Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
In fact, Wyoming wind power is a double death trap for golden eagles. First, as Audubon says, when the local eagles are killed, this creates a sparsely populated area which other eagles will then come into. Eagles, like most birds, try to spread out, probably to maintain the local food supply for their hatchlings. These new eagles are then also killed, and the cycle is repeated in a true death spiral.
In my last Wyoming wind power article, I noted a National Audubon Society warning that the growing masses of wind farms could be “population sinks” for golden eagles. This means that many eagles will be attracted to them, to then be killed by them. See my article here.
Digging into the scientific literature I found that this is a well-recognized wildlife management issue. It usually goes by the name “ecological trap.” Since being trapped means being killed, I think ecological death trap is more appropriate.
In fact, Wyoming wind power is a double death trap for golden eagles. First, as Audubon says, when the local eagles are killed, this creates a sparsely populated area which other eagles will then come into. Eagles, like most birds, try to spread out, probably to maintain the local food supply for their hatchlings. These new eagles are then also killed, and the cycle is repeated in a true death spiral.
In addition, wind farms kill a lot of other birds, as well as a huge number of bats. Golden eagles are scavengers, so they are attracted by this abundant food supply. In fact, being struck by cars while eating roadkill is a major cause of golden eagle death.
Ecological death traps are not new science, so the Federal and State Wyoming wildlife managers must know about them. To give you the flavor of the science, below are two quotes from a 2002 literature review article entitled “Ecological and evolutionary traps” available here.
“Deterministic models have shown that, as one might expect, when there are major differences in quality between habitats and population sizes are small, behavioral preferences for the habitats that yield no net reproduction (habitat ‘sinks’) can lead to population extinction. More surprisingly, this result appears to hold true even when patches of poor habitat represent a relatively small proportion of the entire landscape. Thus, alteration of only a fraction of the habitat in such a way that the decision-making rules of an organism no longer yield adaptive outcomes can result in the demise of the whole population if the preferences of individuals are strong enough.”
“Organisms often rely on environmental cues to make behavioral and life-history decisions. However, in environments that have been altered suddenly by humans, formerly reliable cues might no longer be associated with adaptive outcomes. In such cases, organisms can become ‘trapped’ by their evolutionary responses to the cues and experience reduced survival or reproduction. Ecological traps occur when organisms make poor habitat choices based on cues that correlated formerly with habitat quality. Ecological traps are part of a broader phenomenon, evolutionary traps, involving a dissociation between cues that organisms use to make any behavioral or life-history decision and outcomes normally associated with that decision. A trap can lead to extinction if a population falls below a critical size threshold before adaptation to the novel environment occurs. Conservation and management protocols must be designed in light of, rather than in spite of, the behavioral mechanisms and evolutionary history of populations and species to avoid ‘trapping’ them.”
Spacing out their nesting and scavenging for food are two deeply rooted survival instincts in golden eagles. Wind farms turn these survival skills into a death trap. Federal and state Wyoming wildlife and energy managers need to recognize this potentially catastrophic fact.
Wind power does more than kill the eagles that happen by; it repeatedly draws them in, then kills them.
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that wind turbines kill between 700,000 and one million birds annually in the United States alone. Yet the industry is often granted quotas, i.e. literal licenses to kill. The matter is more concerning when these turbines are given a free hand in slaughtering species that are under concern or endangered, as acknowledged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest, most diverse environmental network.
Last year, the New York Times ran “50 States, 50 Fixes,” a sprawling series of articles purporting to offer solutions to environmental, especially climate, challenges across America. Writing for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, I’m challenging that series, one by one, demonstrating that many of the supposed environmental fixes cause their own environmental problems.
The article focusing on Illinois lamented the tragic deaths of birds colliding with McCormick Place and other high-rise buildings in Chicago.
The emotive article painted a grim picture of avian mortality in the concrete jungle. The concern for these creatures seems noble. Who among us does not grieve the loss of God’s creation? Yet this empathy exposes a rot at the heart of the modern environmental movement.
While the Times wrings its hands over glass facades in Chicago, it has spent two decades cheering for an industry that slices eagles and other birds, and bats, out of the sky with industrial efficiency. The newspaper of record is not merely inconsistent; it is complicit in a global slaughter. It demonizes skyscrapers while canonizing wind turbines—machines that have turned our skies into killing fields for the very species the author claims to cherish.
The Wind Industry’s License to Kill
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that wind turbines kill between 700,000 and one million birds annually in the United States alone. Yet the industry is often granted quotas, i.e. literal licenses to kill. The matter is more concerning when these turbines are given a free hand in slaughtering species that are under concern or endangered, as acknowledged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest, most diverse environmental network.
How does this happen? The enormous size of industrial wind turbines can be deceptive. At optimal speeds to generate electricity, about 10 to 20 revolutions per minute, their blades look as if they’re turning slowly. But their tips are moving at 180 to 200 miles per hour—too fast for birds to avoid.
Consider the iconic American golden eagle, a species of high conservation concern. From 2013 to 2024, golden eagle mortalities from wind turbines more than doubled, rising from 110 to 270 annually.
In 2022, ESI Energy, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges after its turbines killed at least 150 eagles. Most of these majestic birds were hacked apart by turbine blades. The company agreed to spend up to $27 million on measures to prevent further deaths, but only after being forced by the courts.
They are not alone. Duke Energy pleaded guilty to killing 14 golden eagles and was forced to pay fines. PacifiCorp was fined $2.5 million for 38 golden eagle deaths. These are not isolated accidents. They are the cost of doing business in the green economy.
Researchers warn that if the current growth rate of the wind industry continues, it will have devastating implications for raptor populations. The hazardous volume for these birds in lower- and higher-risk zones increased by 198 percent and 119 percent, respectively, over the same period.
A systematic review of 84 peer-reviewed onshore wind studies, covering 160 specific cases, reveals a catastrophic disruption of wildlife. Published in Biological Conservation, the study reports displacement in most cases: 63 percent of bird populations, 72 percent of bats, and 67 percent of mammals were driven from their habitats. Some species were displaced up to several kilometres from the turbines.
A 2025 study reveals that “Wind and solar farms overlap with the distribution ranges of 2,310 threatened amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, accounting for 36.3% of the world’s 6,362 threatened vertebrate species.”
Why weep for a sparrow hitting a window in Chicago but ignore the eagle severed by a blade in Wyoming or the 6,362 species endangered by renewable energy sources?
The answer, surprisingly, lies in theology. Modern environmentalism has become a secular religion. In this worldview, “Climate Change” is the original sin, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is the demon. To exorcise this demon, the alarmists demand sacrifices. They are willing to offer up the very wildlife they claim to love at the altar of renewable energy. This is idolatry.
But here’s the truth: Since the 1800s, our planet has gotten a lot greener! Mild warming combined with higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has boosted plant growth and leaf cover across huge areas of the Earth. Crop yields have broken records. Deserts are shrinking. The very CO2 they blame has helped the birds thrive.
Yet the Times and their ilk reject this truth. They prefer a narrative of doom. They push for unreliable wind energy that destabilizes grids, raises electricity prices for the poor, and slaughters millions of birds and bats. They call this “saving the planet.” I call it a lie. They will never question the wind industry, because that industry is the sacrament of their false climate religion.
We must reject this hypocrisy. True stewardship means looking at the data without ideological blinders. It means acknowledging that wind turbines are apex predators of the sky. It means admitting that the push for “Net Zero” is causing real, tangible harm to biodiversity.
Don’t get me wrong, the Chicago birds deserve attention. So do the birds being murdered around the world. Moral consistency demands faithfulness in both cases. Until the Times confronts that inconsistency, its environmental concern remains performative.
Vijay Jayaraj is Research Associate for Developing Countries with the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition. He holds a M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, postgraduate degree in Energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a B.S. in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research assistant at University of British Columbia’s Changing Oceans Research Unit in Canada.
Fresh insights into the ecological devastation caused by onshore wind turbines around the world are contained in a shocking new paper published last month by a group of ecologists in Nature. The paper is paywalled and has attracted little mainstream media interest, but it highlights research that illustrates that the effect of utility-scale wind energy production “can be far reaching and sometimes have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity”.
Fresh insights into the ecological devastation caused by onshore wind turbines around the world are contained in a shocking new paper published last month by a group of ecologists in Nature. The paper is paywalled and has attracted little mainstream media interest, but it highlights research that illustrates that the effect of utility-scale wind energy production “can be far reaching and sometimes have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity”. An annual figure of around one million bats are killed in the countries with the highest number of turbines, but harmful effects are seen in many other parts of the ecosystem. The number of top predators such as jaguars, jungle cats and golden jackals can be changed by turbines in tropical forest gaps, leading to the “possibility for cascading effects” along similar latitudinal levels.
In short, the science team notes that turbines can kill birds, bats and insects, change animal behaviour, physiology and demography and alter ecosystems. The installation of wind turbines invariably results in habitat degradation, but it is regions rich in biodiversity with minimal existing infrastructure that suffer the most. The authors state that wind facilities “are recognised as an important driver for losses and degradation of irreplaceable habitats that are important for conservation.” Such areas, of course, can be found in the windy highlands of Scotland. For City-dwelling eco zealots, it is a case of out of sight, out of mind. Net Zero is all about money and power – bats and eagles have neither.
The Nature paper is a wake-up call about the increasing damage that is being inflicted on natural habitats by wind turbines that are steadily increasing in size and destructive potential. It is a summary of the latest findings about the effect of turbines, and it is not sanguine about the future. “Perhaps the greatest unknown in predicting future effects of wind power on biodiversity lies in the scope of the potential expansion of the technology and the cumulative consequences of this expansion for species and ecosystems”. A 2021 USA report on the potential pathways to Net Zero emissions is noted, and this suggests using up to 13% of the land area for wind farms. The new Trump Administration is likely to put a stop to this madness which the scientists observe could have “dramatic consequences for biodiversity”.
The BP Deepwater Horizon accident is generally considered the worse US offshore oil spill. Estimates vary but it is thought to have led to the deaths of around 600,000 sea birds and the incident led to widespread condemnation by environmentalists that continues to this day. Slightly less publicity is given to the 500,000 bats killed onshore in the US by wind turbines every single year. In the UK, 30,000 is the estimated annual kill number, with Canada at 50,000 and 200,000 in Germany.
Many bird species are also at risk, with large raptors a conspicuous example. It is admitted that limited information is available on population-level consequences, but available evidence suggests the turbines could threaten certain species with local extinction, particularly those at risk with low reproduction rates. Possible population collapse has been predicted for cinereous and griffon vultures in Europe and the Eurasian skylark in Portugal. Other predictions suggest population declines for hoary bats in North America, lesser kestrel in France and black harriers in South Africa. Population declines have been reported in central Europe for animals with high-collision risk such as the noctule bat, while nearly 50% of bird species evaluated in one study in California were said to be subject to turbine-induced population decline. Meanwhile, the mortality of golden eagles at Altamont Pass Wind Resource in California is said to be so frequent that local populations are sustained by immigrants. Finally, the authors report that the globally endangered Egyptian vulture in Spain has a lower survival rate, population growth rate and size in the presence of wind facilities.
Who really cares? The UK Bat Conservation Trust states that climate change poses a “significant threat” to UK bat populations. “We need energy-efficient housing and renewable energy to help mitigate for climate change for the benefit of bats, people and the wider environment”, it adds. It is fair to say that similar understanding is not extended to developers encountering the presence of bats other than ‘Green’ entrepreneurs.
The giant turbines regularly sweep the countryside of insects, and the report notes that fatalities can be great enough to contribute substantially to the build-up of debris on blades. In fact, one of the report’s authors, Professor Christian Voigt, has stated in earlier work that it was necessary to evaluate if fatalities added to the decline of insect populations “and potentially the extinction of species”. In a 2022 paper, Voigt reported that turbines can change the nearby microclimate, while vibrational noise may reduce earthworm abundance with likely cascading effects on soil quality and vegetation.
Mass slaughter of bats and raptors is already known, but this new report casts fresh light on the cascading effects on the natural world of increasing numbers of giant wind turbines. That said, the report admits that biodiversity impacts have been documented for only a few small taxa, but the impacts are “not negligible”. Proponents of wind power often claim that wind energy’s impacts on biodiversity will be less than climate change, it is noted. The authors find this “plausible”, but the assumption is said to be “untested”.
Yet another untested assumption driving the destructive madness of Net Zero, others may conclude.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
A representative of Nabus in an interview with NDR Info. The Bat Night is about bats.
You can feel sorry for the man. He probably knows very well what bats and wind turbines all are about, but he has to bite his tongue.
A representative of Nabus in an interview with NDR Info. The Bat Night is about bats. You can feel sorry for the man. He probably knows very well what bats and wind turbines all are about, but he has to bite his tongue.
The interests of the animals are either not taken into account at all or only partially taken into account in the planning of wind turbines, he explains. He expects up to 10 animals to die as a result of the turbines but does not say whether this is an annual occurrence. Annually would be plausible. After all, he points out the low reproduction rate, the animals only have 1-2 offspring per year. So, every bat killed is a significant loss. Particularly affected are migratory animals that have travelled 1,000 – 2,000 km a year when they move to the summer or winter quarters. In Germany, they have many wind turbines to fly around on their way and there are to be even more turbines.
The NABU is in a dilemma, they know the situation there but have to put a good face on the bad game.
The number of animals killed is difficult to estimate. The reason is that the animals suffer such large pressure differences when approaching the running turbines that their lungs are damaged. So, the animals can continue to fly for a while before they die. Since bats are very small, they are difficult to find after their death. Scavengers do the rest.
The German Wildlife Foundation assumes 200,000 – 250,000. There, particular attention is drawn to the expansion in forests, which will have a significant impact on the bats that live in forests.
The German Wildlife Foundation is in favor of the expansion of renewable energies. But the expansion of wind energy has become a danger to numerous wild animals.
It is necessary to weigh up all nature conservation concerns before wind farms are built. In Germany, for example, around 250,000 bats and thousands of birds of prey fall victim to wind turbines every year.
This is especially true in the forest. In the high altitudes suitable for wind farms, there are often valuable, old and near-natural forest stands that are a guarantor of biodiversity.
Germany urgently needs a uniform, high standard to integrate nature and species conservation into energy policy. We raise our voices – with statements to those responsible and contributions to the discussion.
The Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (Leibniz-IZW) also estimates that 200,000 animals are killed (annually).
It is a conflict-prone, emotionally charged topic that Voigt and his team have tackled in several studies: The researchers are investigating the death of bats from wind power and its consequences. The latter are said to be considerable, because food chains are interrupted and some pests can multiply strongly as a result. The scientists have published several articles on this topic in specialist journals.
It has long been known that wind turbines can be dangerous for some bat species. For this reason, the requirement has been in place for a good ten years that operations must be paused during certain times. The weeks between mid-July and mid-October, when bats are very active, are particularly critical, explains Voigt, “especially during warm nights with low wind speeds”. However, older turbines are exempt from the requirements – according to the Competence Centre for Nature Conservation and Energy Transition (KNE), they account for around 75 percent of onshore turbines.
The topic of bats is interesting in that it excludes the rather oblique statistics about birds killed by cats, window panes or cars. This is often used to relativize. The comparison is roaring anyway, because garden birds and birds of prey are thrown into the same pot. Anyone who cannot distinguish a run-over blackbird from a slain kite has no place in the discussion. And cats rarely bring home a black stork.
The losers of the energy transition in Germany: bats. The FAZ has an interesting article on this. The problem is also known to nature conservation associations. It’s just that some things are in the dark, because it is very difficult to estimate how many animals it affects. The animals do not necessarily die directly at the wind turbines, but may fly even further. Scavengers also ensure that the animal carcasses can no longer be found.
The losers of the energy transition in Germany: bats. The FAZ has an interesting article on this. The problem is also known to nature conservation associations. It’s just that some things are in the dark, because it is very difficult to estimate how many animals it affects. The animals do not necessarily die directly at the wind turbines, but may fly even further. Scavengers also ensure that the animal carcasses can no longer be found.
In Germany, for example, wind turbines are to be erected with less bureaucracy and much faster than before. However, this could further accelerate the loss of biodiversity, because possible effects on nature would be taken into account less than before in the approval procedures – so experts from the German Bat Observatory fear. In addition to birds, bats are likely to be affected in particular. “According to scientific estimates, around a quarter of a million bats die at wind turbines every year in Germany alone,” says Marcus Fritze. He heads the Competence Centre for Bat Conservation in Saxony-Anhalt and, together with twelve other experts from the German Bat Observatory, has published a scientific study in the journal “Nyctalus” on the effects of accelerating approval procedures for the expansion of wind turbines in Germany. “The situation could get worse further, species such as the common noctule, the rough-skinned bat and the two-coloured bat may disappear completely from some areas,” the scientist fears.
The author explicitly warns against the construction of wind turbines in forests. These are also an important habitat for bats. However, the construction of plants in forests is firmly planned in Germany. Not good news for the rare animals. Nature conservation associations such as Nabu are well aware of the problem.
“Unfortunately, bats keep dying at wind turbines. A new study by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) shows that this can be associated with ecological effects on populations in distant regions. To this end, the scientists analysed and evaluated the bat victims at various wind energy sites in Germany. Species hunting and migrating in the open airspace are particularly at risk of collision. Five of the 24 bat species found in Germany alone account for 90 percent of the fatalities.
[…]
While the killed pygmy bats mostly come from the respective region, injured pipisterelle bats come almost exclusively from the Baltic States and Belarus. Noctules also come from far away: their journey from Scandinavia and the Baltic States often ends fatally. Since bats have a very low reproduction rate, losses have a direct impact on home populations. These are recovering very slowly – if at all – from the population losses. This also has an impact on the respective ecosystems in which bats have a regulatory function.”
Simplified building permits will not help to ease the situation.
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A short visit to the “Helmholtz Drought Monitor”. We have already reported on this tool several times. We don’t want to tire the reader either, so just a short current drought check. For the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt you can download a high-resolution map for the entire soil here. You get this:
Here, some regions with “extreme” (red) and “exceptional” drought (dark red) stand out. In order to compare how the DWD evaluates the soil situation (“soil moisture viewer“), the map above was digitized to look at exact locations. In the far north at 52.5*N; Stendal is located at 11.6°E. The DWD has data for this location:
On 22 June, the usable field capacity did not fall below 50-80% in the “total soil” up to a depth of 1.8 m, which was also referred to in the map of the “Drought Monitor”. No “drought”. Helmholtz has obviously still not solved the problem of “dry bias”.
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It seems as if Michael Mann is plagued by a guilty conscience. Mann invented the so-called hockey stick curve. He has been warning about global warming for years. Deutschlandfunk reviews his current book, and in it Mann worries about pessimism about the climate. Mann considers them more dangerous than the deniers of global warming. From the publisher’s announcement text:
“For about 4.5 billion years, the Earth has proven that it can do well without humans. It was not until about 2 million years ago that the first prehistoric humans appeared. What suddenly made our existence possible back then? Ironically, exactly what threatens us now: climate change.
In the past, climate fluctuations favored the further development and expansion of our ancestors. For example, the drying out of the tropics during the Pleistocene created a niche for early hominids, which could hunt prey in the newly acquired savannahs. And the sudden cooling in the North Atlantic 13,000 years ago promoted the development of agriculture. However, the temperature range within which humans can exist is surprisingly small. “Too cold” and “too warm” are quickly reached. Our survival therefore depends on not crossing these thresholds.
In this spectacular hike through the history of the earth, the renowned climate researcher Michael E. Mann makes it unmistakably clear how fragile the moment in which humanity finds itself right now is – and that it is worth fighting for the future.”
The foreword was written by Özden Terli, meteorologist at ZDF.
Wind energy is an environmental destruction machine, warns veteran center-left columnist.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist block satellite countries in 1989, the West stood in awe, amazed by the environmental and economic wasteland left behind by the inefficient collective socialist system.
But since then, green radicals have taken over and it’s safe to say that the next generation, in about 2060, will also stand in amazement before a similar mass wreckage left behind by the “Green New Deal”.
The future generation will be asking: “What the hell were they thinking?”
“The ruthless way in which wind power is being pushed through in Germany is reminiscent of the brutal way in which the “concrete faction” wrecked many German cities in the post-war period. A wind madness inventory..,” comments Etscheit, calling Germany’s drive into wind energy “a run amok at the expense of people and nature.
Germany plans to add another 10,000 wind turbines in addition to its current 30,000, which means 2% of Germany’s land area will be completely destroyed and industrialized, according to Etscheit.
What follows are Etscheit’s 5 environmental reasons why Germany’s wind energy insanity is a major threat:
Landscape will be blighted by the addition of 10,000 wind turbines, with a height of up to 250 meters. The natural biotope surrounding these turbines will be irreversibly ruined.
Endangered bird, like the red kite, will lose their habitats. It’s estimated that an absolute collision rate of around 21 per year and wind turbine. “With 40,000 or more wind turbines planned in Germany, the million mark would soon be exceeded.”
Bats and insects severely decimated. “Wind turbines also pose a significant threat to the 25 or so species of bat found in Germany…”. …”Wind turbines also have a significant impact on flying insects, as a study published in 2017 by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Oberpfaffenhofen shows … an estimated five to six billion insects per day at all German wind turbines during the warm season (200 days from April to October).”
Hazard also for marine fauna. Wind turbines have a negative impact from pressure and sound waves on some animal species with an extremely sensitive sense of hearing. The industrialization of the oceans could displace native marine mammals. “If more and more offshore wind farms are built, this will have an enormous impact on the harbor porpoise populations in the North and Baltic Seas,” reads a statement from the Society for the Rescue of Dolphins.
Infrasound harming people. People near wind turbines often complain of “severe health complaints such as insomnia, dizziness, headaches, depression, tinnitus, hearing and vision problems and cardiac arrhythmia”, and experts warn this will increase dramatically, and turbine setback regulations in Germany are being watered down.
Etscheit argues for a moratorium on the construction of new turbines, but doesn’t see this happening in Germany, where officials are pressing on with the madness, “no matter the costs.”
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Georg Etscheit is an author and journalist based in Munich. He worked for the dpa agency for almost ten years, but since 2000 has preferred to write “freelance” on environmental issues as well as on business, gourmet food, opera and classical music for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. He also writes for www.aufgegessen.info, the gastrosophical blog for free enjoyment that he co-founded, and a culinary column on Achgut.com.
Eagles, bats, whales, and multiple other species are suffering and dying from wind turbine blades, pilings, and cables – and more. Surely, they want to stop the slaughter. We do.
Eagles, bats, whales, and multiple other species are suffering and dying from wind turbine blades, pilings, and cables – and more. Surely, they want to stop the slaughter. We do.
Chinese Uighurs, too, would likely love to vote in the November U.S. elections. Like many Congolese children, they, too, are suffering and dying to satisfy the egos and half-truths of the climate cabal. The children, of course, are way too young to vote.
Much has been written about the downsides of offshore and onshore wind turbines, from noise pollution to the major problem of disposing of used turbine blades. But nothing has shaken the determination of the Biden Administration – and the wind industry – to continue to subsidize and fast-track their permitting despite rising opposition.
One might ask why.
And yet, the answer must be obvious. The windbags have committed to wind at any price (they get others to pay) and cannot back away now without losing their investments in both wind and wind politics.
The chief federal proponent of offshore wind is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), created in 2010 by Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his research into the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light.
One of Chu’s bright ideas is a “global glucose economy,” in which glucose and cellulose from tropical plants would be turned into biofuels and bioplastics. The theory is that glucose fuels would burn clean and produce few chemical byproducts, while glucose bioplastics would be eco-friendly – unlike today’s plastics, which end up in landfills.
Very little of the United States is amenable to growing “tropical plants,” hence such an economy would be built either via neocolonialist seizure of massive acreages or the repurposing of even more land now used for growing food for the world’s seven billion people. This land would likely be in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Central and South America (the Amazon?).
Such an economy might save the lives of whales, bats, and eagles – and it might not even require the massive subsidies that have “fueled” the wind and, solar and electric vehicle industries. One writer suggests that a combination of biological processes, computer-assisted design, and human intelligence (aided by artificial intelligence?) could trigger a revolution in manufacturing and construction.
Wind turbines, by contrast, are built with steel, concrete, and (well) today’s plastics. They also have a fairly short lifespan (far shorter than that of oil rigs), as do solar panels (which, as many recently learned, are subject to damage from hail and other forces of nature). Electric vehicle batteries are massive and today depend on intensive mining operations conducted by virtual slaves and actual children.
The BOEM itself is a twin offspring of the old Minerals Management Service, with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) as its mirror image.
One might think that the BSEE, “America’s lead agency charged with advancing safety, environmental protection, and conserving natural resources related to energy development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf,” would find objectionable the near-extinction of right whales and the deaths of many humpback whales.
One might think that the massive concrete foundations and the disturbance of the ocean floor all the way to the surface during construction would violate the principles of “environmental protection,” or at least of “conserving” the natural resources upon which fishermen, lobstermen, and other seafaring industries rely for their livelihoods and those who eat fish and seafood.
One might even think that the agency concerned with “safety” might even find that offshore giant turbines could pose safety issues for mariners and marine life as well.
But who’s kidding? Whales, fishermen, lobstermen, recreational boaters, and even oceangoing vessels do not have the deep (subsidized) pockets of those giant corporations investing in offshore wind. And the Biden Administration, via the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” is prioritizing offshore wind leasing despite local and conservationist opposition.
The Biden commitment to giant wind is such that it granted a waiver on development fees for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project offshore Massachusetts, the first in the U.S. to deliver electricity to the grid. According to uncovered internal documents, Vineyard would likely have not been completed had not the BOEM waived the fees intended to protect taxpayers.
The waiver means that Vineyard has 15 years after startup of operations to begin paying the development fee – sans 15 years of accrued interest. This is despite a federal statute that mandates developers pay these hefty fees (though not nearly as high as those for nuclear projects) prior to construction. The fees are designed to guarantee that the property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease – for example, should Vineyard Wind prove unprofitable.
Does anyone remember the $600 million boondoggle that was Solyndra?
The Biden windbag juggernaut suffered a body blow in January when Equinor and BP announced the cancellation of a contract for the proposed Empire Wind 2 project. The companies and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority agreed on the termination of the project. Equinor and BP blamed inflation, interest rates, and supply chain disruptions for making the project no longer viable.
While the smaller Empire Wind 1, hailed as a success of “Bidenomics,” was approved last November, its own viability may be questionable given the demise of its big sister. The Danish energy company Ørsted had just weeks earlier canceled its Ocean Wind 1 and 2 twin projects, planned for offshore New Jersey, also because of “negative economic conditions,” specifically, inflation, interest rates, and supply chain disruptions.
Fancy that! Inflation Reduction Act projects being canceled because of inflation!
Despite these giant wind collapses, Dominion Energy is preparing to place and drive 178 monopiles into the Atlantic Ocean for a huge offshore wind facility offshore Virginia Beach while challenging a lawsuit filed on behalf of right whales to stop the habitat destruction.
The plaintiffs won a brief reprieve based on evidence that Dominion lacked authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service to allow its dynamic positioning thrusters to exceed NOAA’s harassment threshold established under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Dominion had already been granted NMFS authorization to “harass” up to 80,000 marine animals while conducting pile driving and sonar surveys.
The chicanery was even worse in the Great Lakes, where the developer of the proposed Icebreaker wind project reportedly failed to present a reasonable proposal to protect wildlife or the quality of lake water from lubricating oils.
True environmental non-protection!
Another report says the oft-vaunted Swedish wind industry is facing a total financial collapse, with company losses from 19% to 90% of turnover “because the industry cannot produce electricity at a cost below the market price despite extensive subsidies.”
Yet the Biden Administration plows ahead, unfazed by economic realities.
Odd, is it not, that the same administration that has blocked multiple onshore mining permits, revoked oil and gas leases, and demanded protection for not-so-endangered species is so bent on wind energy projects that it is willing for the right whale to join the passenger pigeon in extinction?
With neither energy nor environmental protection as legitimate rationales, one has to wonder about the true motives for pushing offshore wind.
“Large numbers of (sea) birds, bats and insects are already being killed by the spinning rotor blades. Horizon pollution, infrasound and drop-shadow are driving more and more people to despair, and there seems to be no end in sight.”
Thank you very much for your interest in the English translation of my new book ‘Down Wind’. It mainly describes the Dutch situation, but there are multiple examples reflecting situations in the United States and throughout Europe. Some description follows.
“Large numbers of (sea) birds, bats and insects are already being killed by the spinning rotor blades. Horizon pollution, infrasound and drop-shadow are driving more and more people to despair, and there seems to be no end in sight.”
Down Wind: The impact of large-scale energy production using wind turbines
In the summer of 2023, it became evident that the wind power industry was facing serious challenges. Sweden’s Vattenfall was denied permission by its own government for a wind farm on Sweden’s west coast. Why? “Negative impacts on the environment.” Vattenfall also cancelled the construction of a new offshore wind farm on England’s North Sea coast due to ‘cost’.
The “energy transition” looks to a ten-fold increase in industrial wind turbines. Currently, there are an estimated 200,000 wind turbines worldwide. To eliminate fossil fuels by 2050, approximately 2,000,000 more wind turbines would need to be constructed.
Has the wind industry finally come to its senses and recognised that building, installing and operating wind turbines is very expensive? That the huge amounts of materials – steel, concrete and plastic – cannot be extracted or produced in an environmentally friendly way? Not to mention the disposal after 20 years of operation. In fact, rotor blades still cannot be recycled and therefore have to be landfilled or incinerated.
Wind turbines significantly impact our environment–negatively. Large numbers of (sea) birds, bats and insects are already being killed by the spinning rotor blades. Horizon pollution, infrasound and drop-shadow are driving more and more people to despair, and there seems to be no end in sight. Honest calculations also show that wind power is not only very expensive, but also that power cannot be guaranteed due to the variability of the wind.
Isn’t it high time to recognise that wind power is nothing more than wind trading, so we should reconsider its role as the sought-after solution?
Unlike windmills of up to about 20-30 meters in height, the new wind turbines are of a very different caliber. Modern wind turbines reach tip heights as high as 260 meters, making them more than prominent in the landscape. Whereas tourists used to come to admire the beautiful Dutch, balanced landscape with its classic windmills, the same tourists are not too keen on looking at a horizon with dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of modern wind turbines.
This book begins with a bit of primal Dutch history of the windmill and then quickly moves on to the development of the first wind turbines, machines designed purely to generate energy. In addition to the development and use of this technology, the why of the energy transition is discussed. This has primarily become a prelude to the rise of all kinds of financial markets, particularly around CO2.
To understand the background of the entire energy transition – of which the excessive increase in the construction of wind farms is an important part – I first inform you extensively about the policy pursued and its motivation. In this book, I pay close attention to the harmful effects on humans and nature caused by the construction, installation and use, and removal of wind turbines.
All these harmful effects, in addition to the dangers that occur during operation, are explained with practical examples. I deliberately do not use the widely misused word “sustainable” in this book. The reason why will automatically become clear as you read. Finally, using practical examples, I also discuss exactly what climate policy means for your wallet.—————–
A book about the impact of large-scale energy generation with wind turbines comes not a moment too soon. Since government plans for the energy transition will entail far-reaching changes for the landscape and society, it was about time to inform the public about the background of the energy transition, a transition that is primarily focused on wind energy in the Netherlands, both on land and at sea. The coverage of this, through our public broadcasters and mainstream newspapers, has become increasingly one-sided and incomplete over the past decades. Therefore, it is quite possible that after reading this book, you may look differently at the energy transition in general, and wind turbines in particular.
My advice is to continue your own research after reading the book, to look for subjects that have aroused your interest, but especially those subjects where you have doubts whether the information I have presented is correct or not. To help you do this, I have included several references at the end of each chapter. That list, given the enormity of the subject, is obviously not complete. However, with the search terms in this book, you can do an excellent job.
Hopefully, after reading this book, you will agree with me that it is of utmost importance that the information in this book be widely disseminated. After all, as plans for wind energy continue to be realized toward 2050, the damage to the environment – flora and fauna – will begin to increase exponentially. Sharing information about the negative aspects of this wind trade is crucial. Only together can we turn back from the dead-end road we have taken.
As wind power grows around the world, so does the threat turbines pose to wildlife. From simple fixes to high-tech solutions, researchers are finding ways to reduce the toll.
Even the greeniacs are starting to understand the damage to wildlife from wind turbines:
As wind power grows around the world, so does the threat turbines pose to wildlife. From simple fixes to high-tech solutions, researchers are finding ways to reduce the toll.
About twice a month, many of Australia’s wind farms receive an important visit from dogs and their handlers. The dogs are professionals and know exactly what they’re there for. Eagerly, they run along transects under the wind turbines, sniffing until they catch a scent, then lying down, sitting or freezing once they’ve located their targets: the carcasses of bats and birds that were killed by turbine collisions.
For nearly two decades, wind and wildlife ecologist Emma Bennett’s company, Elmoby Ecology, has been using canines to count the victims of wind turbines in southern Australia. The numbers are troubling. Each turbine yields four to six bird carcasses per year, part of an overall death toll from wind turbines that likely tops 10,000 annually for the whole of Australia (not including carcasses carried away by scavengers). Such deaths are in the hundreds of thousands in North America. Far worse are the numbers of dead bats: The dogs find between six and 20 of these per turbine annually, with tens of thousands believed to die each year in Australia. In North America, the number is close to a million.
The wind industry has just been caught out lying about a technology that was meant to prevent Eagles being slaughtered by their turbine blades. Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill Eagles, but 60-80 m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350 Kph routinely smash them out of existence.
Lucky survivor: Craig Webb with Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle rescued post turbine collision.
The wind industry has just been caught out lying about a technology that was meant to prevent Eagles being slaughtered by their turbine blades. Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill Eagles, but 60-80 m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350 Kph routinely smash them out of existence.
The rampant slaughter of millions of birds and bats – includes rare, endangered and majestic species, like America’s iconic bald and golden eagles, and Tasmania’s extremely rare wedge-tailed Eagle.
Faced with outrage from real environmentalists, to date, the default response from the wind industry is to lie like fury and – when the corpses can no longer be hidden and the lying fails – to issue court proceedings to literally bury those facts (see our post here).
However, a couple of years back its spin doctors began seeding the narrative with the claim that the industry had developed a new, whizbang technology – IdentiFlight – that would prevent so much as a feather from being ruffled, by shutting off turbines as eagles, hawks and kites etc approached them.
Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out that the IdentiFlight system is yet another cynical ploy by the wind industry to placate those concerned about the fate of our apex avian predators, by pretending to actually care about the critters it’s been killing, en masse, for decades now. Matthew Denholm has this report on how the wind industry’s latest enviro-spin effort has unravelled, with a mounting pile of rare and endangered wedge-tailed Eagle carcasses to prove it.
‘Cutting-edge’ Tasmanian wind farm still a wedge-tailed eagle killer The Australian Matthew Denholm 17 August 2023
A wind farm with so-called “industry-leading” bird avoidance technology has killed at least eight endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles, prompting calls for an urgent moratorium on new turbines in eagle zones.
Cattle Hill Wind Farm in Tasmania’s Central Highlands uses IdentiFlight camera technology – which it describes as a “cutting-edge avian detection system” – to stop the wind turbines when birds approach.
However, the system – which is spruiked by the industry and regulators as the foremost solution to wind turbine bird deaths – has failed to prevent the deaths of at least eight eagles in less than four years.
The Australian understands that figure – confirmed by Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority – includes five eagle deaths in the past 12 months.
“We should be very concerned about this because what we’re looking at here is the start of a planned huge industry,” said eagle expert and wildlife biologist Nick Mooney.
“Everybody has ignored rule 101. That is, if you’re worried about eagles, don’t put wind farms where there’s lots of eagles, and the overseas (scientific) literature stresses that.”
He was aware of 61 wedge-tailed eagles and five white-bellied sea-eagles being found dead or incapacitated during periods of formal mortality monitoring at Tasmania’s existing wind farms.
This was likely the tip of an iceberg, with some wind farms no longer required to monitor for bird deaths and formal monitoring restricted to areas under turbines, missing birds that die further afield after being struck.
He was aware of another nine large-scale wind farms proposed for Tasmania, which was concerning given that cumulative impacts of multiple wind farms was still not factored into federal environmental approvals.
Cattle Hill Wind Farm confirmed the deaths. It said its modelling had predicted its turbines would kill 14 eagles after four years and this was allowed under its permit conditions.
Mr Mooney said the system’s shortcomings and any solution should be independently verified.
He said he believed several turbines at Cattle Hill may need to be shut down in the interim, and the massive industry expansion in eagle density areas put on hold until an effective bird avoidance system was developed.
The wedge-tailed eagle recovery plan was due to be updated in 2010, but a promised revamp was yet to materialise, despite the proliferation of wind farms since. The Australian
Kym Dixon with a not-so-lucky wedge-tailed Eagle, Waterloo SA.
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