"There’s something deeply comical about suggesting that seagulls are smart enough to wait for you to look away before stealing your french fries, but dumb enough to fly into wind turbine blades.

A two-year study on the interactions of several seabird species at an offshore wind farm found that not a single case of birdstrike was recorded over the study period or in the 10,000 videos taken.

Looking at herring gulls, gannets, kittiwakes, and great black-backed gulls, Swedish state wind company Vattenfall found that most of the birds maintained a 50 to 230-yard distance between themselves and the radius of the spinning turbines.

“This is the first time that any kind of bird species has been studied this closely and in detail at an offshore wind farm,” said study author Henrik Skov. “And these birds are really good at avoiding the turbines. Now we need studies on more varieties.”

The study was conducted on a wind farm consisting of 11 offshore turbines near Aberdeen, Scotland. It used radar surveys and mounted video cameras to gather data.

Why these seabirds avoided the turbines could be down to the individual species observed since other studies have shown seabirds tend to rank high in offshore wind turbine mortality, and of medium risk for land-based wind turbine mortality.

Skov also offered that it could be the turbines are, for one reason or another, outside of prominent flight corridors, and therefore aren’t where birds have historically flown either for migration and nesting purposes, or feeding.

The study is a big milestone in scientists’ attempts to learn how and where to build wind turbines so that they don’t interfere with birds’ flight patterns. If there is something in the data of this study or future observations that could reveal the secret as to why there was no mortality at the Aberdeen wind farm, it could mean that hundreds of thousands of birds could be saved in the future."

-Good News Network, 3/31/23

Wind, Coal, West-by-god-Virginia

Interesting to see an article about a place so close to where I live:

I think that, on a national level, we should do a better job of supporting people whose livelihoods are being eliminated. Yes, we need to support wind and solar and get rid of coal. We must and will do that. However, people and whole towns are suffering pretty badly in the transition.

Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, 2023.

While one of the windier places on earth, the Faroe Islands are still experimenting with wind power. There is an abundance of hydropower, exploited and potential, and the goal is to come close to 90 per cent clean energy in the next decade.

If you're in the Death Stranding fandom in any capacity, we collectively hate the Wind Farm. If you don't hate it, you're probably a BT.

I was near Reese Michigan today and had to stop and take a couple pictures of the windmill farm there.

These pics don’t really show how huge these things are. Too many to count

Wind Farm forest when it's not raining

You don’t want a wind farm going up because you think it’ll ruin the skyline and spoil the view?

Of what?

Thousands of miles of lifeless, monocultural green pasture?

Get in the bin!

Dry

What do you think about my pic?  

I refuse to deliver to Wind Farm. I place that burden on someone else bc fuck that 💀

Ņemot vērā izpētes teritoriju lielumu un kaimiņvalstīs plānoto atkrastes vēja parku jaudu, kā arī piegādes ķēžu tendences, Ministru kabinetam tika rosināts noteikt, ka ELWIND projekta Latvijas puses atkrastes vēja parka plānotā mērķa jauda būs līdz 1000 MW, kas arī tika apstiprināts. Šādas jaudas atkrastes vēja parks ļaus efektīvāk piesaistīt investorus, kā arī veicinās zemāku elektronerģijas cenu reģionā. Līdz šim tika plānots, ka Latvijas un Igaunijas vēja parku jauda kopā varētu sasniegt 1000 MW(..)

The capacity of the ELWIND offshore wind farm in Latvia is planned to be increased to 1000 MW

Taking into account the size of the research areas and the capacity of offshore wind farms planned in neighboring countries, as well as trends in supply chains, the Cabinet of Ministers was encouraged to determine that the planned target capacity of the offshore wind farm on the Latvian side of the ELWIND project will be up to 1000 MW, which was also approved. An offshore wind park of such capacity will allow to attract investors more efficiently, as well as contribute to a lower price of electricity in the region. Until now, it was planned that the total capacity of Latvian and Estonian wind farms could reach 1000 MW(..)

P.S. For the size of Latvia's electrical network, this means a large amount of self-produced electricity... and significantly less fossil fuel imports.

The US should not fund the dispossession of private land by Israelis

"In a span of two days, the company carried out the construction of the wind turbines while Israeli police served as "bodyguards" protecting their work. This development project, of course, was carried out against the will of the Syrian citizens - the lawful owners of the land."