None of the birds are on the government's list of endangered or threatened species

RIF

They still haven't payed a penny of their fines from the Exxon Valdez disaster, 20 years ago.

Boy, it really would be great if aliens came down and gave everyone on the planet their own portable fusion reactor with universal connectors.

Well, if Exxon ends up in PMITA Prison, they'll be pre-lubed...

How did ExxonMobil fudge this one up?

I used to live next to an Eastman plant, they sit right on top of a bird sanctuary and they kill thousands of birds a year.

They have finally graduated from bird kills. Today's paper from that area has just announced a major fish kill. Linky (new window)

Way to go, Eastman. Keep the noxious fumes a rollin'.

Are they going to have to give their award back?

The government will surely react swiftly, with tax breaks and incentives for Exxon.

gee.. where have we heard this before?

Oh, right, the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s...

//god bless you, drunken tanker captains.

geoquiz: Misleading. These results are not because wind turbines kill fewer birds per turbine than an oil well, but because that inefficient technology has not yet propagated worth a fark.

Absolutely. But an unsourced claim that every individual wind turbine kills a "metric fark-ton of birds" is misleading in the other direction, no? A complete and genuine discussion of the topic would require an in-depth look at the ability of different species of birds to learn to adapt their routes to avoid turbines, coupled with the many possibilities for 'encouraging' birds to avoid them. Things like bird populations and behavior are vary enough that I'm not sure we can make any cogent generalizations about the effect of turbines on birds without at least some geographical qualifications. A turbine in temperate wetlands is going to kill a lot more birds than a turbine in the arctic tundra.

It's also difficult to quantify how many birds die due to health effects from other forms of power generation, like oil and coal. So it's not an easy point of comparison to use when discussing options for power generation.

And, all that aside, 'birds per turbine' vs. 'birds per oil well' would be a specious comparison. I think something like 'birds per megawatt-hour' might make more sense if we really want to compare in terms of avian mortality. ;)

Audubon Society is worried about it. Sierra Club is too.. do you refuse to admit there's in-fighting in the ranks?

What? Hell no.

Want to talk about nuclear energy?

Love to, if this forum were more conducive to actual depth in discussions, but I'm not fast enough to keep up with things while still being cogent and complete in my answers. In summary, though, I think we need to use the cleanest viable energy sources possible in any given area, and in many cases that will be nuclear. We really need to get off of our asses and work on some modern plants instead of the wasteful aging crap we've got now.

Jument: SpaceButler: So your point is that we should throw all of the cats into wind turbines? ;)

Yes! Much more efficient that way. ;)

Seriously, that's a very interesting chart. Is it for realz?

I found it here. The graphic itself notes the source of the data, but it's hard to read; I think it's the Canadian Wind Energy Association.