Texas wind rangers?
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According to the experts, west Texas might possibly be the nation's bread basket of wind energy, due to its average wind speed of 17mph. This is good news to rural residents, who have been watching their way of life virtually disappear for the last several decades. If these investments pan out, wind farming enthusiasts like Cliff Etheredge (see photo) may get streets named after them -- but not exactly for leading the environmental cause.
Ironically, many of the new crop of wind farmers are not big proponents of global warming ideology, but instead see the windmills as a way to remain afloat economically. Not that they don't see the benefits of a clean, renewable energy source, but as one farmer put it:
"Everybody likes crisis-type situations and [climate change] has gotten very popular, particularly with the media and so forth."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-29-2007 @ 1:17PM
aidan_cage said...
isn't this bad news for migrating birds? why does wind energy need to be harnessed as a means to supply the infrastructure? I believe that the market should be pushed toward smaller units that are attached to houses, or apartment roofs. I know it is a way to capitalize off of windy, rural areas, but birds migrate in whole flocks, and I think they use the wind channels to cover large distances in shorter times. moops!
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11-29-2007 @ 3:39PM
Bob Wallace said...
Bird kill is very low per windmill. It is possible to site them in a bad place and cause some damage, but in general there's no problem
(Studies in the Netherlands and US have found less than five kills per windgen per year. Lots of plate glass windows have higher kill rates.)
11-29-2007 @ 3:39PM
Bobo The Clown said...
This has alreawdy been studied and the details are that
11-29-2007 @ 2:34PM
chris said...
Yep, thats good news for me. I am going out to West Texas in January to build wind farms.
And windmills kill roughly the same amount of birds as buildings.
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11-29-2007 @ 4:41PM
aidan_cage said...
The information I had related to a study of captive owl breeding in Canada that was costing millions. It was discovered that the birds, upon release, would fly south into wind farms and die. I couldn't point to a study, but the information came from a good source (my sister, who graduated with honours from Guelph, and works for the Eastern Loggerhead Shrike recovery program).
PEACE
(I'm sure that, less directly, other power sources contribute more damage to wildlife populations)
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12-05-2007 @ 2:58PM
tim said...
More birds are killed by jet engines a la airplane than wind farms as a whole - in fact, i believe it is somewhere around 250 birds to every 1 by a windmill. I live in West Texas, and although i don't get energy from these windfarms, I am excited about the possibilities this presents. (haha, this is coming from someone who pays thier bills with money made by working for an oil company; although I would gladly switch to a windfarm company if the opportunity was there)
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