Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀Mar 3, 2023

A new study about seabirds and offshore wind turbines may surprise you.

A two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland combined radar data with cameras to identify the species of seabird and create a three-dimensional image of birds’ flight patterns and how they avoid offshore wind turbines’ rotor blades.

The study’s findings: Not a single collision between a bird and a rotor blade was recorded.

https://electrek.co/2023/03/02/seabirds-and-offshore-wind-turbines-vattenfall/

A new study about seabirds and offshore wind turbines may surprise you

Swedish power giant Vattenfall did a two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland – here’s what it found.

Electrek
Show threadKevin RussellMar 3, 2023

@bascule

I am not surprised. Some birds are the fastest things alive, Hawks can do flight stunts at fifty miles an hour, birds can catch fish dropped by other birds.

The blades of the windmills go about the speed of buses, which despite numbering in the tens of thousands, do not report bird strikes

Show threadTazorMar 3, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule

The tip of a 115 meter blade is moving a bit faster than a bus, over 300 km per hour. But your point stands.

Show threadMike Meadway 🇺🇸 🇩🇰 🇬🇧Mar 3, 2023
@Tazor @kevinrns @bascule 300 kph? Wow...had no idea they were that fast!
Show threadTazorMar 3, 2023

@mmeadway @kevinrns @bascule

When you rotate something as long as a football field, it moves fast, hehe.

Show threadMike Meadway 🇺🇸 🇩🇰 🇬🇧Mar 3, 2023

@Tazor @kevinrns @bascule The speed is deceptive as you watch the blades rotate. It never occurred to me to do the math, but yes...that blade tip is really moving along.

I keep forgetting how big those blades are.

Show threadInky Tartars

@kevinrns @bascule @mmeadway @Tazor

Agree. The apparent “slowness” of large turbines is an optical illusion. At the tips, those things are really moving.

Mar 3, 2023 at 10:32pmWeb