In his foreword to "A Sand County Almanac", the great conservationist Aldo
Leopold wrote:
"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.
These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress
began to do away with them. Now we face the question of whether a higher
"standard of living" is worth its cost in things wild, natural and free."
Those words were written over fifty years ago, well before the wind itself
no longer was taken for granted, and became viewed as an energy source for
producing electricity through the spinning of turbine blades by wind power.
But, the question remains whether the energy produced by the spinning of
those turbines is worth the cost in the blood of golden eagles, other
raptors, and other birds and mammals.
Certainly, the history of wind energy in America reveals clear concern about
other costs of its production. The wind energy industry "blossomed" in
America decades ago when oil prices spiked upwards and actions by the
American government made subsidation of the financial costs of wind energy
production acceptable to investors and producers. Later, when oil prices
were no longer as big a concern, some of those subsidies lapsed and some
wind energy producers went financially bankrupt. The financial cost of
producing electricity by wind power had exceeded the financial tolerances of
moneyed interests.
But, all along, there was another cost in producing wind energy. There was
a cost in things "wild, natural and free" as Aldo Leopold described them.
Biological consultants in California, including Sue Orloff and Anne
Flannery, Judd Howell and Joe DiDonato, and others were hired to assess that
cost, not in financial terms, but in biological terms. And the cost seemed
high. Orloff and Flannery estimated scores of golden eagles killed each and
every year, plus around two hundred red-tailed hawks and other raptors and
non-raptorial birds killed each and every year in one wind producing area in
California.
Can we translate the biological cost of these magnificent birds into
financial costs? For instance, could we breed eagles and hawks in captivity
and replace them into the environment, and force the energy producers to pay
that expense, and call it even? Perhaps, but we know that releasing
captive-bred raptors into the environment does not necessarily equate with
parent-reared birds fledging and going on to breed in the wild. And no one
has suggested that industry bear such a financial expense.
Yet, we know that this biological cost is significant. We know that the
mortalities are extra-legal, in fact, illegal. And some of us believe that,
while no population-level effect has been detected to date by these
mortalities, that the possibility exists that a population effect may,
indeed, take place after a period of loss of buffering by floaters and
sub-adults in the population of golden eagles in the Altamont Pass, and by
endangered or imperiled species at that location or other locations where
wind energy is employed worldwide.
So, should we determine reflexively that the cost of wind energy is too high
in its biological cost, and switch back to coal or oil or gas as energy
sources -- or maybe nuclear power? I would suggest that we first apply the
same basic question to ALL sources of electrical energy production plus
energy distribution regimes. What are the costs of coal and gas-produced
electricity in terms of things wild, natural and free? What are the
biological costs of energy distribution?
When we begin to think about these issues, we realize that the basic problem
is that these costs are rarely translated into practical ways of protecting
biological organisms from the costs imposed by human societies on them. We
see some effort, for instance, to reduce mortalities of raptors by
collisions with power lines, or by electrocution. But those efforts are
probably a pittance in comparison with the need as expressed by the total
biological expense of raptor or bird lives lost by these means. We hardly
even monitor the total biological expenses in this regard!
Since society has not calculated the overall cost of loss of things wild,
natural and free in the production and distribution of energy, then it is
impossible to calculate whether that expense is justified.
Instead, we tend to blindly carry on with the pursuit of that all-important
higher standard of living, and never ask ourselves if it is all really worth
it.
It may very well be that if we considered these costs, society would
determine that we would prefer to bear the financial expenses of avoiding
the biological costs. In other words, we may determine that we should make
power lines safe everywhere so that birds are not electrocuted or injured by
collisions. We may determine that we will pay a bit more for wind power in
exchange for turbine designs that protect birds from those spinning blades
-- perhaps by using composite plastic blade-guards similar to those used in
household ventilation fans.
The question of whether fewer, but larger turbines will reduce raptor
mortalities seems to be a misguided one, in my view. I believe that the
cost of raptor lives is related directly to the total energy production, not
to the numbers or types of turbines. I believe that we should analyze this
in terms of mortalities per kilowatt hour, and not mortalities by turbine
type. I suspect that when all is said and done, the total raptor
mortalities in a given geographic area will be more related to total energy
production, regardless of turbine design, than on any other single factor.
The goal should be to make turbines safe for raptors and other birds -- not
to reduce mortalities to more "acceptable" levels by changing turbine blade
size or numbers of turbines. If the turbines are safe, the birds will not
be killed, and then we can be proud of our efforts to produce energy at a
lower biological cost, even if the financial cost is higher.
The same is true with many land uses and industrial operations in our
advanced industrial society. We have externalized costs of grazing and
agriculture so that the citizen who pays per pound for beef is also paying
the government to pay for the endangerment of species caused by that beef
production. We pay industries to refine crude oil, but their profits do not
reflect the societal cost of asthma and soil contamination and the cost of
sending armies around the world to ensure an adequate supply of crude oil
for the economy.
We must learn to count all the costs -- not just the obvious ones. And the
biological costs of our industrial society are very high. Just ask the
golden eagles of the Altamont Pass. They can tell you.
The writer is a member of several falconry and ornithological clubs and
organizations. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from California, USA.
