--- Evan Craig <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Date:         Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:52:10 -0500
> From:         Evan Craig <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Wind turbine tragedy - ridges and bats;
> new research findings
> To:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> This is worrisome news for bats, but the way it is
> being reported is
> worrisome for wind energy. The articles below name
> RIDGETOP siting as the
> peril to bats, but the photo (worth 1000 words) in
> the BATS magazine article
> clearly shows a windfarm in flat farmfields. The
> further polarization of the
> issue of big power vs. environmentalists below is
> also alarming. If
> environmentalists really want wind developers to
> team up with us, we have to
> be scrupulously fair, and clear in our resolve to
> prevent global extinction
> caused by global warming through conservation and
> alternative energy. It
> costs a million bucks each to put up a big turbine,
> and we should respect
> the lost revenue consequences of asking them to idle
> one, and work
> creatively with them to devise solutions that have a
> more productive
> conclusion than abandoning wind resources. The
> conference described in the
> article is on the right track: Why are bats unable
> to avoid turbine blades?
> Are they unable to echo-locate them? Why? Could a
> blade tip whistle or
> echo-reflector reduce the problem?
>
> I understand the difficulty of getting good data,
> but that's not an excuse
> for sloppy reporting. The article says that and
> ESTIMATED 2092 bats had been
> killed. That estimated number is then extrapolated
> to 4000. Below I see that
> the extrapolated number is taken as an estimate and
> further extrapolated to
> 8000, and then to 30,000. Nowhere do I see the
> actual count of bats killed
> per wind turbine, or the area of impact to help put
> it into perspective.
> What is the range of a bat? How many bats live in a
> square mile of forest?
> Are there bat migration corridors? How many bats
> migrate through them? How
> serious is this really?
>
> Thanks,
> Evan Craig
> Chair
> Sierra Club Woods & Wetlands Group
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wildlife and Endangered Species Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Dan Boone
> Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 1:37 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Wind turbine tragedy - ridges and bats; new
> research findings
>
>
> Greetings...
>
> The attached article from Sunday's Charleston
> Gazette-Mail reports that a
> very large number of bats were killed this summer at
> the 44 wind turbines on
> Backbone Mountain in WV (Mountaineer Wind Energy
> Center) and at the 20
> turbines next to Meyersdale, PA.  It quotes Dr.
> Merlin Tuttle, Executive
> Director of Bat Conservation International.  Dr.
> Tuttle previously estimated
> that nearly 4000 bats were killed in 2003 at the
> Mountaineer project during
> its first year of operation - see:
>
http://www.safewind.com/pdf/Bats_windmills_BCI_article.pdf
> .
>
> Bat Conservation International is now investigating
> the problem in
> collaboration with the American Wind Energy
> Association, the US Fish and
> Wildlife Service, and several wind plant
> developers/operators -
> see: http://www.awea.org/news/news040303bat.html .
> Despite the vaunted
> collaborative effort, it is rumored that Florida
> Power & Light Energy, the
> owner/operator of the wind plants that BCI has been
> studying, refused to
> allow some of their turbines to be "locked down" and
> therefore BCI was
> unable to test a promising theory that a slowly
> spinning rotor may kill many
> more bats than stationary blades. Apparently the
> nation's largest wind
> energy company prefers not to know the answers to
> certain questions...
>
> Perhaps today's newspaper article may help influence
> the Maryland Public
> Service Commission's evaluation of a permit
> application for a new wind plant
> in Maryland.  The wind energy developer (Synergics)
> has proposed a forested
> ridgetop site located only a few miles north of and
> on the same ridge as the
> wind energy facility in WV that likely killed nearly
> 8,000 bats during its
> first 2 years in operation.
>
> Developers may be allowed to construct almost 1,000
> turbines - mostly on
> forested ridgetops - in PA, MD, WV and VA during the
> coming year; spurred on
> by the recent extension of the Production Tax Credit
> (which provides a large
> subsidy to industrial wind plants), and helped along
> by lax or non-existent
> project evaluation and siting requirements for wind
> energy facilities.
>
> Some excerpts from the attached article:
>
> "It's safe to say the mortality was no less and was
> probably higher than
> last year," Tuttle said.
>
> "It was at least as high and it occurred at two
> locations and they are both
> forested ridgetops. We don't know any forested
> ridgetops with turbines in
> North America where we don't have a problem."
>
> These findings suggest that any wind plant built on
> a forested ridgetop,
> such as two Grant County projects already approved
> by the state Public
> Service Commission, would be likely to kill large
> numbers of bats."
>
> "If I were an investor and wanted to keep my green
> image intact, I would be
> deeply concerned about building turbines on forested
> ridgetops," Tuttle
> said. "The bottom-line concern is, there's just no
> question if we keep
> putting turbines on ridgetops before the solutions
> are known, there will
> continue to be bat kills."
>
> See also:  http://www.batcon.org/wind/ for more
> info.
>
> Dan Boone
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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