Front Generator Wind Turbine

It has come to my attention that a growing number of people are against wind energy. A viable alternative energy source that  has been appearing in the past few years, it costs much less than nuclear and coal, and has practically no pollutants to the environment. With all of these benefits wind energy seems like the perfect alternative to depending on foreign oil.

Energy companies that are based largely on wind energy have been getting a lot of bad publicity lately because they have been covering up wind turbine related bird deaths and making the death toll of birds appear a lot less than it actually is. Some companies even admitted to shrinking the number of bird deaths down by ninety percent. The actual amount of wind turbine related bird deaths per year are around 10,000-40,000, this may seem like a huge number, but let's put it into perspective.

Each year domestic and feral cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, power lines kill around 174 million, windows kill up to one billion, pesticides kill 70 million, automobiles kill 80 million, communication towers kill 50 million, and finally we are back to wind turbines which only kill up to 40,000 birds per year. That means that only 1/10 of a percent of bird deaths are caused by wind turbines.

There are even huge changes to wind turbines in order to protect birds. Originally wind turbines had large fat blades and a cage like structure, birds would actually be attracted to this structure because it made a great perch. Turbines have greatly changed in order to protect the birds; the structure is now completely solid so that there is no cage like area to attract birds.

But the biggest change is in location; all new turbine proposals are reviewed for bird friendly placement. This means that they cannot be built in or near migratory paths. With wind energy being such a viable and important alternative energy source, it is important that people accept this energy source instead of making claims against it.