We Were Warned in 1998

[Ryan Wright]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 5:27 PM, Pete Masterson wrote:
>
> The fields are kept trimmed, reducing cover for the rodents, etc. so
> the falcons, eagles, etc. come for easy meals -- but they don't always
> realize that the blades are turning and a lot of birds are getting killed.

Fact is, they don't kill that many birds in the grand scheme of
things. The Altamont Pass turbines are the worst offenders - these are
an old design placed right into the path of migratory birds. New
designs kill far fewer birds. Still, the death rate is infinitesimally
tiny compared to other sources: In the United States, cars and trucks
wipe out millions of birds each year, while 100 million to 1 billion
birds collide with windows, compared to an average of 2.19 bird deaths
per turbine per year. (source:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/...sconce.php) So, it's
not that we don't care about birds, but the problem has been blown way
out of proportion. Even so, researchers are actively trying to reduce
bird deaths and they're succeeding:

Compare the old turbine design:
http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/...s-main.jpg

With the new:
http://www.currykerlinger.com/images/pic...es150L.jpg

The new are much prettier, and the blades are huge and blunt and move
very slow, thus being much safer for birds. The new design are the
style they've put in around my city.

In the end, though, none of this electricity business helps our RVs.
It's great for cars - new battery technologies will make EVs or
parallel-hybrids a wise choice for a lot of us in the very near
future. Average expected cost to power a Tesla Roadster is only a
penny per mile. Even my 70-mpg hybrid Honda Insight costs twenty times
that at $3.50/gallon gas. So I'll snap up an electric car as soon as I
can buy one for the cost of a normal car. But, in order to push my old
Wanderlodge down the road, someone's going to have to develop Mr.
Fusion... You couldn't put enough batteries on board to pull this old
beast more than a couple of miles.

-Ryan
'86 PT-40 8V92