I hope birds arent going to get chewed up in turbines.
Until wind power can solve this problem it wont be green.

Can the land still be used for crops or grazing?

Here's to debunking the myth that windpower kills birds. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php
Now on to the real matter at hand.
"But other states may find the Texas model difficult to emulate. The state is unique in having its own electricity grid. All other states fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to any transmission proposals."

Isn't it funny how the federal government is always in the way. With a population of 300 million people, more Americans should seriously consider disbanding the band of rogues in D.C. who call themselves leadership and start to relying on their state and local governments where the power is decentralized enough to disallow pulling the wool over everyone's eyes.
And for everyone who is worried about what I am saying, I refer to the broken fourth amendment of the past month as a great reason to disband the tyrants.

To protect the birds, all they need to do is build some sort of monstrous housing for those things, with mesh siding and flapping streamers that scare the birds away and doesn't hamper the wind blowing through. That wouldn't be hard to construct.

The surrounding countryside would be as safe for crops or grazing as anything else is in this modern era. It's like asking how safe we are just living with all the high tech stuff we're surrounded by. (We aren't safe at all in my estimation).

Right on PatriotisVeritas.

Isn't it odd how, when those "no big government" howling goons got in power the government suddenly shot out in all directions and became so monstrously bloated its boundaries are no longer discernable?

I could almost see those grappling hooks they were shooting out into the states to attach their power there as well. The states decide to do something, there's the head of some federal regulatory office (a funny name considering they've cut out all regulations, except when it concerns we unimportant people) saying, ''No, no. Can't do that. Against regulations, or Congress is working on a solution to that problem."

Outside of a humungus state like Texas, it's often good to have multi-state (fed) rules to keep the distribution lines placed in the most efficient way. Yes, it adds another layer of annoying regulation, but sometimes it's worth it to get it done right.

..."Lack of transmission is a severe problem in a number of states that, like Texas, want to develop their wind resources. Wind now accounts for 1 percent of the nation's electricity generation but could rise to 20 percent by 2030, according to a recent Department of Energy report, if transmission lines are built and other challenges met....

With news like this and the three Rs:

Reduce population
Reduce consumption
Reduce income inequality

We could begin to hope again. Until then, there aren't going to be any answers, only palliative care for a dying civilization clinging to it tired and worn ideas.

www.StudentsForTheEarth.org

The "bird problem" is a greatly exaggerated one trotted out by NIMBYists, who have shut down a number of wind power projects while not offering any other alternatives. There are even anti-wind power groups who have succeeded in stopping wind power in West Virginia.

And sorry to say to the localists, but wind power is only going to be practical with a continent-sized centrally operates power transmission grid. It is the the rich elite NIMByists, not FERC that are stopping wind and power-line development.

Yes, the bird shredder myth is just that with modern turbines.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31542/story.htm

If people are worried about windmills killing birds, why haven't they tried to outlaw plate glass windows. How many birds break their necks each day flying into those. Or outlaw house cats who also make their share of kills.
I am researching home windmill generators. With energy prices on the rise, each home with enough lot space should have at least one.

Kelmerea: Have you read the suggested links about bird deaths? Are you ready to say you change your mind?

The blades of those wind turbines are not travelling fast, so you'd have to be an unlucky (and big) bird to get swiped by one.

But if you don't like wind power, hey let's build another coal-fired power station. How do you think birds will code with the emissions from that? Or how they will cope when their habitat is destroyed by strip mining?

One's thing is for sure -- there will be power generators of some sort. And really, in terms of what it produces, this is not that much, but every one of these reduces the load on the dirty power. It is also a giant step in the right direction.

Mind you, I'm a solar professional but I like windpower (actually created by the sun which heats air thus creating wind currents between high and low pressure zones). The only rap I have against it is that wind turbines are mechanical and thereby subject to breakdown over time. They also need lubricants--hopefully all synthetic. PV panels are static and lose only 1/2 to 1% a year from natural degradation or aging and can produce as long as 50 years. Still, wind is clean energy that's certainly renewable.

kelmer: Wind turbines don't spin like a fan anymore. The gearing has been changed and now the props turn more like old-fashioned Dutch windmills.

joneden: I'd add another "R": Reduce corruption

The big turbines do kill birds when they are in migratory pathways. The treehugger article's analogy is flawed. A two hundred foot long rotor spinning at 30 rpm has a tip velocity of 292 mph. But the worst of it is that the blade is not there, from the bird's pov, 99.99% of the time, It has no way to know that it's flying into the blade's path. There are better designs on the horizon but they haven't developed the efficiency of the rotors yet.
This article points out the real flaw in all of the corporate-proposed renewable/alternative energy projects. They focus on gigantic projects far away from the end users that require long and very lossy transmission trunks to get the power to the customers. It's wasteful and the maintenance of powerlines, especially in places where there is tree and brush cover, is like a linear environmental disaster with rough roads hacked into them for clearing crews and herbicides being applied every few years. Go find a powerline on Google Earth and follow it for a while, look at the mess they make. There is some evidence that living under them is unhealthy for people and for cows. Near the big trunkline comming off the Nuclear plant near me, theres a hill where you can hold a flourecent tube up overhead, unconnected to anything and it will light up in your hands!
We need to create the energy as close to where it's used as we can. Wind can be useful in Urban situations with these updraft/spiral turbines that people at MIT and in England are working with. But imagine if the roof of every shopping mall and big-box retailer had enough PV cels to power not only itself but to feed the grid and power the buildings around them? The economies of scale would make it affordable for most people's houses as well (install as much as your roof will hold and sell your excess to the grid, your meter runs backwards all day, they send you a check at the end of the month!). Imagine that every industrial site that had a heating plant was co-generating electricity off of their waste heat, et cetera.
The keys are local generation, by small distributed sources using a diversity of methods and technologies. No sense in going green if it isn't done smart.

"The keys are local generation, by small distributed sources using a diversity of methods and technologies."

For most areas, this would be a prescription for continues reliance on fossil fuels - in the form of even more inefficient small generation plants.

As fossil fuel becomes evermore expensive, alternatives doppler down into "reasonable" range. Scaled up Hydrogen fuel cels, even hydrogen micro turbines can wean US off of petro and NatGas. Wave and Tidal are being tested in Europe and since a large amount of our Populace live near the coasts, that's applicable here. Geothermal heating and cooling is available nearly everywhere.
Of course the most important and most economical is to be much smarter about our use in the first place. Americans have been spoiled by artificially low energy costs forever and that era is ending. It's just stupid for so many nuclear families to live in 2500 square foot McMansions on 2 acres in the burbs eight miles from the nearest store, where every member of the family over 16 has at least one car, where the Tv is on in five different rooms as well as many lights, the house is kept at 50 degrees when it's 90 outside even thought no one's home, just stupid, but it's the American Dream, aint it?The upside of the Oilco extortion we're feeling now, this Oil Shock, is that people are finally taking it seriously and dumping their SUVs as fast as they can. People I never thought would get it are carpooling to work (only they call it catching a ride, carpooling is too granola). GM is discontinuing production of the H2 and H3 Hummers and probably killing the brand. Even Congressional Democrats are getting the message! "Eventually, the United States needs to get serious about investing in renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal power, Murray said.
"Every day, American scientists, innovators and venture capitalists are researching new technologies that could one day end our addiction to oil forever. We should fast-track their efforts by making new investments and keeping their taxes low,"
That's Sen. Pat Murray. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_democrats_energy.html
It's coming, but it's being hijacked by the big money with their big projects, some of which, like biofuel, have unintended consequences when you scale them up.

ln the meantime nuke them towelheads in the Middle-east and wetbacks down south, suck out all thier oil an' let's party like it's 2000 an'99. We're 'Mericans we saved the world its ours all ours. l'll give up my HUMMER when they pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel l!!!!

whiners,
now it is save the birds but lets keep using coal. Get the hell off the pot america and wake the fuck up. More birds run into buildings at night with their lights on than a wind mill. america is so screwed up. You people believe anything you are told by the oil and coal industry

At the Altamont wind farm in N. Calif., turbines kill about 1,000 birds/yr, about half of them raptors (mostly redtail hawks, but also some golden eagles. For some information (sorely needed in this discussion) see: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Altamont_Pass,_California . Or, Google: altamont raptors turbines. You will get about 15,500 hits. So it is not a myth that wind turbines kill birds, but a site-specific problem that must be addressed, and there apparently are engineering solutions.

And please, next time do a little research on-line before you shoot your mouth off, so-to-speak.

Birds or not, if it reduces dependency on coal and petroleum, it's green.

How much wildlife is destroyed by oil spills or oil well drilling in places like Venezuela, Alaska, or the Florida straits? How many sea birds died in the Exxon Valdez incident? How can we even question using wind and solar versus petroleum, coal, and nuclear power?

I sometimes wonder if Big Oil employs faux 'environmentalists' to bombard the Internet with misinformation.

"So it is not a myth that wind turbines kill birds, but a site-specific problem that must be addressed, and there apparently are engineering solutions."

Good point, Bob Coats.

As with anything, there are always going to be drawbacks which have to be weighed against benefits. It appears as if site-specific problems can be dealt with effectively instead of dooming a whole approach.

Someone else mentioned that more birds die from flying into buildings. Without doing the research, this sounds probable. Yet, very few call for the demolition of buildings. We need to keep our heads and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

"Energy, Earth and Everyone - Energy Strategies for Spaceship Earth" by Medard Gabel with the World Game Laboratory ISBN 0-385-14081-9 1980 out of print but findable with author considering publishing an updated edition. Eye opener as to just how much viable energy production could be available - what's stopping it? bad politics and hydrocarbon corp greed - energy is empowerment.
References
http://www.bigpicturesmallworld.com/mg.shtml

http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.medard.gabel

"For a book written in 1980 this one is still amazingly up to date. The graphic presentation is well done. Many of the ideas that one finds in this book are just now emerging in public discourse. Its vision of our energy future is more relevant than our current national energy policy."

WINDPOWER A BIG THREAT TO BIRDS?
PROGRESSIVE MISCONCEPTION, RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA

PatriotisVeritas July 19th, 2008 1:39 pm
"Here's to debunking the myth that windpower kills birds."

Good link. And yes, as noted elsewhere, the technology has changed. But it's more than a "myth."

The concern for winged creatures has come mainly from the right wing - which otherwise supports industry over environment, and ridicules environmental concerns.

"DO WINDMILLS EAT BIRDS?
Foxes Advocate Hen Welfare
"It's strange: suddenly, some of the most unlikely people are losing sleep over what windmills might be doing to birds..."
MORE:

http://www.tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/4351.html

dustdevil said:

"If people are worried about windmills killing birds, why haven't they tried to outlaw plate glass windows. How many birds break their necks each day flying into those. Or outlaw house cats who also make their share of kills."

Good points. And many others.

I wonder if Dutch windmills with sailcloth coverings kill birds. I doubt it. They're turn slowly and are soft. Probably not as efficient though being larger they would have more surface area and more torque. Maybe cheaper to produce too.

But if some of those posters who claim windmills do not kill birds are correct, then the argument is moot.

RE: Does windpower STILL kill birds?

My understanding is that early technology killed birds, but that - as stated in another post - this has changed:

"[B]irds were killed by the first generation of wind turbines set up at Altamont Pass in Northern California. Since the Altamont Pass turbines were erected in the early 1980's, turbine design has been altered, and most subsequent studies have shown that birds tend to fly above the height of most turbines..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/us/06wind.html
(article link for subscribers only)

If some environmentalists believe otherwise, links would be welcome.

The antiquated Altamont turbines were completely different - in particular they had very high rotation speed compared to modern units.

Here in Pennsylvania, modern turbines have gone right along the raptor flyways of Allegheny Front, but so few dead birds have been found that the opponents have had to retreat to complaining about their appearance.

There has been some issues with bats killed by the turbines, but several solutions are believed to be available.

Before any of you dismiss wildlife concerns out of hand, check out this report by the U.S. General Accounting Office:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05906.pdf
It was published in 2005 and is the best summary I've seen of what is known about potential threats to bird and bat populations. A great deal more research is needed to understand why in some locations large numbers of birds and bats can be killed. Unfortunately, researchers are not always permitted access to facilities to monitor and better understand the extent of the problem. Proper siting of turbines can probably avoid many issues--like any industrial facility, there are better and worse places for them. Many people are desperately looking for a silver bullet in wind energy but no such thing exists. Wind energy is green in terms of emissions (not a small thing), but problematic when it comes to habitat degradation (large areas of land must be disturbed due to the low output per unit area of turbines installed). This is as true today as it was in the 1980s--as turbine output has increased, so has our demand for electricity. I believe there is a place for wind in our energy mix, but really, conservation can't be emphasized enough.

Wind tourbines might kill birds!

Where is my chicken sandwich!?