I fear we are not going to have much of a discussion with a disagreement on this fundamental point. No threads get started by our more conservative posters discussing the downside of fracking, but when eagles are killed by wind turbines, we have this thread. And this is by no means a one-off on the anti-environmentalism of the right.
Well, no – despite the rules, the FWS has not chosen to impose penalties (as yet).
If they’re threatening to start, I haven’t heard.
The people who own the Republican party are very heavily invested in fossil fuels. Renewable energy effects their investment in that every additional watt of renewable energy will not be a watt of fossil fuel energy. They will be holding oil fields and coal fields and gas fields with less demand. Let me draw an analogy: it used to be in order to play pinball, you had to go to an arcade. When video games became available, arcades went the way of the dinosaurs. When energy producers rely on wind and solar, they don’t have to pay the various mining and drilling interests. These people have invested everything in mining and drilling. Of course they hate renewables.
arguing cost benefits of something does not make it anti-environmental. Just because a politician writes a bit of legislation regarding a non-endangered species we shouldn’t challenge it. Nobody wants to live in a polluted environment or kill off a species. But throwing money at something doesn’t mean it’s productive use of the money. If something is on fire it doesn’t make sense to smother it with truck loads of money when a bucket of water will do.
Yes, they are not actively hunting birds. Do you have a take permit for the bugs, birds, rabbits and whatever that you’ve hit with your car?
I assume there needs to be a certain amount of animals killed, and some investigations such as the ones your article mentions are being done currently, before the FWS can say the bird deaths are “associated with” the turbines. But I can’t imagine the Audobon Society would allow to many years of avoidable bird-deaths to pile up before they sued the FWS to force them to take action, if they weren’t doing so already.
This article says they’re seeking “a permit”, which I assume is either the one you mention in the OP or something that serves the same purpose.
Did you read the text of the law Bricker quoted? Its specifically for non-purposeful takings. If your regularly running over bald eagles with your car, you’d need one for that as well.
This is one of those costs that are not as cut and dried as would be useful. PV solar cell costs have come down dramatically recently due to Chinese manufacturing. It’s possible to build a 1 mw system out of the box. But when using solar thermal you have the added benefit of tying natural gas into a steam turbine system. So the backup to solar thermal is cheaper. And I believe the power output consistency of solar thermal is greater than PV. Can’t find a good source with numbers. Don’t know about the life expectancy is of solar thermal is but I suspect it is something that can continually be maintained as opposed to a solar cell which has a life expectancy.
It’s not an easy question to answer.
Yes but my earlier point is that the money asked for this is nothing but legislation bullshit. It serves no purpose.
Now if there are established procedures that could be incorporated into the wind farms to lower the number of animal deaths then they should be implemented. Writing a check does nothing.
What money are you talking about? My understanding is that the reason the permits are “expensive” is that they mandate implementation of procedures to lower the number of animal deaths, as you suggest. That’s the expense Bricker talks about in the OP.
I don’t see anywhere where there’s any other mention of money.
If Sean Hannity decides to go sky-diving in an area filled with wind turbines, who do we root for?
Best hope the turbine blade doesn’t hit him in the head is all I can say…
Would he then qualify for disability?
I don’t think so, as if it hit him in the head it would be like throwing an egg at a brick wall…the wall isn’t even going to notice. My main concern is to consider the massive damage to the turbine if it hit his head! :eek:
To quote from your link:
Maybe it’s just me, but I read that as saying they plan to submits the permit application in the future, using the survey results from a survey that hasn’t yet happened.
What excuses them from failing to have done this already?
Aside from threadshitting and trying to start another partisan “Left v Right” feud, I see no purpose for these posts.
Even if you have some long list of threads Bricker has started for the purpose of hyping petroleum or coal at the expense of alternative fuels, (and I really doubt that you could provide such a list), septimus’s caricature of Bricker’s postion in the OP and Hamlet’s immediate leap into “Left v Right” partisanship do nothing to further the discussion in this thread.
If Bricker’s actions bother you on a personal level, go start a thread in The BBQ Pit. Otherwise, stick to the actual discussion of this thread and leave the ad hominems and other grumbling out of it.
[ /Moderating ]
Well, just about every environmental initiative is indirectly an attack on our lifestyle even if it has good intentions- the kind of cars we can drive; toilets, showerheads, and light bulbs we can use; renewable energy adding to costs of the electricity. So that’s why we take joy in pointing out perverse results, Eagles killed by windmills, mercury in CFLs, safety problems of small cars, and such.
What do you mean “we,” Kimosabe? Ya’ll threw out us moderate and liberal Republicans shortly after WE helped push through things like the EPA. Look even at Richard Nixon’s record, much less that of Nelson Rockefeller, and try to keep a straight face when you claim he could be elected by today’s Republican Party.
I guess you’d have to demonstrate that the wind turbine folks were negligent. It has been asserted in this thread that the wind turbines were set up ‘in good faith’, which I am assuming includes the notion that the planners did not ignore foreseen risks.
In a way that is water under the bridge though. Knowing what we know now, are there steps we can take to reduce raptor turbine deaths? Do those steps include not building wind turbines at all? Or, in the stated case, are wind turbines and their ‘cost’, for display example, of 100 raptor deaths per year a great alternative to Several Destroyed Areas of the Earth for Oil?
Bricker implied that the process is expensive. The take permits themselves (or as I like to call them Eagle indulgences) are $500 to $1000 each.
The funny part of all this is that the wind farms are part of one government mandate to improve air quality that is tasked with doing it in an environmentally friendly manner so they replant the area with native plants. That in turn draws native fauna which draw the eagles. It’s the perfect storm of competing environmental mandates driven by different government agencies. Og help us if the Eagles start eating an endangered species.