thinking about how Lenin called liberal supporters "Useful Idiots" and thinking about the rank and file environmentalists. Most of these folks seem like people, and not the sort to be used as tools by the likes of T. Boone Pickens.
Hmmmm. It's not easy being green.
Note: the picture of the dead eagle is from
savetheeaglesinternational.org. They have a lot more about this.