Mirlyn
Well-Known Member
Last I read (which admittingly was quite awhile ago...98ish) wind power required an average wind speed of 20+mph. Very few places have this annual average. One such place is a mountainous pass in Cali. This particular farm employed (at the time) three full time people. Their job? To shovel and dispose of the dead birds. Another two people were employed full-time to shut down, measure, dismantle, and recalibrate the blades damaged by the birds. On average, the generator would become ineffective after being hit by two birds which would knock the blades out of alignment and thus render the generator useless (there is an optimal tilt with low variability for the blades to generate enough electricity to actually use (ie, household current)). In peak times of the year for insect populations, up to 20% of the field's generators would not work due to the large amount of insect carcases which had built up enough between the cowl and turbine to prevent the blades from spinning at all.
At the time, bird collisions were the single most detrimental factor to wind energy.....far exceeding the anticipated costs associated with constructing a wind farm. It used to cost more to maintain wind farms by keeping blades aligned after collisions than the amount you gained by generating the electricity. I'll have to pull my old research and read through it again. Thats just what I remember.
Yummy!
At the time, bird collisions were the single most detrimental factor to wind energy.....far exceeding the anticipated costs associated with constructing a wind farm. It used to cost more to maintain wind farms by keeping blades aligned after collisions than the amount you gained by generating the electricity. I'll have to pull my old research and read through it again. Thats just what I remember.
Yummy!
They'll scream dirty your windows and save the birds ... or even save the insects! This is why I hate extremist enviromentalist they'd rather we shut down hospitals, police, our home, and our modern society for the sake of a small fraction of the total population of birds getting killed! After the window cleaner manufactures they'll go after mother nature who kills the most living things of them all!
