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Who Knew?

Windmills, famous now for chopping up bats and birds, seem to pose … an oil spill threat! (note, I think the bird chopping is overblown … cats kill orders of magnitude more birds and I don’t see any movement to ban outdoor cats taking shape).

Here, from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound:

In addition to the 40,000 gallons of unspecified transformer oil on the proposed 10 story electrical service platform (ESP), the Cape Wind project would contain an additional 24,700 gallons of oil in the 130 turbines (190 gallons in each turbine). What beaches and inlets would likely be affected if the tanks on the ESP were to rupture, or if there were a vessel collision with a turbine causing oil to spill into Nantucket Sound? Cape Wind’s own computer simulation of a spill reveals that oil would reach Cape Cod and Island beaches within 5 hours. An analysis commissioned by the Alliance showed significant adverse impacts to the Nantucket Sound ecosystem, including harmful impacts to wildlife and shellfish/fish from a spill incident.

7 Responses to “Who Knew?”

  1. Harry says:

    190 gallons of special lubricating oil per turbine? I bet that number of gallons was engineered so it did not equal four 50-gallon drums of 3-in-1 oil. It sounds like the engineers at GE should go back to the drawing board. I would be more concerned about the life of the bearings.

    Wintercow, being schooled not only in economics but also physics, knows that the definiton of efficiency (in physics) and productivity (in economics) is the same: the ratio of output over input, and I understand his frustration, especially when men have a grand plan to help us with our lives.

  2. Rod says:

    There once was a girl from Nantucket
    Who carried some oil in a bucket.
    She summoned her will
    And prevented a spill,
    And the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound said nothing, but their free range chickens managed to cluck it and prevent this limerick from scanning or rhyming.

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  4. sherlock says:

    While you may believe that wind turbines killing birds is overblown, the guberment has yet another double standard for us all.

    They don’t care about the birds when the wind turbines kill them but they certainly do when evil oil companies do:

    “Seven oil companies have recently been charged in federal court with killing migratory birds that died after allegedly landing in oil waste pits in western North Dakota. The charges involve 28 dead birds that were discovered in oil waste pits between May 6 and June 20… The Fish and Wildlife service estimated in 2009 that about 440,000 birds were being killed by wind turbines. Yet the wind industry has yet to face a single charge.”

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40481
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903791504576588642920063046.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

  5. Rod says:

    Ask Tippi Hedren if there is a shortage of birds.

  6. Michael says:

    FYI, this was discussed at work today:

    Man-made structure/technology – Associated bird deaths per year (U.S.)

    Feral and domestic cats – Hundreds of millions [source: AWEA]

    Power lines – 130 million — 174 million [source: AWEA]

    Windows (residential and commercial) – 100 million — 1 billion [source: TreeHugger]

    Pesticides – 70 million [source: AWEA]

    Automobiles – 60 million — 80 million [source: AWEA]
    Lighted communication towers – 40 million — 50 million [source: AWEA]

    Wind turbines – 10,000 — 40,000 [source: ABC]

  7. Rod says:

    On a recent fishing trip, some songbirds had hitched a ride on the boat, and all day they were flying around the fishermen and perching on fishing rods, hats and various parts of the boat.

    I had just hooked up a double — two pollock on the same line at the same time — when one of these birds landed on my reel and got its cute little foot caught in the fishing line on my reel. Immediately, the bird was disappearing on my reel despite the cute, appealing expression on its cute little face. The bird was doomed, so I continued to reel up the line and shred the bird into feathers and a piece of bird meat that, once I picked it out of my reel and threw it into the water, was devoured by a seagull. Life is brutish, nasty and short in the bird world, especially offshore in the Gulf of Maine.

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