Bats fall victim to wind turbines

[Cheryl Jones]

Bats fall victim to wind turbines; bugs proliferate
Posted: 08/01/2011
By ERICH SCHWARTZEL, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"The 420 wind turbines now in use across Pennsylvania killed more than 10,000 bats last year -- mostly in the late summer months, according to the state Game Commission. That's an average of 25 bats per turbine per year, and the Nature Conservancy predicts as many as 2,900 turbines will be set up across the state by 2030.

This is a bad time to be a bat."

".....Bats suffer from a condition called barotrauma. It's the bat equivalent of the "bends" that scuba divers can suffer if they surface too quickly.
The rapid drop in air pressure around the blades causes the bats' lungs to burst, and they collapse with no ostensible lacerations or scars on the body."

Read on:
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/s ... roliferate

[dfcaver]

Indiana bat killed by wind turbine:

http://tribune-democrat.com/local/x3455 ... f-rare-bat

Sometimes I wonder about green energy. Most PA mountaintops have grown these huge windmills. If they now have to be shut off at night, I guess we now need twice as many...as our electric bills have never been higher. It does seem that nighttime operation will restart in mid November, after hibernation. These windmill farms are located about 20 miles (as the bat flies) west of Canoe Creek Mine, which is probably the home of this individual bat. Considering the small number of survivors from WNS remaining in the mine, deaths involving Indianas are especially alarming.

The latest "farm" - Chestnut Flats, west of Altoona, has been completed for about a year, and has not yet been placed in operation.


I kind of miss a good coal fired plant somedays....

[DeanWiseman]

If they now have to be shut off at night, I guess we now need twice as many...as our electric bills have never been higher. It does seem that nighttime operation will restart in mid November, after hibernation.

Nighttime is typically the time when power draw levels are lowest.

I learned this back in the early 80's, when I'd be down at Land Between the Lakes, near Murray, KY, in the summer time. The TVA makes a lot of electricity off the two lakes there. Lake levels would rise about a foot at night, because they made less electricity at night. The mosquitoes would lay their eggs... but then the next day, the generators would fire up, lake levels would drop, leaving the eggs to bake in the sun.

Plus, winds tend to drop at night, anyway... so my guess is that it won't make that big of an impact on how much energy they make.

-Dean

[PYoungbaer]

Next to WNS, the impact of wind turbines on bats is the biggest subject of research presented at the annual North American Symposium on Bat Research. NASBR is the single largest meeting of bat researcher in North America, and WNS and wind have dominated a normally broader agenda in recent years. In a number of states both wind development and WNS are presenting threats to bats - a double whammy, if you will - and response strategies are often intermingled.

This year's NASBR conference is taking place next week in Toronto, Ontario, October 25-29. Abstracts have just been posted on line for anyone interested in either wind or WNS issues, or general bat research:

http://www.nasbr.org/meetings/41_toronto/