We don’t see many power-generating wind turbines here in Florida, but they were ubiquitous as we vacationed out West a few weeks ago. The turbines and solar energy (more common in Florida) are cited as the future of clean energy and sustainability–our topic in Supplement 5 of your OM text.
But the wind turbines—some with 200-foot blades spinning up to 180 mph—are estimated to kill as many as 500,000 birds a year through accidental collisions, according to The Wall Street Journal (June 6, 2021). Wildlife researchers in 2013 estimated that the Energy Department’s 2008 wind-power target would push bird deaths to about 1.4 million annually. That figure hasn’t been updated to reflect the Biden administration’s plans to expand offshore wind farms.
Federal law has led to penalties for two wind farms. Duke Energy agreed to spend $600,000 a year on a compliance plan, on top of $1 million in penalties, aimed at preventing bird deaths at several wind-turbine projects in Wyoming, where 14 golden eagles and 149 other protected birds had been killed. Also in Wyoming, PacifiCorp was fined $2.5 million for bird deaths.
Wind turbines, however, are far from the biggest hazard to birds; nearly 600 million birds die each year from crashing into windows. Both the National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society support the expansion of wind power on grounds that greenhouse gas emissions and climate change pose a far bigger threat to birds than turbines. Wind-turbine companies use several methods to deter bird deaths, including noisy devices that birds want to avoid, as well as locating the turbines in areas away from common flight paths.
One promising new technology dubbed IdentiFlight involves sky-scanning robots that use artificial intelligence and alert the company to stop the blades from spinning as birds approach. Duke Energy installed the IdentiFlight technology in 2015, after the bird-death fine, at a 110-turbine wind farm in Wyoming and it reduced eagle deaths by 82%.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of wind turbines?
- How does this relate to the triple bottom line (see page 195)?