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A Biologist Works to Reconcile Bats and Wind Energy
There's something worth reading in The Wall Street Journal. everyday.
A Biologist Works to Reconcile Bats and Wind Energy
Tim Hayes, with Duke Energy Renewables, seeks to reduce bat and bird fatalities on the company’s wind farms
By Hilary Potkewitz
June 7, 2016 1:16 p.m. ET
Tim Hayes’s early interactions with bats on his grandparents’ Indiana farm didn’t scream “future bat expert.” He recalls sitting outside with his brother at dusk watching them flutter out of the barn and throwing a tube sock filled with pebbles in their direction. “We were kids,” he says. “The bats would chase the sock.”
Now the 52-year-old biologist (and bat expert) runs the environmental program at Duke Energy Renewables, the wind-and-solar division of power giant Duke Energy. His fascination with bats took on a professional urgency several years ago when researchers found that swarms of migrating bats were flying headlong into wind turbines across the Eastern U.S., dying by the thousands. Scientists are trying to figure out exactly why. Some theorize bats are attracted to the turbines’ height, mistaking them for tall trees, or that the moving blades confuse the bats’ biological sonar.
Bats are nocturnal and navigate in the dark using echolocation—a series of high-pitched chirps. They manage to hunt insects and avoid power lines, yet fail to interpret the danger of fast-spinning blades on a 300-foot turbine. A 2013 study from the University of Colorado estimated that wind turbines kill as many as 600,000 bats a year. Some of those fatalities include threatened species. On wind farms in Western states such as Wyoming, the focus is on preventing bird strikes—mainly by Golden Eagles.
Biologist Tim Hayes travels around the country to Duke Energy wind farms doing fieldwork devising ways to keep bats and birds away from turbines. He usually carries a Peterson Field Guide to local wildlife for reference. Photo: Ross Mantle for The Wall Street Journal
Tim Hayes, with Duke Energy Renewables, seeks to reduce bat and bird fatalities on the company’s wind farms
By Hilary Potkewitz
June 7, 2016 1:16 p.m. ET
Tim Hayes’s early interactions with bats on his grandparents’ Indiana farm didn’t scream “future bat expert.” He recalls sitting outside with his brother at dusk watching them flutter out of the barn and throwing a tube sock filled with pebbles in their direction. “We were kids,” he says. “The bats would chase the sock.”
Now the 52-year-old biologist (and bat expert) runs the environmental program at Duke Energy Renewables, the wind-and-solar division of power giant Duke Energy. His fascination with bats took on a professional urgency several years ago when researchers found that swarms of migrating bats were flying headlong into wind turbines across the Eastern U.S., dying by the thousands. Scientists are trying to figure out exactly why. Some theorize bats are attracted to the turbines’ height, mistaking them for tall trees, or that the moving blades confuse the bats’ biological sonar.
Bats are nocturnal and navigate in the dark using echolocation—a series of high-pitched chirps. They manage to hunt insects and avoid power lines, yet fail to interpret the danger of fast-spinning blades on a 300-foot turbine. A 2013 study from the University of Colorado estimated that wind turbines kill as many as 600,000 bats a year. Some of those fatalities include threatened species. On wind farms in Western states such as Wyoming, the focus is on preventing bird strikes—mainly by Golden Eagles.
Biologist Tim Hayes travels around the country to Duke Energy wind farms doing fieldwork devising ways to keep bats and birds away from turbines. He usually carries a Peterson Field Guide to local wildlife for reference. Photo: Ross Mantle for The Wall Street Journal
Great first comment:
David Sims
Jun 8, 2016
Good story. Bird deaths due to wind turbines are caused by birds striking the blades. Bats primarily die from a different cause.
As much as 90% of bat deaths occur not from physical contact with the blades, but from barotrauma (see the referenced article below). As explained to me by an environmental manager for a wind turbine developer, bats operate at a relatively high internal pressure compared to the atmosphere. When they fly close to a spinning blade, the sudden drop in pressure as the blade swings past causes blood vessels in the bat to explode, resulting in death.
The manager explained to me that wind developers were looking at developing electronic signals that would cause the bats to avoid the turbine, but I didn't see any references to that in the article.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-turbines-kill-bats/
Jun 8, 2016
Good story. Bird deaths due to wind turbines are caused by birds striking the blades. Bats primarily die from a different cause.
As much as 90% of bat deaths occur not from physical contact with the blades, but from barotrauma (see the referenced article below). As explained to me by an environmental manager for a wind turbine developer, bats operate at a relatively high internal pressure compared to the atmosphere. When they fly close to a spinning blade, the sudden drop in pressure as the blade swings past causes blood vessels in the bat to explode, resulting in death.
The manager explained to me that wind developers were looking at developing electronic signals that would cause the bats to avoid the turbine, but I didn't see any references to that in the article.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-turbines-kill-bats/
