Is it necessary to develop wind power ?

Wind turbines have become a killer to birds. Is it necessary to develop wind power?

From the perspective of the international situation, the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century. International forces have undergone major changes, and protectionism is on the rise. For example, Western countries led by the United States are moving towards unilateralism. The disruption of the global industrial chain caused by COVID-19 has set back globalization.

Although driven by the strong recovery of the global economy, the global energy market is expected to enter a new long-term period, but the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to a decrease in energy exports, and energy prices represented by natural gas have soared. European people are complaining about the rising natural gas prices. However, this has also led to the bankruptcy of a large number of energy companies in Europe.

The impact of wind turbines on birds

First, the noise of wind turbines can have a disturbing effect on birds. The second, the blades are mainly reflected in the impact on the migration route of birds. There is also the phototaxis of insects, which also increases the risk to birds.

Hundreds of thousands of birds die each year from blades, according to the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Association. They are like guillotine knives. When encountering extreme weather such as heavy fog and thunderstorms, birds will choose to fly at lower altitudes, which leads to greater casualty data.

At first glance, this figure may seem large, but in fact, tall buildings are more than 5,000 times more affected by birds than wind turbines. IPCC research shows that the death rate caused by wind turbines in the United States ranges from 0.95 to 11.67 per megawatt per year. And using fossil fuels to generate electricity, scientists believe that when the supply reaches 1GWh, birds will die due to various impacts including climate change, and the number is dozens of times that of wind power generation.

How to make better use of wind

Although we have quantitatively compared, we found that the impact of wind turbines on birds is actually much lower than that of other human activities. For every 10,000 birds killed by human activity, less than one is killed by wind turbines. But the tens of thousands of corpses every year also make us have to think about how to live as peacefully as possible with birds and harness the power of nature.

Where to build the wind turbines is important. Wind power plants need to be sited to avoid nature reserves and strive to avoid bird migration paths.

The type of wind turbine is also critical. For example, using a vertical axis wind turbine will greatly reduce the impact on birds than using a horizontal axis wind turbine. Using a large wind turbine with a color coating will be more conspicuous than a small wind turbine, which reduces the speed of the blades. , and improve the power generation efficiency, and also greatly reduce the mortality of birds, is a multi-purpose.

According to this year's observations, birds have undergone adaptive evolution to wind fields. In the early stage of the wind power plants construction, birds will spontaneously reduce their activities in the wind farm, and then gradually adapt to the existence of the wind turbine to avoid conflicts.