Wind Farm Bird Deaths vs Fossil Fuel & Nuclear Power Bird Deaths

November 26th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

This article was jointly written by one of CleanTechnica’s readers and Zachary Shahan.

It’s a shame when a beautiful (or even an ugly) animal dies. It’s a shame that wind turbines do indeed kill birds. However, every source of electricity we have kills some number of birds. And while solar panels may fare better than anything else, it’s actually clear (and uplifting) that wind turbines fare better than nuclear or fossil-fueled power plants on this front.

Here’s some info on bird kills per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity produced:

Wind farms kill roughly 0.27 birds per GWh.

Nuclear plants kill about 0.6 birds per GWh. (2.2x wind)

Fossil-fueled power stations kill about 9.4 birds per GWh. (34.8x wind)

OK, so now we know that wind farms are not one of our birds’ biggest problems. And we know that closing nuclear and coal plants and replacing them with wind farms would be better for the birds. Should we stop there?

No, we can make wind farms even safer for birds.

In 2009, there were 12.5 bird kills per MW of installed wind capacity.

In 2012, there were 9.5 bird kills per MW of installed wind capacity.

That’s a 24% decrease. A very major improvement in bird safety. And we aren’t done yet.

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