From today’s Mesabi Daily News:
Work is progressing rapidly on the Taconite Ridge Wind Turbine project in Mountain Iron. These towers are part of a ten tower project which will produce 25 megawatts of power and will be hooked into the Minnesota Power grid. When completed the towers will be about 315 tall. Photo by Mark Sauer
We could build hundreds of these things along the tall ridge of the Iron Range, producing a modern landscape that could usher in a new era of innovation. People get worked up about the birds, but we can work on that.
Fine with me. The problems usually stem from people who live nearby who dont want to look at them.
I’m on board for wind energy, but I’m not sure we can do anything about the birds. Nothing I’ve seen has shown any promise at remedying the effects of bird-windmill collisions. I’m not sure a string of these things along the Laurentian is what’s really called for, but a few of them in our region are probably not a bad thing. If we can live with dead birds.
Of course, compared to the number of birds that die from exposure to the pollutants produced by a coal plant? Probably the windmills are not so bad.
About the birds… In the United States, turbines kill 70,000 birds per year, compared to 57 million killed by cars and 97.5 million killed by collisions with plate glass.[Lomborg, Bjørn (2001). The Skeptical Environmentalist. New York City: Cambridge University Press.] An article in Nature stated that each wind turbine kills on average 0.03 birds per year, or one kill per thirty turbines.[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7141/full/447126a.html]
I’m not to worried about it… lets build some more; and mabey worrie a little more about skyscrapers and the effect on birds? Also should we stop driving to save them as well? Thats not so pratical.