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

But hooray hurrah for the Report. Everyone should bookmark the toot, open and bookmark the article, remember central facts, so when someone with tiny hands, or is leaking shoe polish from their scalp says wind generation kills birds, you can correct them.

Show threadtyxMar 3, 2023

@kevinrns @bascule Sorry for objecting, but be careful with generalizations. Report says that medium-to-large size birds do not collide under daylight conditions*, nothing about small migrating birds. Anyway I'd really happy to see this report as a peer-reviewed paper.

*they mention IR camera, but I've found little discussion of it's use after skimming the paper.

Show threadAndy McKayMar 4, 2023

@tyx @kevinrns @bascule And it can only be applied to seabirds that exist in the study area.

We know from North American land-based studies that there are completely different risk profiles for birds in other countries.

Show threadAndy McKayMar 4, 2023

@tyx @kevinrns @bascule "The movements of herring gulls, gannets, kittiwakes, and great black-backed gulls were studied in detail from April to October, when bird activity is at its height. (This study only looked at four bird species...)

i.e. No albatross, petrel, prion or cormorant species.

There are 360 species of seabirds with around 30% of those threatened with extinction.

A study looking at 1% of the available species needs to be treated with caution.

Show threadKevin RussellMar 4, 2023

@KorimakoEcology @tyx @bascule

No, the point is that reducing EVERY OTHER energy system and increasing wind will save hundreds of millions of birds, importantly if we stop drop and roll oil production exploration delivery systems, which kill, observationally, thousands of times more birds.

So talking about wind, not as a demonstrable way to save birds, is not productive, to the goal of saving birds.

Bird lovers, by the billion of bird lives, love wind, thats all I'm saying. Build 1000s.

Show threadAndy McKayMar 4, 2023

@kevinrns @tyx @bascule This fails to understand biodiversity hotspots. As an example Aotearoa New Zealand has ~80 species of seabirds, a third of which are endemic. 90% of these seabirds are threatened with extinction.

Chucking up enormous wind turbines in their flight paths and foraging grounds without having an understanding of impacts is beyond reckless.

It's not even neccessarily increased mortality either, but avoiding large areas they would otherwise utilise.

Show threadAriaflameMar 4, 2023
@KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @tyx @bascule Which may be why there's usually several years of data gathering before a wind farm is built
Show threadtyx
@ariaflame @KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @bascule Yep! And that's why the report we talk about is in no way the final point of discussion.
Mar 4, 2023 at 5:37amWeb
Show threadAriaflameMar 4, 2023
@tyx @KorimakoEcology @kevinrns @bascule I am certain that the people building wind farms want to reduce any accidental deaths. And they have been finding ways to reduce any collisions (sound, markings, location - though birds as it has been noted learn to go around reasonably easily). The worst bit is near the tip where the vortices caused can cause issues for some birds and bats. But pollution is *also* bad for them. The earliest ones with lattice masts were bad and got changed.
Show threadKevin RussellMar 4, 2023

@ariaflame @tyx @KorimakoEcology @bascule

ALL energy systems kill more birds than does wind.

ALL OTHER ENERGY SYSTEMS, kill thousands of times MORE birds than wind, all of them, nuclear, coal, oil all of them. Damns.

Just willy nilly replacing any coal plant, any gas plant, any nuke facility with wind generation will cut 99 to 99.9999% of bird deaths.

Save birds by the millions, build wind generation.
Finally some sense.

Show threadEric ForsteMar 5, 2023
@kevinrns You can’t substantiate the claim that you just made about nuclear.
Show threadKevin RussellMar 5, 2023

@EricForste

No, you are correct, my experience is without evidence. It can be ignored, even considered untrue. Please do. Its not relevant.