Birds and Wind Power

 

Responsible Wind Power and Wildlife is available for download online at: www.nwf.org/responsiblewind

Copyright © 2019 National Wildlife Federation
Lead Authors: Jim Murphy, National Wildlife Federation, Lauren Anderson, National Wildlife Federation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  (the full .pdf is 32 pages of text and photos)

Land-based wind power (referred to throughout as wind power) is a critical factor in the ongoing transformation of America’s energy markets. After a century of relying heavily on coal, which pollutes the environment throughout all stages of its lifecycle, a shift is occurring to cleaner energy. This is due to a boom in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as a shift to more natural gas, which is cleaner burning during combustion but poses serious concerns about methane emissions – a potent greenhouse gas – associated with its production that increase it over lifecycle emissions. This transformation is critical to achieving the carbon pollution reductions needed to protect wildlife and people from dangerous levels of climate change. Even with a substantial increase in other renewable sources like solar, to achieve the emissions reductions in the time needed to keep warming levels safe for wildlife, significantly more wind power will be needed.

However, the build out of wind power presents the potential for adverse impacts to some species of wildlife and habitat. As recently highlighted in Fall 2018 reports by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and by the U.S. multi-federal agency National Climate Assessment, given the increasingly limited time frame to address climate change, it is critical that wildlife risks from wind power development, as well as other renewable energy sources needed to mitigate climate change, be successfully addressed so this vital transformation can be achieved. This is because we must protect wildlife from all development impacts in order to maintain healthy and thriving wildlife populations. Particular to wind, a failure to address wildlife risks could lead to a regulatory or economic slowdown in the wind power production that is needed to tackle climate change.

Wind power is currently booming. In fifteen years, it has gone from a de minimis amount to over 6 percent of our power supply. In 2017, about 54,000 landbased turbines provided about 254 million megawatt hours (MWh), close to the amount of power from hydroelectric dams in America, and enough electricity to power 27 million homes. The U.S. wind industry grew 9 percent in 2017, adding over 7,000 megawatts of new capacity. While final year end numbers aren’t out, strong growth has continued through 2018. Wind power delivers more than 10 percent of the electricity produced in 14 states and over 30 percent in Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

This energy transformation, and wind power’s role in it, holds great promise. Securing a clean energy future is critical to maintaining a safe and stable climate for people and wildlife. For example, over the long term, climate change could significantly alter ranges for nearly half of U.S. birds within this century. More immediately, reducing reliance on coal means fewer coal byproducts such as mercury pollution, acid rain, ozone pollution, and haze. Clean energy sources, like wind power, also reduce risks to public health, wildlife, and the outdoor economy. Additionally, wind power is providing jobs, tax revenue, and income to rural areas, strengthening local economies, and improving quality of life for American families.

While wind power offers many benefits, it can also pose risks to wildlife, especially some birds and bats. Since little research was available on windwildlife interactions in the early days of wind power development, a few early wind farms, like the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, built in the 1980s, resulted in unacceptably high numbers of raptor deaths due to poor siting and the use of small turbines that may have increased the chances for casualties. More recently, Duke Energy Renewables was prosecuted in 2013 for fatalities of 163 protected birds at a site in Wyoming, including golden eagles, and PacifiCorp Energy settled over claims of bird fatalities at four sites in Wyoming in 2014. Incidences like these, the enforcement of wildlife protection laws designed to safeguard species like eagles, and conservation concerns have encouraged additional operational changes and new technologies to be put in place to protect wildlife.

These examples highlight the need to ensure that wind power projects are responsibly developed. This means avoiding and minimizing adverse impacts to wildlife, and compensating for impacts that cannot be avoided or minimized. It also means keeping in place strong laws and rules that protect wildlife. As wind power becomes a major source of electricity in the United States, it is important that, as with all energy development, the environmental impacts are evaluated and addressed.

Research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that almost three-quarters of wind power’s technical potential might be affected by wildlife issues. If they are not properly addressed, these wildlife issues could lead to significant harm to some species or present regulatory and economic hurdles to achieving the wind power development necessary to reduce carbon emissions in time to avoid catastrophic warming levels.

This issue brief looks at the growth of wind power, its benefits and risks to wildlife, and explores how any adverse impacts can be minimized.

The issue brief finds that:

• Wind power is a fast-growing energy technology that reduces pollution, does not use water, creates jobs, and — if done responsibly — offers critical benefits to wildlife by offering clean energy solutions to the climate crisis.

• Wind power does however pose risks to wildlife, particularly some birds and bats, associated with siting (where projects are built), construction, and operation.

• While more study is needed, wind power’s threats to most bird species do not appear to be having significant population-level impacts, and in many instances are far less than other existing human-caused and energy related threats.

• There is indication that wind power may pose population-level concerns to some bat species, pointing to the need for successful mitigation strategies and additional research.

• Many wildlife impacts from wind power can be minimized and compensated for. Wind companies are working with conservation groups and wildlife agencies to address these challenges through responsible siting, operating, and construction practices as well as proper oversight of wind power projects.

• It is critical to continue investing in research and science to understand risks and to develop tools and practices that avoid, minimize, and compensate for wind-wildlife risks.

Given the escalating threat of climate change and the limited time frame for meaningful action, we are challenged with the need to develop wind power both at the pace and scale needed to address climate change and in a sustainable and mindful manner that protects wildlife. Broad stakeholder cooperation and the ability to manage and reduce wildlife risks in real time will be necessary to develop wind at the pace needed to avoid catastrophic climate impacts to wildlife and biodiversity. To achieve this,

this issue brief concludes by setting forth the following principles to guide responsible wind power development:

• Responsible wind power is a key solution to addressing the threat of climate change to people and wildlife. Unless substantial wind power and other renewable energy development occur in a rapid and timely manner, there will be significant and irreversible impacts to wildlife and biodiversity. As such, wind power companies, conservation groups, wildlife agencies, and other stakeholders should continue to work collaboratively to reduce or avoid risks to wildlife from wind power.

• Wind power projects, like all energy projects, should continue to undergo thorough environmental reviews and adhere to strong wildlife protections laws. Environmental reviews should examine the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on wildlife and habitat.

• While there is generally not evidence of population level impacts to species, as the industry grows, it is important that decisions regarding wind power project siting, construction, and operation should be guided by the best available science and technology, comprehensive input from all stakeholders, and the latest landscape-scale planning efforts. This guidance must endeavor to avoid, minimize, and compensate for wildlife risks when appropriate.

• Sufficient funding should be dedicated to resolving conflicts between wind power and wildlife, and to developing advanced technologies and practices that reduce impacts to wildlife.

• Wildlife impacts should continue to be monitored prior to and post construction to inform strategies for avoiding, minimizing, and offsetting potential impacts to wildlife from wind power; these strategies should be periodically reviewed and evaluated for effectiveness, and the data informing these strategies should be made available for review.