Re: [asa] Psychology, technology, & the sugar-substitute brouhaha

, Dick Fischer wrote:
>
>
>> Wind energy (5 cents/kWh) now is on a par with
>> natural gas. New wind costs the same per kWh as new coal (cost of
>> construction of new plant, depreciated over operating lifetime,
>> allowing for maintenance, not including carbon taxes); depreciated
>> wind costs much less than depreciated coal. (Only, there's very
>> little depreciated wind in the US, since most of it has been
>> installed only recently.)
>
> And wind turbines kill birds, which eat insects, which otherwise
> have to
> be killed with chemicals, which requires coal or oil again.
>
>
The research (there's rather a lot of it) shows that wind turbines
kill no more birds than anything else high we put up: cell phone
towers, tall buildings, etc. The count is est. 2-5 birds/turbine/
year. (My own engrg building is only 3 stories but has a glass
mirror skin and kills at least that many birds/yr or more.) The bad
reputation stems from a rather poorly thought-out project in the
Altameda (sp?) valley in CA: the valley has the highest concentration
of raptors of almost anywhere in the US and today would never have
been used as a turbine site.

Ruth

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Received on Wed Feb 13 22:37:09 2008