I always thought energy production from wind was "great" until I read about the bird kills (esp. migratory birds) and apparently also all the bats that are killed. Has this problems been addressed in any satisfactory way? Alternative energy sources are essential but not when thousands of animals are sacrificed.

It's about time, considering a study showed that the wind farm in eastern Colorado was shown to be cheaper than natural gas long before the recent price increases, and Xcel continued to charge a premium for power from it.

"Alternative energy sources are essential but not when thousands of animals are sacrificed."

A solution must be found to that problem (and I can think of a couple), but please don't forget to take into account the environmental impacts of the alternatives to wind - don't look at it in isolation.

Only solar has less impact. Pretty much all the rest is worse.

There's an article in Wired this month that outlines some of the problems and their solutions regarding wind turbines and how they affect wildlife. In short, the problems can largely be dealt with by assessing the location before installation and by using modern windmill design that has larger, slower rotating blades. Also, here is another good article outlining the fortunate situation that Colorado residents are facing with wind energy becoming cheaper than natural gas generated energy.

Feral and domestic cats kill more birds by a couple of orders of magnitude than windmills. Compare the number of bird strikes on windows of existing buildings to prospective windmill farms. Bats I don't know about but suspect the new, slower blade technology also reduces bat strikes.

Boston Sunday Globe Magazine for October 16, 2005 has an article about a small domestic windmill on a house in Scituate MA. The owner, Jay Silva (jay.silva@silvaenergy.com) is so happy with the system he's starting to sell them to others.

There are places where wind turbines just don't belong: such as endangered species habitat or on a flyway narrows, such as a mountain gap. However, window hits, high transmission wires, habitat loss, and cats are the serious exposures for birds, as stated above. Audubon Society has grappled with this issue and I believe may have taken a formal position. Anyone know?

Wow - it'd be nice if we got cheaper rates here, too, but we primarily use coal in this state. For me, the premium for wind has been fairly negligible - about $5 or less per month.

As for the whole avian mortality issue, context is important:
http://www.awea.org/faq/tutorial/images/Bird_Fatalities.gif

Our family visited a large wind farm in Spain this summer and actually drove up next to the wind turbines. Cattle were placidly grazing beneath the large machines and white cattle egrets(Bubulcus ibis) were walking and flying beneath the rotating blades having learned to avoid them while searching for insects to eat. I was amazed to see how they adapted. It would make Darwin proud.

Please, do not the same mistakes as we did in Germany: First installing those big wind mills and
then observe how birds and bats die. The thing
with the bats is that they switch off their "RADAR"
when flying to wintering grounds. Also consider that
huge blades have huge tip speed that kills animals.

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