Wind Farms Impact on Birds and Bats

Wind farms are one of the few types of power plants that do not require water to generate electricity. As with any other activity of humanity, generating wind through the use of wind power has an impact on the environment. Wind farms cause no greenhouse emissions and have less of an impact than coal or nuclear power plants, but the concern for environmental groups is that bats and birds can easily get stuck in the blades.

Generating electricity out of thin air is a neat idea, but not every geographic area contains suitable conditions for a wind farm. Wind farms must be located in an area where the average wind speed is at least twelve miles per hour; be 250 feet from any nearby building but not more than 200 feet from an electric panel or subpanel; have at least an acre of land to be on, have view that goes to the north, west or northwest; and the vegetation near a wind farm must be slightly bent from a breeze.

Conservation such as the Bats and Wind Energy cooperative founded by the American Wind Energy association want to find a way to provide cleaner energy have formed to find a way to reduce the environmental impact of wind farms have on bird and bat species. The goal of the engineers and the citizens groups is to design the turbines in such a way. The Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the US Fish and Wildlife service conducted a survey in 2006 to find out the average number of birds and bats that were killed by wind turbine generators. The six week study conducted from August to September in 2004 found that between 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed as a result of hitting the blades of turbine generators in wind farms in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Despite the problems wind farms have with wild life and the fact that they cannot be used all the time, wind farms are a much cleaner source of energy than coal or nuclear power plants. Homeowners can buy scaled down versions of the commercial generators to provide electricity to their own home. An agreement with the local electric utility provider must be signed if the generator will be connected to the power grid. Since the electricity produced by wind farms cannot be used all the time unless batteries are connected to the farm to store it and the facilities typically have to be in remote locations, electricity generated by windmills will likely supplement more traditional electric power plants in operation.

Sources:

"Wind Farms Generate No Emissions but can Kill Birds." Rebacca Morris. September 19, 2007. The Daily Item. Sunbury, PA 178801

"Ideal Sites." September 19, 2007. The Daily Item. Sunbury, PA 17801