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Monday, February 12, 2007 Massive Offshore Wind Turbines Safe for BirdsInfrared monitoring shows that savvy seabirds steer clear of wind turbines. By Peter Fairley
Uncertainty surrounding wind power's impact on wildlife--particularly the potential for deadly collisions between birds and turbines--has tarnished its image and even delayed some wind farms. Indeed, the first large offshore wind farm proposed for U.S. waters--the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts's Nantucket Sound--has been held up in part by concerns that its 130 turbines could kill thousands of seabirds annually. Now a simple infrared collision-detection system developed by Denmark's National Environmental Research Institute is helping clear the air. The Thermal Animal Detection System (TADS) is essentially a heat-activated infrared video camera that watches a wind turbine around the clock, recording deadly collisions much as a security camera captures crimes. The first results, released this winter as part of a comprehensive $15 million study of Denmark's large offshore wind farms, show seabirds to be remarkably adept at avoiding offshore installations. "There had been suggestions that enormous numbers of birds would be killed," says Robert Furness, a seabird specialist at the University of Glasgow, who chaired the study's scientific advisory panel. "There's a greater feeling now among European politicians that marine wind farms are not going to be a major ecological problem, and therefore going ahead with construction is not going to raise lots of political difficulties." The Danish findings are also resonating across the Atlantic, casting doubt on worst-case scenarios presented by Cape Wind's opponents. "The results make us guardedly optimistic," says Taber Allison, vice president for conservation science at the Lincoln, MA-based conservation group Mass Audubon and an outspoken critic of ecological studies by Boston-based Cape Wind Associates. TADS was developed to solve a problem specific to monitoring bird collisions at offshore wind farms, in this case the 80-turbine Horns Rev wind farm off Denmark's North Sea coast and the 72-turbine Nysted wind farm in the Baltic. The Danish researchers at Horns Rev and Nysted used visual monitoring and radar tracking, which showed that most birds avoided the farms altogether or flew down the half-kilometer-wide gaps between the wind farms' orderly rows of turbines. But the researchers still could not rule out the possibility that some birds were flying close enough to strike the turbine blades, which spin as fast as 80 meters per second at the tip. Of particular concern were larger seabirds, especially the common eiders that migrate through the area. "We were concerned that these large, rather clumsy birds might not be able to maneuver around the turbines," says Danish environmental institute researcher Mark Desholm, who designed TADS. What makes TADS practical for continuous operation is software Desholm wrote to activate recording when a warm object enters the video camera's field of vision. According to Furness, the need to sift through thousands of hours of film was a major limitation for researchers who had previously tried infrared monitoring. He says that other automated collision monitoring that relies on vibration sensors on the blades and towers has failed to produce a reliable system. "This is the first system which has really functioned," says Furness. |
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Whale-Inspired Wind Turbines
03/06/2008
Comments
alternativee.org on 02/12/2007 at 2:04 AM
9
www.alternativee.org
deirdrebeth on 02/12/2007 at 3:29 PM
25
Rand on 02/12/2007 at 2:43 AM
4
lambdafunds on 02/13/2007 at 10:22 AM
9
Lovelock, in his recent "Revenge of Gaia" on p 83 says:
Windpower "at best provides energy only 25% of the time".
I believe windpower (without subsidy) costs 2.5X to 3X the cost of conventional power.
Todd on 02/13/2007 at 12:44 PM
5
What looks really interesting is 'kitegen' technology, which uses kites and a vertical turbine rather than a horizontal turbine with propellers.
Power = 0.5*rotor sweep area*(wind Velocity)^3*Air density
Is the equation used for wind power. New Kitegen technology has a sweep area about 10x larger and a wind velocity roughly 2x higher and occurs more consistently than at the altitude of a normal turbine w/o a much higher cost of setup. They claim 0.1 cents a KWH with a kitegen turbine (as opposed to 3-5 cents for conventional turbines or 5-8 cents for coal). However they are currently only building the first 5 MW prototype. If this works it'll change the world of energy.
www.chim.unisi.it/portovenere/portovenere/PPT%20PDF/Milanese.pdf
http://www.sequoiaonline.com/blogs/htm/progetto_eng.htm
michaelbaaron on 02/14/2007 at 12:18 PM
1
I'm sorry, but the comment on subsidies is absurd. Coal power plants produce at 3-4 cents/kWh, gas is 4-8 cents/kWh FOR FUEL ALONE, but when you note subsidies for wind power without commenting on subsidies for conventional power, you lose all credibility. Go to www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Subsidy.pdf and take a look. I'm honestly interested if you can poke holes in the numbers, but the American Wind Energy Association prides itself on solid numbers.
GaryB on 02/16/2007 at 5:36 PM
39
I suspect, rather than being THE savior, wind will form part of the future power mix. In any case, our problem is really more in storing power than in generating it.
salman on 02/17/2007 at 2:47 PM
1
ms on 02/12/2007 at 1:35 PM
58
diasn on 02/12/2007 at 3:02 PM
5
But the study does not address the main potential threat of offshore wind farms off the U.S. east coast: songbird collisions due to Aircraft warning lights required on tall towers by the F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration)
Aircraft warning lights on towers, especially red or yellow lights or those that do not pause long enough between pulses, cause songbirds to circle towers until they become exhausted or collide with guy wires, towers themselves or turbines.
So unless these infrared devices are sensitive enough to see warblers and other tiny songbirds in bad weather (often a contributing factor with tower lighting in tower-collisions), they offer false hope in detecting bird deaths.
At any rate - the study mentioned in this article DOES NOT address the most serious concerns about offshore wind farms off the eastern U.S. coast.
Nathan Dias
Executive Director
Cape Romain Bird Observatory
deirdrebeth on 02/12/2007 at 3:28 PM
25
diasn on 09/25/2007 at 9:27 PM
5
Important, since bad weather is when bird strikes tend to take place...
M.Finkel@yahoo.com on 02/12/2007 at 9:02 PM
1
wmerck on 02/13/2007 at 11:09 AM
4
diasn on 09/25/2007 at 9:31 PM
5
That is why I trap feral cats and roaming ones as well, to turn into the shelter to be eventually destroyed if not adopted (seldom the case).
diasn on 09/25/2007 at 9:29 PM
5
The discussion is not about "local birds" at all.
mherskovitz on 02/12/2007 at 3:19 PM
1
moe146 on 02/14/2007 at 8:29 AM
2
The desire to reduce fossil fuel emissions is commendable, but it can compel otherwise sensible people to support wind initiatives at any cost, in any location, and without any investigation into potential consequences. It must be examined whether the elusive benefits of large-scale wind energy development are enough to justify the further destruction of rural communities and our natural environment.
Don't you agree that at least some common sense guidelines on the siting these industrial turbines should come into the picture somewhere? ...or is it a giant free-for-all with these wind corporations given total control to do whatever they please? Wind advocates are beginning to sound like religious zealots who would bring back the Spanish Inquisition in a heartbeat.
Search your soul. Examine how balanced your thinking is on this matter.
gabrielg01 on 02/14/2007 at 6:46 PM
282
Some of the most nature friendly nations have adopted windpower - eg. Denmark and Holland. There is no news of bird problems from these countries. American birds are stupider, and will fly into the blades? Get real.
http://www.windpower.org/en/core.htm
moe146 on 02/15/2007 at 9:06 AM
2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5108666.stm
Sounds like you are getting all your information from the powerful wind industry lobby groups. The have millions to spin their fairy tales and downplay the negatives. Would you to to a tobacco lobbyist to get the lowdown on cigarettes? Try looking at the other side of the coin:
www.windaction.org
gabrielg01 on 02/18/2007 at 10:43 PM
282
Then it looks like the bird safety might be dependent on the actual habitat, and the type of bird species that live there.
Isn't then a *far* offshore windfarm good? There aren't too many birds flying around 200 miles off the coast, are there?
Seanforester on 08/03/2007 at 10:30 PM
1
Which really says it all. Siting a wind farm where large, relatively unmaneuverable birds are in residence was probably an error. However, as has already been demonstrated, almost all wind farms have little or no impact (or impacts) on birds.
You are, in fact, arguing the general from the specific, in that you are saying that, since one wind farm was badly sited and impacted local wildlife, all wind farms are badly sited and will impact local wildlife, which is clearly neither accurate nor sensible.
Wind farms may be expensive to install, but their maintenance costs are low and their fuel is free. long term, the energy is cheap. But, once again, the US lags behind Europe in an important technology, because of special interest groups.
gabrielg01 on 02/14/2007 at 6:56 PM
282
Kennedy&Co just don't get it.
diasn on 09/25/2007 at 9:31 PM
5
anewdave2play on 11/06/2007 at 2:37 PM
1