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User:AlexH555/Environmental effects of wind power

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-540-30905-5
http://www.abcbirds.org/conservationissues/threats/energyproduction/wind.html

Danger to birds is often the main complaint against the installation of a wind turbine. However, the Audubon Society finds that, for each unit of electricity generated, wind power kills around 1/15th the number of birds killed by fossil fuels.[1] The number of birds killed by wind turbines is also negligible when compared to the number that die as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, electric power transmission and high-rise buildings, the introduction of feral and roaming domestic cats,[2] and especially the environmental impacts of using fossil fueled power sources. For example, in the UK, where there are several hundred turbines, about one bird is killed per turbine per year; 10 million per year are killed by cars alone.[3] In the United States, turbines kill 70,000 birds per year, compared to 80,000 killed by aircraft,[4] 57 million killed by cars, 97.5 million killed by collisions with plate glass,[5] and hundreds of millions killed by cats.[2] An article in Nature stated that each wind turbine kills an average of 4.27 birds per year.[6]

Number of birds fatalities (deaths/year) [7] [8] [5] [4] [9] [10]
# Cause United States US
1 Cats ~200,000,000
2 Plate glass collisions 97,500,000
3 Cars 57,000,000
4 Aircraft 80,000
5 Turbines (2003) 20,000-37,000

References[edit]

  1. ^ Sovacool, B. K. (2009). "Contextualizing avian mortality: A preliminary appraisal of bird and bat fatalities from wind, fossil-fuel, and nuclear electricity". Energy Policy. 37 (6): 2241–2248. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2009.02.011.
  2. ^ a b "Cats Indoors! The American Bird Conservancy's Campaign for Safer Birds and Cats". National Audubon Society. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  3. ^ "Birds". Retrieved 2006-04-21.
  4. ^ a b Ruane, Laura (2008-11-06). "Newest air defense: Bird dogs". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  5. ^ a b Lomborg, Bjørn (2001). The Skeptical Environmentalist. New York City: Cambridge University Press.
  6. ^ Marris, Emma; Fairless, Daemon (10 May 2007). ""Wind farms' deadly reputation hard to shift"". Nature. 447 (7141). Nature: 447 126. doi:10.1038/447126a. PMID 17495894. Retrieved 2008-01-15. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) Subscription required.
  7. ^ "Migratory Bird Mortality" (PDF). United States Fish and Wildlife Service. January 2002. Retrieved 2010-05-31.
  8. ^ Sathyajith, Mathew (2006). Wind energy: fundamentals, resource analysis and economics. Springer. ISBN 9783540309055. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  9. ^ Wallace P. Erickson (2005). "A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes with an Emphasis on Collisions" (PDF). USDA Forest Service. p. 7. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  10. ^ Western EcoSystems Technology Inc. (2001). "Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines: Summary of Studies to Date and Comparisons to Other Sources of Collisions" (PDF). National Wind Coordinating Committee (NWCC). p. 44. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
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