Among the several lies that Donald Trump told at a recent political fundraiser speech (Utica, NY--August 13, 2018) to boost fossil fuels at the expense of clean energy, there was one that is particularly pernicious, and that is the implication (a favorite of the climate-change denialists precisely because it is so pernicious) that fossil fuels are more bird-friendly than wind power:[1]
You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the wind wheels, [mimics windmill noise, mimes shooting gun] Bing! That's the end of that one. If the birds don't kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it's like a killing field, the birds.
We know that this implication is a lie (of the red-herring species), because the peer-reviewed academic research tells a totally contradictory story:[2]
... wind farms are responsible for roughly 0.27 avian fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while nuclear power plants involve 0.6 fatalities per GWh and fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 9.4 fatalities per GWh.
What is true is that conventional wind turbines do constitute a threat to birds, and as a society we should do everything we reasonably can to reduce that threat:[3]
Nearly every week, Kimberly Kaufman [Executive Director, Black Swamp Bird Observatory] receives messages from birders and conservationists alerting her to new wind energy designs that bill themselves as safe for wildlife. The technologies come in all shapes and sizes and are in varying stages of development. Yet each claims to do one thing that conventional wind turbines can't: harness the incredible power of wind without killing birds.
Sources
- Remarks: Donald Trump Delivers a Speech at a Fundraiser in Utica, NY - August 13, 2018. factba.se/…
- Sovacool, Benjamin K., The Avian and Wildlife Costs of Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power (June 30, 2012). Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences vol. 9, no. 4, December 2012, 255-278; Vermont Law School Research Paper No. 04-13. Available at SSRN: ssrn.com/...
- Libby Sander, Can Wind Energy Be Bird Safe?, BirdCalls--American Bird Conservancy, 05 Jan 2017. abcbirds.org/...