Can Wind Power Revive Jobs in America's Heartland?

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That doesn't seem clear to me at all.

Back on topic, ...

Golden Eagles are generally sparse breeders with some of the largest home territories of any bird. A successful pair typically produces one or two chicks. As many as 55-70% of successfully reared offspring don't live through their third year. It takes birds typically six or seven years to reach full maturity, although breeding is possible by their fourth or even third year of life--however, young parents are rarely successful ones.

The point I'm making is that this is not a species with overwhelming numbers, nor the ability to recover readily from steady declines. This is especially true when you speak of Golden Eagle populations typically in terms of hundreds or thousands of pairs (not tens or hundreds of thousands as you might with some more common songbird species). The steady "take" of even just a few percent of the GE population each year should not be conflated as having the same impact to the population as plinking house sparrows with a pellet gun.

(Edit for typos and clarity.)

> Turbines almost never kill bald eagles.

Better to attribute the ramping of Bald Eagle populations across North America to the ban of DDT and other organochlorines, as well as successful restorative nest hacking in areas where they were extirpated. Windfarms are simply not common enough to be a mitigating factor (yet).

> Golden eagle fatalities are relatively uncommon at wind projects.

This is a clever turn of phrase. One could also say wind projects are also relatively uncommon, which is probably the biggest reason there haven’t been more eagle fatalities. One need to look no further than Altamont Pass, California, to see what happens when you install a windfarm adjacent to the largest known population of nesting Golden Eagle in the world. That's a worst case scenario, of course. But the point is that good siting is pretty much the key to making bird killing a non-problem. As more windfarms are installed, the problem will likely become more common.

With that said, state and federal regulators in the USA have either by omission or intent set very low bars for “voluntary reporting” and mortality monitoring. The lion’s share of the mortality data that exists is strictly “proprietary”, and has never been shared. And most windfarms do practically no monitoring at all apart from the laughingly inadequate pre-construction and post-construction surveys mandated by the USFWS. And why should they? The hostile legal environment surrounding permitting, for example, would make it foolhardy for any company to go out of their way to collect data that could only become a giant liability down the line. Simply put, the absence of data for eagle mortality should not be taken as a sign that there is no eagle mortality occurring.

> The majority of golden eagle deaths occur at older wind farms build in the 1980s, when the relationship between turbines and eagles was not understood. Better-sited, modern turbines are replacing outdated ones and lowering deaths by 80 percent.

They are referring to Altamont Pass, again. Modern turbines are definitely better. Rather than the picket-line or gauntlet of high-speed blenders installed atop hills where birds slope-soar and hunt, modern turbines tend to be spaced much farther apart, greatly reducing the likelihood of a collision. However, reducing incidence of collision does not mean “lowering deaths”--it just means that that each “pass” an eagle makes through a windfarm becomes less dangerous. This distinction is important. In windfarms where choice prey is abundant, hunting eagles will typically make several extended passes through a windfarm each day, making their likelihood of an “encounter” with a turbine quite high over a period of several days or weeks.

They say “lowering deaths by 80 percent”, then backpedal a bit farther down:

> It is estimated that eagle fatalities will be reduced by as much as 80% as those long-standing wind sites replace their shorter, more numerous, faster-rotating old turbines with taller, less numerous, slower-rotating modern turbines that are sited based on more experience.

I was about to say: the only windfarm in the country that’s employed any serious “repowering” effort is Altamont Pass. And the speculated improvement that new turbines are better than the old turbines for “lowering deaths” there has, so far, been inconclusive. It’s not that modern turbines aren’t an improvement, it’s just that this webpage doesn’t yet have any justification to be making this claim!

> Modern turbines have slower-rotating blades, and fewer are needed to generate the same amount of electricity.

Modern turbines’ rate of rotation is indeed slower, but the speeds of the actual blades (especially on the distal half) is actually appreciably faster than smaller bird blenders. In practice, it just means the risk is harder to model, since birds can at times ably pass through the relatively slow rotating part of the blade path near the nacelle but be likely to be literally sliced in two if attempting the same manoeuvrer more toward the end of the blade.

> It also seeks scientifically credible ways to lower and mitigate wind energy’s impacts.

Translation, wind companies are trying to dig up some legit-sounding research on the cheap that backs up what they say. With very few exceptions, the business of wind energy is incompatible with properly funding the research on its impacts. This slack is left to underfunded academics and conservationists, not companies built for the purpose of profit.

> Developers thoroughly evaluate risk to eagles before projects are sited and built. Developers make adjustment to wind farm design, turbine locations and project operations to reduce potential impacts. They abandon the riskiest sites in order to avoid significant impacts.

This is basically BS. It wasn’t until the Duke Energy settlement over its WY wind projects that wind companies starting taking this much more seriously. Ten years ago, it was more normal to find an environmental consulting group who’d be willing to game the EIA and pre- and post-contructions surveys to help you through the federal site permitting process.

> If the risk for eagle collision is high, operators are often required to continuously monitor for any impacts on eagles and mitigate for them should they occur.

This is BS. Under “voluntary reporting” guidelines, who’s to even know? It’s only very recently that regulators have imposed any sorts of requirements like this.

> These permits are similar to take permits available under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which is the gold standard for wildlife protection.

They are not so similar at all, with the sole exception that permit issuance smacks more of capriciousness by regulators than helping mankind find a sound(er) balance between wildlife and the needs of man.

I could go on, but why bother? This is just a dumb PR page ...

Right, hence the comment implying that a gas station job around that amount would get workers. But in a time where there is a significant push to make the minimum wage $15, it's not surprising that people won't do hard labor for $10.

Look at things today. The return on labor has dropped significantly due to outsourcing and immigration dropping wages at a time when corporate earnings are higher than ever and socioeconomic mobility is at an all-time low[1]. Productivity is higher & GDP per capita is over $50k/yr, yet the majority of people, especially in the lower class, have not been benefiting from this. I guarantee the corporate managers make obscenely more money than the farm laborers do. I personally don't feel it's bad to feel entitled to my fair share of the work I put in.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the...