Wind turbines are disastrous to birds

By Marc Jeric, Las Vegas

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that our existing wind turbines kill 440,000 bald and golden eagles, albatrosses, hawks, falcons, owls, cranes, egrets, geese and other birds every year in the U.S., along with hundreds of thousands of insect-eating bats.

The turbine blades of the nation’s 39,000 windmills move at 100 to 200 mph and will mow down anything that flies into the blades — and the birds are unable to see those blades. That’s why I call those wind turbines Cuisinarts for birds.

Over the past 25 years, an estimated 2,300 protected golden eagles have been killed by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, Calif., alone, leading to an 80 percent drop in their estimated number. Those 200 wind turbines at Altamont Pass have now been shut down and left to rot by corrosion.

I remember how after the few years of initial operation, the electrical output of those 200 wind turbines had strangely fallen off and inspectors were sent out to discover the reasons; some of those giant windmills had their blades completely plastered with blood and feathers, with beds of rotting dead birds around their pedestals 6 feet deep. Let us not mention the incredible stench. “Safe and renewable wind energy” anybody?

What is really aggravating us engineers is the fact that the entire disaster with wind turbines was 100 percent predictable.