Wind Energy and Migration Birds
In the Martinez project, I proposed renewable energy like solar and wind energy. When I did some research, I notice that there’s still some drawbacks, which may limit the application of wind energy. It is reported that about 60000 bats may have been killed by wind turbines, most of which are used to migrating and roosting on trees. Also, a study found that wind farms may lead to 0.4 deaths per gigawatt hour (GWh) of electricity generated.
There’s an experiment from Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. Researchers calculated the mortality rates at a Norwegian wind farm and randomly painted the blades of 68 turbines. Then, they found painting a single turbine blade black could reduce the mortality by 72%. This may be only one of the solution to the damage to bird.
With the climate change, we may used more and more wind turbines for renewable energy. I think when substituting fossil fuels by renewable energy we have to consider the possible damage to biodiversity and scenic landscape quality. Prevention is always better than cure. That is why environmental designers should help to develop sustainable energy landscapes, a physical environment that can be sustained on the basis of renewable energy sources exclusively. In order for a landscape to be considered sustainable, energy provision must not harm other landscape services, biodiversity or landscape quality.
