Engineering News

So, they will kill more and bigger birds? Make even more noise that drives folks crazy? Cause even more property damage when they fail?

Yeah... I can't understand why people don't want these in their back yard.

They don't fail very often, but is usually seems a spectacular event when they do.

Well they will probably still kill less birds per year than the average car does.

As far as noise goes that relative to the listener and damage by failure represents a tiny fraction of the cost or general concerns related to wind power in general plus being wind farms are typically located in sparsely populated areas it even less of a realistic concern that a broken piece will get far enough let alone hit someone or something not related to the wind farm itself and do any serious damage to any private structures.

"Well they will probably still kill less birds per year than the average car does."

Or house cat. I can't find it now, but I remember something like birds killed by wind turbines, 500,000 per year. Birds killed by cats: 48,000,000 per year. Add to that coyotes, weasels, other birds, cars, farm machinery... turbines are a pretty low percentage mortality problem for birds.

Mining, burning, coal and petroleum is far more hazardous to human health and welfare than the alleged miniscule environmental damage caused by a wind induced bird deaths. It's clear to most people that the habitat destruction cause by mining is far more severe for birds, and many other species, than bird strike injuries or fatalities. No property damage from a failing mill has been demonstrated.

You must not live near a coal plant, or have experienced mountain top or strip removal of coal, because when you compare the soundscapes of the two areas, it's not really too much of a contest.

Maybe you could relate to this. If your house burns down, most people don't mourn the loss of the food in the pantry. We are burning down our house.