Ohio Manages Risk of Wildlife Impacts From Wind Turbines: An Update
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03.27.08
We're not sure what gives birds and bats more stress: wind turbines or ideological opponents of wind turbines who use irrational avian mortality fears as a political wedge. Letting actual field biologists do some site specific research is generally going to be better for the avians and our politics (which are always local). It's even better if all stakeholders agree up front to a risk management plan based on field experience.
Preliminary field data gathering is off to a good start in Ohio, as we reported in Migratory Bird Flyways And Off-Shore Wind Farms: A Co-Evolutionary Overlap.
The U.S. State of Ohio has taken the next step - integrating targeted research and risk management provisions. Its a smart way to hedge investment in alternative energy against the risks to biodiversity posed by both wind and climate change.
[The] state is asking companies to sign voluntary agreements to study the risk before and after wind farms are built. And if the companies follow the rules, neither Ohio nor the feds will shut down turbines, even if thousands of animals are killed.
Companies that sign the voluntary agreement would have to notify the state at least 18 months before building turbines. And they would have to monitor sites for as long as a year for eagles, hawks, migratory birds and bats.Once turbines are running, the companies would monitor for as long as two years to see whether unacceptable numbers of bats and birds were killed. If so, turbines could be shut off or slowed during peak migration periods.
Via::Columbus Dispatch, "Windmills that kill birds, bats get a pass, If owners agree to limit harm, state won't sue" Image credit::Wind Explorer, interactive wind resources map of ohio AND Green Energy Ohio
I lived in Dayton, Ohio for about 8 years. The local power company wanted to test wind power in the are and put up a couple of windmills. They had to put small motors on the things because the south west side of the state had very little wind during the year.
I suspect the best place for turbines would be in the north and close to the Lake shore. And, I would expect the larger the turbine the better. The area gets lake effect wind during certain times of the year and that would help the state with their power issues. Their electric grid has many short comings - it has power surges and power drops - it is important to have 'conditioners' to protect computers and such. They need everything they can to stabilize their power - conservation, wind, solar (spotty), hydro, methane... that's another issue for Ohio.... after privatizing SW Ohio sanitation plants, they stopped burning off or 'exporting' extra CH4... they just let it go into the air.... poor Ohio...
"They had to put small motors on the things because the south west side of the state had very little wind during the year."
This does not seem to make sense. Are you stating the myth that wind turbines rotors are made to turn by motors?
Ofcourse all windturbines have motors in them: the biggest turn the nacelle so that the rotor faces the direction the wind is coming from, smaller ones pitch the rotorblades in an angle that optimises the yield at the current windspeed.
Both motors have nothing to do with an absence of wind.