Rick Webb, co-author of the Virginia Wind website and foe of wind farms along Allegheny Mountain ridge tops, summarizes the costs and benefits of wind power based on the findings of the latest National Academy of Sciences report.
Installed wind generating capacity will amount to between 19 to 72 GW of installed onshore wind generation capacity by 2020. That will equal two percent to seven percent of total U.S. installed generation capacity, but, due to intermittency of wind, only 1.2 percent to 4.5 percent of actual U.S. generation. That wind power development will offset CO2 emissions by only 1.2 percent to 4.5 percent.
For those benefits, in just the PJM Interconnection Queue, which includes Virginia, these Cusinards on Stilts would slaughter anywhere between 10,372 and 44,999 birds per year, and 58,997 to 110,665 bats per year.
Tough trade-off. Sounds like a lot of dead birds and bats. Trouble is… compared to what? How many birds and bats are out there? How does this compare to other sources of bird/bat mortality, such as habitat loss, disease and… cats. Yes, house cats are responsible for more carnage among our feathery friends than kitty lovers would care to admit.
Here’s my humble suggestion: Offset the mortality to birds (if not bats) by culling Virginia’s population of felines. As a bonus, think of all the money people would save on cat food, not to mention the reduction in landfill mass to hold untold tons of kitty litter.