Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Negative impacts of variable renewable energy (Wind and Solar) JR 173










Negative impacts of variable renewable energy (Wind and Solar) JR173
Introduction
The wind and sun may be free, green, renewable and sustainable. But the energy, land and materials required to harness and utilize that energy certainly are not. Renewable power technologies such as wind and solar are becoming economically competitive with fossil fuels. As ecological need and economic reality converge, renewables are going to make up an increasingly large percentage of the world’s power supply. It’s a necessary technological transition. But at the same time, renewables have a downside that needs to be addressed:
Life of plants
Wind and solar systems also break down faster and must be replaced earlier and more often than coal, gas or nuclear power plants—which have operational life spans of 30-50 years, and generate power about 95% of the time. Wind energy proponents claim turbines last half that long: 20-25 years. They don’t.
A 2018 UK analysis of 3,000 onshore wind turbines found that they generate electricity efficiently for just 12-15 years (and maybe 25-30% of the time)—generating more than twice as much electricity, in their first year than when they are barely 15 years old. So wind turbine raw materials depletion and land use impacts are far higher than advocates have admitted. These realities are no better for solar installations.
All of this also means the cost of wind and solar electricity is far higher than their advocates admit   
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Rare-earth, metals.
Rare-earth elements are used in virtually all electronics. This includes solar panels, which require rare earth metals such as yttrium or europium, and wind power, which uses vast quantities of neodymium in the magnets that help convert wind energy to electricity.
Rare earth elements are actually fairly abundant in the Earth’s crust. But these metals are typically found in extremely low concentrations. That means a lot of destructive mining for minimal effect. Rare earth mining produces large quantities of contaminated mine waste, creating a disposal problem.
Additionally, many of the most productive rare earth mines are in countries with weak environmental regulations. Political instability and national security concerns provide further risks to long-term supply. Accordingly, Smith writes, recycling these elements is big business, employing thousands of mostly unskilled workers worldwide. Formal, supervised recycling processes are needed to safely dismantle and recycle the materials, in contrast to the informal recycling systems that are currently in place. These informal systems are cheaper but may expose workers to health risks. Even so, the formal and informal economies often work in tandem. Smith suggests charging a fee upfront so electronics producers and consumers have to pay for the costs to properly recycle these products. The most efficient solution would be to reuse electronics when possible. One positive trend is that reuse is becoming more and more common. Smith suggests a global collection system to maximize reuse and keep electronic waste away from smugglers and illegal disposal.
Another idea suggested by scholars Robert U. Ayres and Laura Talens Peiró is maximizing “material efficiency” for rare earths and other crucial materials. Currently, when high grade ore is mined, lower quality ores or unwanted side materials, the mining equivalent of fisheries’ by catch, are excavated but not used. In addition to recycling, finding uses for these mining byproducts could potentially reduce waste in the electronic and renewable energy sector. One drawback is that some of these lower-grade materials are energy intensive to collect, given the low yield.
In the short term, the risks of mining rare earth elements do not outweigh the benefits of renewable power, but improvements are needed. And when it comes to each individual’s impact, forgoing that latest smart phone upgrade may just be the best thing you can do.
Impact of Wind turbine vibrations on Ground water and Shale
Ground water contamination has been reported from Canada, from areas where the bedrock is comprised of shale,. This needs to be investigated as in Pakistan we have areas where wind is feasible and the bedrock or geology is shale based. Large wind turbines are getting larger and therefore require a large pylon to support the machine. This requires to pile-drive a massive steel beams into the bedrock. The problem is that the bedrock may be made of shale and is known to contain uranium and arsenic. Vibration from the pile-driving breaks up this toxic shale below the groundwater and contaminates it. Area residents can’t drink, bathe, or wash their clothes because of this. Water wells are being poisoned  . Construction of wind turbines continues even though scientific tests at several farms show that well water has been contaminated. 
Canadian users of ground water, attribute contamination of ground water to the wind turbines being built nearby and the companies developing them.  A large number of local rural residents who believe the problems with their well water owe to the interaction between local wind farm development and the area’s unique geology. The sedimentary bedrock — dark in color and fine-grained — lurks beneath most of Chatham-Kent. It’s known to contain sulphur, carbon, and toxic heavy metals. A resident says that his well was drilled by his father half a century ago and had always run clear — until sediment clogged it last October. Now, the water is the color of tea and when poured and small particles sink to the bottom of a glass. 
Ensuing government research debunked some of the claims. A 2014 health federal health study, for instance, showed that “annoyance” was the sole condition found to increase as levels of wind turbine noise increased. (The report did note that community annoyance was statistically related to health effects such as migraines, blood pressure changes, tinnitus, and stress.). But events in Chatham-Kent raise the possibility that the massive wind catchers pose unique and under-considered risks to the region’s environment, and the health and safety of its residents. 
Spokesman for Water Wells First and an area farmer says the concern is that vibrations — either from pile driving during the construction phase or, eventually, the everyday operations of the turbines — might disturb the fragile Kettle Point black shale bedrock and contaminate the ancient aquifer that serves as the local source of well water. The worry was justified: It is well established that vibrations from pile driving can damage nearby structures. As for ordinary turbine operations, one recent Canadian study found a relationship between the vibrations and ground material within 100 meters of the structure.
Moreover, Water Wells First contends that the company and ministry didn’t take the special characteristics of the local geology into account. Residents realized their worst fears as the project began the construction phase last summer. Nineteen wells began to experience sediment problems, nearly a third of the 64 wells that the group members had tested at their own expense. Bill Clarke, a hydro geologist for Water Wells First who gathered and analyzed the samples, says follow-up testing showed the affected wells experienced changes in water turbidity, amount of particles, color, and rate of flow. While he says some of the changes were marginal, others were alarming. In one instance, the black shale particle count jumped from 47 particles per milliliter to 681,939 — with nearly half of the particles being as tiny as those found in cigarette smoke.
Tiny particles are potentially dangerous because they can be too small to settle to the bottom of a well, nor can they be controlled using conventional water filtration systems. A medical geologist based in Ingersoll, says the acidic atmosphere in the stomach can break down the binding between a clay-based shale particle and any heavy metals attached, allowing the metals to settle in other areas of the body rather than to pass through our digestive system
Wade said turbines can be retrofitted to dampen vibrations and alternative anchoring systems are available, but those would cost more. The water table is fragile in Dover, part of a geological area stretching from Lake Huron to Chatham-Kent. There are just 50 to 70 feet of overburden in most places covering black shale bedrock. 
Jakubec and Stainton said there are studies from Scotland and Italy that have identified seismic coupling. Jakubec, a green energy researcher, said impacts tend to be felt from 1.5 to five kilometers away from turbine locations. Geological engineer Maurice Dusseault wasn’t surprised to hear that Chatham-Kent water wells were contaminated in the wake of pile driving for wind turbines.“Pile driving emits a lot of low-frequency energy, and it is not at all surprising to me that there could be related groundwater effects. The concept of large-amplitude, low frequency excitation as an aid to liquid flow is reasonably well-known,” the University of Waterloo professor said. “Low frequency deformation waves are absolutely known to lead to fluctuation in ground water levels as well as changes in the particulate count in shallow groundwater wells.”
In addition, Dusseault said affected residents were well-advised in having their wells baseline tested prior to construction last summer. It’s the type of evaluation he recommends. Before and after tests sent by the Water Wells First citizens’ group to RTI Laboratories in Michigan show an exponential increase [in] turbidity among the 14 affected wells, including [a] large proportion that can be attributed to Kettle [Point] black shale particles that are known to contain heavy metals, including uranium, arsenic and lead.
That’s not the conclusion reached by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, as outlined in letters recently sent to affected well owners living near the North Kent One project in the northern part of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent. Whilst there’s been an admission that wells have indeed been contaminated.  That contamination can only be attributed to “unidentified factors.” Pile-driving activities associated with wind turbine development are not to blame, the MOECC maintains.
The MOECC, in coming to its conclusion, relied upon the vibration evaluations prepared for the developers Samsung and Pattern Energy, by Golder Associates Limited. Golder measured changes to particle velocity as a measure of vibration intensity created by pile driving. 
The concerns have been dismissed by Chatham-Kent’s Medical Officer of Health who concluded that there is no health risk from undisclosed particles in water when no bacteria are present. Jakubec, however, said there are at least two potential pathways through which the heavy metals in black shale particles can enter the human body.

 Environmental impacts of Wind Energy  
Despite its vast wind potential and benefits, there are a variety of environmental impacts associated with wind power generation that should be recognized and mitigated. 

Land Use

The land use impact of wind power facilities varies substantially depending on the site: wind turbines placed in flat areas typically use more land than those located in hilly areas. However, wind turbines do not occupy all of this land; they must be spaced approximately 5 to 10 rotor diameters apart (a rotor diameter is the diameter of the wind turbine blades). Thus, the turbines themselves and the surrounding infrastructure (including roads and transmission lines) occupy a small portion of the total area of a wind facility.
A survey by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of large wind facilities in the United States found that they use between 30 and 141 acres per megawatt of power output capacity (a typical new utility-scale wind turbine is about 2 megawatts). However, less than 1 acre per megawatt is disturbed permanently and less than 3.5 acres per megawatt are disturbed temporarily during construction. The remainder of the land can be used for a variety of other productive purposes, including livestock grazing, agriculture, highways, and hiking trails . Alternatively, wind facilities can be sited on brownfields (abandoned or underused industrial land) or other commercial and industrial locations, which significantly reduces concerns about land use   (Hybrid solar and wind farms save land and have other benefits, read more at https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2018/10/hybrid-solar-wind-power-plants.html)
Offshore wind facilities require larger amounts of space because the turbines and blades are bigger than their land-based counterparts. Depending on their location, such offshore installations may compete with a variety of other ocean activities, such as fishing, recreational activities, sand and gravel extraction, oil and gas extraction, navigation, and aquaculture. Employing best practices in planning and siting can help minimize potential land use impacts of offshore and land-based wind projects 

Wildlife and Habitat


The impact of wind turbines on wildlife, most notably on birds and bats, has been widely document and studied. A recent National Wind Coordinating Committee (NWCC) review of peer-reviewed research found evidence of bird and bat deaths from collisions with wind turbines and due to changes in air pressure caused by the spinning turbines, as well as from habitat disruption. The NWCC concluded that these impacts are relatively low and do not pose a threat to species populations  
Additionally, research into wildlife behavior and advances in wind turbine technology have helped to reduce bird and bat deaths. For example, wildlife biologists have found that bats are most active when wind speeds are low. Using this information, the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative concluded that keeping wind turbines motionless during times of low wind speeds could reduce bat deaths by more than half without significantly affecting power production. Other wildlife impacts can be mitigated through better siting of wind turbines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has played a leadership role in this effort by convening an advisory group including representatives from industry, state and tribal governments, and nonprofit organizations that made comprehensive recommendations on appropriate wind farm siting and best management practices  
 Offshore wind turbines can have similar impacts on marine birds, but as with onshore wind turbines, the bird deaths associated with offshore wind are minimal. Wind farms located offshore will also impact fish and other marine wildlife. Some studies suggest that turbines may actually increase fish populations by acting as artificial reefs. The impact will vary from site to site, and therefore proper research and monitoring systems are needed for each offshore wind facility  

Public Health and Community

Sound and visual impact are the two main public health and community concerns associated with operating wind turbines. Most of the sound generated by wind turbines is aerodynamic, caused by the movement of turbine blades through the air. There is also mechanical sound generated by the turbine itself. Overall sound levels depend on turbine design and wind speed.
Some people living close to wind facilities have complained about sound and vibration issues, but industry and government-sponsored studies in Canada and Australia have found that these issues do not adversely impact public health . However, it is important for wind turbine developers to take these community concerns seriously by following “good neighbor” best practices for siting turbines and initiating open dialogue with affected community members. Additionally, technological advances, such as minimizing blade surface imperfections and using sound-absorbent materials can reduce wind turbine noise .
Under certain lighting conditions, wind turbines can create an effect known as shadow flicker. This annoyance can be minimized with careful siting, planting trees or installing window awnings, or curtailing wind turbine operations when certain lighting conditions exist .
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that large wind turbines, like all structures over 200 feet high, have white or red lights for aviation safety. However, the FAA recently determined that as long as there are no gaps in lighting greater than a half-mile, it is not necessary to light each tower in a multi-turbine wind project. Daytime lighting is unnecessary as long as the turbines are painted white.
 When it comes to aesthetics, wind turbines can elicit strong reactions. To some people, they are graceful sculptures; to others, they are eyesores that compromise the natural landscape. Whether a community is willing to accept an altered skyline in return for cleaner power should be decided in an open public dialogue.

Life-Cycle Global Warming Emissions

 While there are no global warming emissions associated with operating wind turbines, there are emissions associated with other stages of a wind turbine’s life-cycle, including materials production, materials transportation, on-site construction and assembly, operation and maintenance, and decommissioning and dismantlement.
Estimates of total global warming emissions depend on a number of factors, including wind speed, percent of time the wind is blowing, and the material composition of the wind turbine . Most estimates of wind turbine life-cycle global warming emissions are between 0.02 and 0.04 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. To put this into context, estimates of life-cycle global warming emissions for natural gas generated electricity are between 0.6 and 2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour and estimates for coal-generated electricity are 1.4 and 3.6 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.

Environmental Impacts of Solar Energy
The potential environmental impacts associated with solar power  are : land use ; habitat loss; water use; and the use of hazardous materials in manufacturing , these can vary greatly depending on the technology, which includes two broad categories: photovoltaic (PV) solar cells or concentrating solar thermal plants  The scale of the system — ranging from small, distributed rooftop PV arrays to large utility-scale PV and CSP projects — also plays a significant role in the level of environmental impact.

Land Use

Depending on their location, larger utility-scale solar facilities can raise concerns about land degradation and habitat loss. Total land area requirements vary depending on the technology, the topography of the site, and the intensity of the solar resource. Estimates for utility-scale PV systems range from 3.5 to 10 acres per megawatt, while estimates for CSP facilities are between 4 and 16.5 acres per megawatt.
Unlike wind facilities, there is less opportunity for solar projects to share land with agricultural uses. However, land impacts from utility-scale solar systems can be minimized by siting them at lower-quality locations such as brownfields, abandoned mining land, or existing transportation and transmission corridors. Smaller scale solar PV arrays, which can be built on homes or commercial buildings, also have minimal land use impact.

Water Use

Solar PV cells do not use water for generating electricity. However, as in all manufacturing processes, some water is used to manufacture solar PV components. Concentrating solar thermal plants (CSP), like all thermal electric plants, require water for cooling. Water use depends on the plant design, plant location, and the type of cooling system.
CSP plants that use wet-recirculating technology with cooling towers withdraw between 600 and 650 gallons of water per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. CSP plants with once-through cooling technology have higher levels of water withdrawal, but lower total water consumption (because water is not lost as steam). Dry-cooling technology can reduce water use at CSP plants by approximately 90 percent . However, the tradeoffs to these water savings are higher costs and lower efficiencies. In addition, dry-cooling technology is significantly less effective at temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Many of the regions in the World that have the highest potential for solar energy also tend to be those with the driest climates, so careful consideration of these water tradeoffs is essential

Hazardous Materials

The PV cell manufacturing process includes a number of hazardous materials, most of which are used to clean and purify the semiconductor surface. These chemicals, similar to those used in the general semiconductor industry, include hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and acetone. The amount and type of chemicals used depends on the type of cell, the amount of cleaning that is needed, and the size of silicon wafer. Workers also face risks associated with inhaling silicon dust.  
 Thin-film PV cells contain a number of more toxic materials than those used in traditional silicon photovoltaic cells, including gallium arsenide, copper-indium-gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride. If not handled and disposed of properly, these materials could pose serious environmental or public health threats. However, manufacturers have a strong financial incentive to ensure that these highly valuable and often rare materials are recycled rather than thrown away.

Life-Cycle Global Warming Emissions

While there are no global warming emissions associated with generating electricity from solar energy, there are emissions associated with other stages of the solar life-cycle, including manufacturing, materials transportation, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning and dismantlement. Most estimates of life-cycle emissions for photovoltaic systems are between 0.07 and 0.18 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.
Most estimates for concentrating solar power range from 0.08 to 0.2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. In both cases, this is far less than the lifecycle emission rates for natural gas (0.6-2 lbs of CO2E/kWh) and coal (1.4-3.6 lbs of CO2E/kWh)

Agriculture and Solar Cells; Jan., 23, 2020: It’s increasingly been suggested that solar panels could be used on agricultural fields, producing clean electricity while maintaining agricultural fields. Mint plants have been analyzed after having grown on contaminated soil samples. Image credits: Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.
Perovskite cells have become some of the most efficient and productive types of solar cells. Their efficiency can be well over 20% (long considered to be a landmark in solar energy), and they can be built from relatively low-cost materials — which means that in the long run, the produced electricity can be quite cheap. They’re also the fastest-advancing solar technology, raising even more hopes about their potential.. But there are some issues to be considered, especially when it comes to lead. The most commonly studied perovskite absorber is something called methylammonium lead trihalide — a fiendishly complex substance which can leak lead into the environment. In fact, all perovskite cells contain methylammonium ions surrounded by heavy metal atoms. Most commonly, these metal atoms are lead. If some of this lead does reach the ground, researchers found, it can be easily absorbed by plants — even more easily easier than lead from other sources.
To test this, Prof. Antonio Abate at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and colleagues from Germany, Italy, and China, set up an experimental design. They contaminated soil samples with lead from either perovskite solar cells or other lead sources and then cultivated different plants (mint, chili, and cabbage). After allowing the plants to grow and develop naturally, they analyzed how much lead could be found in the plant body and leaf.
Surprisingly, the lead from perovskites was 10 times more bioavailable than other sources of lead contamination — so if any perovskite lead reaches the soil, it is very likely to be accumulated in plants. Similar trends were observed when the lead was replaced with tin.
Needless to say, lead is toxic and should not reach the food chain in any form. But the scale of the problem also warrants some clarification. A square meter perovskite solar module contains a total of only 0.8 grams of lead — which is very little compared to other technical sources of lead, such as batteries. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that all the lead content would leak into the environment. Nevertheless, it’s a problem that warrants further investigation, says Professor Christos Markides, Head of the Clean Energy Processes at Imperial College London, who was not involved with the study.
“This is an interesting study concerning the environmental impact of lead in perovskite solar cells, a photovoltaic technology that has attracted significant attention recently owing to its excellent performance and promise of lower cost compared to conventional and other alternatives. It is of note because it explores the impact on plants of the use of lead in such solar cells and provides evidence that this is something that should be considered with great care,” Markides explains.
“Concerns relating to the widespread deployment of lead-based perovskite solar cells have been raised for some time, given that these toxic materials are soluble in water, so contamination can lead to environmental but also health issues once they enter the food chain.”
In addition, there are important limitations to this study. We don’t really know how much lead actually leaks from these cells, and how it is absorbed by plants — particularly plants other than the ones trialed here. So this study shouldn’t be interpreted as “solar panels leak a lot of lead into plants”.
Andrew Meharg, Professor of Biology at Queen’s University Belfast, also highlighted the study’s limitations: while this does pinpoint a reason for further study to better understand the leakage and absorption of perovskite lead, it is very unlikely that this poses a major environmental problem.
“Lead contamination of soils is multiple and extensive, and in cases extreme, globally, from a wide range of industrial and domestic activities, yet lead in crops is not really a concern due to lead’s poor mobility in soils, its limited uptake by and restricted translocation within plants.”
“The lead from the peroskovite lead is only 0.1% of panels, and only doubles in the edible parts (leaves) of one plant (mint), tested on one soil. The break-up and leaching scenarios to soils of solar panels needs investigated, this was not conducted here, To state that all lead in solar panels should be replaced, with another toxic and problematic element tin, from such limited findings is not warranted without further extensive testing in a range of actual soils that have been contaminated in situ by disused solar panels.”
https://www.zmescience.com/science/solar-panels-lead-plants-21012020/

Drawbacks of VRE: Jun., 12, 2020: The film starts by highlighting the primary limitation of wind and solar power: They’re weather dependent and sometimes produce no electricity. Consequently, these intermittent sources need to be backed up by something more reliable, and, as the filmmakers found, those reliable electricity sources are often fossil fuels. In addition to sometimes not showing up for work, wind and solar plants require nearly 100 times more land to generate the same amount of electricity as a natural gas plant. The film illustrates this in detail, showing a football-field-sized solar array only capable of powering just 10 homes in a Michigan town. At one point, the site developer notes that to power the whole town, it would take a solar array so large it would require 15-square miles.
The alternative to relying on fossil fuels for backup is large-scale lithium battery storage. The film notes, however, that these batteries are prohibitively expensive, and the current world supply of energy battery storage can hold just one tenth of one percent of global energy usage. 
These obstacles are enough that, after several decades and half a trillion dollars of investment (even more globally), wind and solar combined generate just 9 percentof America’s electricity and less than 4 percent of its energy. 
But even these challenges deal only with fully functional green technologies. The film shows that creating wind turbines, solar panels and batteries relies on a mining and manufacturing process so intensive that one wonders if saving the planet really is the goal. The production of each of these technologies depends on the very fossil fuels they’re attempting to replace and creates indispensable toxic waste in the process. The film also notes the frequent large-scale habitat destruction that accompanies green energy installations, underscoring the inescapable fact that every energy source has an environmental impact.
Further, wind turbines and solar panels have lifespans of roughly 20 years, which means this process must be repeated. This lifespan is less than half the lifespan of any traditional plant, adding to the land use disparity. For instance, natural gas plants can last 40 years, and nuclear plants between 60-80 years. 
All these challenges underscore the point made by environmental scholar Richard York interviewed in the film: Contrary to popular belief, green energy does a poor job displacing fossil fuels. It takes “between four and thirteen units of non-fossil energy to displace one unit of fossil energy.”
This isn’t to say, though, that the pursuit of green energy is futile. When used in moderation, wind and solar power can relieve pressure on the grid by providing low-cost electricity. As the film notes, however, problems arise when green energy integration is stretched beyond its useful limits. It doesn’t matter how cheap green energy gets if it can’t provide electricity when you need it.
While the film indulges in overpopulation theories and anti-capitalist rhetoric typical of Moore’s films, it nonetheless is an important contribution to the green energy discussion. The general public has largely been shielded from green energy’s intermittency, scale, land use and lifespan barriers that energy analysts have written about for years. By introducing these matters to a wider audience, Moore has reminded us that while green energy certainly has its place, it also has its limits.


Painting wind turbines black can help birds not fly into them The white, sleek exterior of the wind turbine definitely looks good to me. But birds probably wouldn’t agree. According to a new paper, the current design of our wind turbines makes them hard to see for birds, promoting impacts. Image credits Roel May et al., (2020), Ecology and Evolution. Not only would such a change help save bird lives, but it would also help our bottom line. Birds in flight hit hard, and turbines are expensive to repair or replace. Taking one of them off for repairs also incurs costs (as they can’t produce power during the same time). All in all, the paper argues, painting one of the three rotor blades black is enough to help birds see the turbines and avoid collisions. Seeing is avoiding “As wind energy deployment increases and larger wind‐power plants are considered, bird fatalities through collision with moving turbine rotor blades are expected to increase. However, few (cost‐) effective deterrent or mitigation measures have so far been developed to reduce the risk of collision,” the authors explain in their paper. “We tested the hypothesis that painting would increase the visibility of the blades, [which reduced bird fatalities] by over 70% relative to the neighboring control (i.e., unpainted) turbines.” Growing awareness of climate change has prompted countries all over the world to move away from fossil fuels into clean energy sources; wind is a particular favorite, as wind farms can be installed in otherwise unusable (and quite unpleasant areas) such as windy coastal areas. ADVERTISEMENT That isn’t to say, however, that wind energy is flawless. As with everything else in life, it comes with good and bad both. Although they won’t release CO2 and heat up the planet, turbines can be quite disturbing to wildlife as they’re quite noisy, they bring humans to the area, and they’re a significant collision risk for birds. We have procedures in place to ensure that the sites we choose for such farms pose the lowest possible risk to wildlife. However, as more and more wind capacity is being installed, it’s unavoidable that it will impact local animals. The current paper tested whether painting one of the three rotor blades of each turbine can help lower collisions with birds. The experiment was carried out at the Smøla wind-power in Norway. The plant was built in two phases: 20 turbines of 2.1 MW were finished in September 2002, and an additional 48 turbines of 2.3 MW in August 2005. the team used trained dogs to look for bird carcasses in a radius of 100 m around the turbines “at regular intervals”. Roughly 9,560 turbine searches were performed between 2006–2016, finding 464 carcasses. The team explains that “there was an average 71.9% reduction in the annual fatality rate after painting at the painted turbines relative to the control turbines”. Despite this, they note that annual fatalities fluctuated significantly. All in all, there is enough evidence to seriously consider this approach as an effective way to protect birds from impacts with wind turbines. However, more long-term research is needed to establish exactly how effective it is in absolute numbers. “The in situ experiment was performed comparing only four treated turbines to the neighboring four untreated turbines. We must therefore be careful what we deduce from the experiment given the limited number of turbine pairs,” the authors note. “However, the experiment ran over a long timeframe, encompassing seven and a half years pretreatment and three and a half years post‐treatment” The paper “Paint it black: Efficacy of increased wind turbine rotor blade visibility to reduce avian fatalities” has been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. https://www.zmescience.com/science/painting-wind-turbines-black-birds-223423/

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