“Most turbines are also placed along migratory routes which cause a devastating amount of raptor deaths.”

Two incorrect statement here.

Migratory routes are avoided as much as possible and where there is a problem turbines are generally shut down when birds are endangered.

Additionally the raptor problem came largely from the first wind farm at Altamont Pass. Those turbines were lower to the ground, rotated much faster, and used grid towers rather than monopoles.

Raptors would perch on the tower cross bars and then launch themselves toward ground rodents and through the fast-spinning blades.

Bats, the work-around here is twofold.

First, at a couple of areas where bats gather to mate the turbines are shut down during that one to two week span.

Second, almost all of the non-mating deaths occur at low wind speeds when insects are able to fly and bats pursue them. Turning off the turbines during those low wind evenings doesn’t curtail much power, so when there’s only a small breeze the turbines are parked.

Coal kills far more birds than wind.

Not against wind. I’m simply pointing out that even as we move to wind and solar and geothermal that we keep in mind that ALL human activity has an environmental impact. Ideally, we should always be doing everything we can to ensure that this negative environmental impact is as small as possible. We can’t do that properly if those of us who recognize the basic fact of human impact no matter what we do are shouted down by cheerleaders who shout:

“Energy/Environmental Utopia — we’re already there, stop complaining!”

Stay critical — and don’t stop thinking, while supporting the best possible solutions we can, and acknowledging that we can always, always, always improve upon these solutions.

Can we NOT suppliment the dirty rotten toxic coal with clean energy alternatives? I mean, what to we have to lose from ACTUALLY supplying our own energy needs/comsumption with our own people, our own economy, our own product?

I can guarantee that clean energy creates more jobs than dirty coal plants—and are a lot safer for the MAJORITY of our citizens, not just those who have to look at a turbine (NIMBY’s) while living lakefront.

The nimby’s of powerlines running through their backyard have come to not even see these wires, as we have all become so used to seeing them that we dont recognize them upon immediate site.

Positivity and a little mind shift into the future of our wellness as a country as a feasable alternative to polluting coal can take us far—-we could even catch up with all of the other countries in the world that are blowing us away with welcoming these technologies.

There are a zillion renewable techs, waste from Boston could provide more energy than wind in this area.

Like coal power needed something to make it viable, wind power needs something to make it viable.

In this case, (not railroads but) storage & transmission and there’s options for developing both now underway by the DOE, that I’ve covered previously – here’s some:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=here-is-the-21st-century-storage-an-2010-03

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/05/why-wind-storage-worth-trillions/

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/11/26/california-gets-smart-grid-funds-to-bottle-wind/

and a really revolutionary idea:

http://greenlivingideas.com/topics/alternative-energy/vinalhaven-maine-pioneers-distributed-storage

Be careful of the claims that Wind power can supply, “a colossal 330 Gigawatts of potential lies” off the East Coast. While technically the wind potential exists (there is no argument there), the electrical design of current wind turbines does not allow them to effectively replace large baseline power plants. Current wind turbine designs cannot provide voltage and/or frequency control of the grid as does hydro, nuclear, gas, oil or coal generated power. Voltage and frequency control is necessary in todays’ modern (or not so modern) grid. As configured today Wind power is a follow power source (i.e, you need the grid to start it up). Cost structures are expensive for off shore wind in comparison to other sources or even on shore wind power. Drastic changes in infrastructure will also be necessary (not impossible to accomplish) to harness the 330gigawatts of wind, just not sure the public is up to paying the increase in associated power costs (which will happen). As to the bird issue some of us in wind just consider it natural selection, the stupid birds run into the turbines the smart ones do not.

As if these’s actually a shortage of birds, they are often a pest and are frequently population controlled.(witness the increasing frequency of potentially fatal aircraft bird strikes)

BTW how would you ‘properly’ construct an off-shore wind farm to counter-act bird strikes?? What an ignorant comment!

It’s inbred attitudes (i.e. Nit pickingly Negative) that have made the US a laggard in off shore wind!

[SK: thanks ed]

The toll on birds from skyscrapers and cats far exceeds the toll from turbines. Out of 100,000 birds killed by all anthropogenic (human) causes like buildings, cats, turbines etc, only 3 out of 100,000 were killed by turbines. Three. Out of 100,000.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wind-turbines-dont-kill-birds-coal-2009-10

“A study from the National Research Council last year tallied bird kills from total anthropogenic bird deaths, and found collisions with wind turbines comprised a minute fraction of human interaction bird deaths. Only 3 out of 100,000 anthropogenic bird deaths were from turbines.”

That said, let’s not go completely overboard on renewables. I’m an ardent supporter of renewables, but I don’t want to see completely uncritical thinking on renewables. This potentially precludes us, for instance, from always working to ensure that renewables are in fact as environmentally friendly as they can possibly be.

Although this impact is overstated, wind farms can take a toll on bird life, especially if not properly constructed. Solar panel production produces toxins, and the solar industry still has no recycling plan for the millions of panels going up around the U.S. in a blossoming solar revolution (which will soon see panels on our own home’s roof!)

Greenies (I am one), please don’t only cheer-lead, but remain critical too — so that we can ensure that the methods we use to produce our energy are in fact truly green.