Wind power killing bats
The News Journal | August 29, 2016 | www.delawareonline.com
DNREC reports that a disease is killing “all of our small bats” (Aug. 21). The news gets worse: the wind power industry is killing even more bats than the disease. Amy Mathews Amos, “Bat Killings by Wind Energy Turbines Continue,”Scientific American, June 7, 2016. Environmental groups have helped the industry but hurt bats by blocking repeal of a 2005 Delaware statute that requires electric companies to buy power from “renewable” sources like solar and wind.
The Delaware law has led to construction of new wind turbines in Pennsylvania and contributes to bat mortality there. In 2011, the Pennsylvania Game Commission estimated that 420 turbines killed 10,000 bats in the state in 2010. But in 2012 representatives of the Delaware Nature Society and the Sierra Club lobbied the Delaware House Energy Committee to oppose repeal of the renewable energy mandate that is killing them.
Don’t wait for the environmental establishment to act. Ask your legislators where they stand on Delaware’s deadly subsidy to wind power developers, the renewable energy mandate. Ask the environmentalists the same question, the next time that they ask for your time or money.
Gregory A. Inskip
Wilmington
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/08/30/wind-power-killing-bats/