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Wind Power News: August 2008
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch in its noncommercial educational effort to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch. They are the products of and owned by the organizations or individuals noted and are shared here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law.
On a wing and low air: the surprising way wind turbines kill bats
Scientists have known since 2004 that wind farms kill bats, just as they kill birds, even though the flying mammals should be able to avoid them. Many biologists thought that the bats, like their avian counterparts, might be falling victim to the fast-spinning turbine blades. But an examination of 188 hoary and silver-haired bats killed at a wind farm in southwestern Alberta in Canada between July and September in 2007 showed that nearly half showed no external injuries—as would be . . . Complete story »
Why wind turbines can mean death for bats
Power-generating wind turbines have long been recognized as a potentially life-threatening hazard for birds. But at most wind facilities, bats actually die in much greater numbers. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology, a Cell Press journal, on August 26th think they know why. Ninety percent of the bats they examined after death showed signs of internal hemorrhaging consistent with trauma from the sudden drop in air pressure (a condition known as barotrauma) at turbine blades. Only about half of the . . . Complete story »
Protests in Juchitan against wind companies
[Translated from the Spanish original at Oaxaca Libre by Scott Campbell] For more than seven months, we, communal land owners from Juchitan de Zaragoza, Union Hidalgo and Xadani, have dealt with the irresponsibility of the civil judge of Juchitan de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, in front of whom we’ve placed more than 120 claims for the nullification of contracts we were deceived into signing with transnational wind energy corporations. Claims to which the judge has not given appropriate attention and with which . . . Complete story »
Wind turbines across Oregon stir up health scare
BOARDMAN, ORE. – Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. “I started to cry,” Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. “They’re going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there’s the medical thing.” “The medical thing” is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her . . . Complete story »
Windmills split town and families
LOWVILLE, N.Y. – “Listen,” John Yancey says, leaning against his truck in a field outside his home. The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land. Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his . . . Complete story »
Wind parks take over indigenous lands
Transnationals dupe campesinos by offering low prices for land. A wind power project on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico has stripped massive amounts of land and natural resources from hundreds of indigenous campesinos in Oaxaca. Those affected are mostly from non-Spanish speaking indigenous communities. Members were manipulated into giving up their lands in up to 60-year tenancy contracts through misinformation. Faustina López Martínez, originally from the village of Juchitán, complained that the companies promised agriculture aid without ever . . . Complete story »
MTC puts mothballed wind turbines on auction block
After the collapse of the Orleans wind project on Cape Cod last fall and the delay of the project in Fairhaven this spring, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is left holding two 1.65 megawatt wind turbines, costing the quasi-public organization more than $3,500 per month in storage costs. As a result, the two turbines, originally purchased in 2005 for $5.2 million from Vestas Wind Systems A/S, went on sale last week. One potential stumbling block, however, is that Vestas holds approval . . . Complete story »