Wildlife deaths from wind turbines are proportional to energy production

It’s not yet clear what effect retrofits have on overall mortality among birds and bats. The researchers wanted to know whether, after controlling for confounding factors, turbines of different sizes and capacities cause different rates of mortality to wildlife. They found that the benefits to wildlife from replacing old turbines with new ones at the same site depended largely on the relative energy produced, rather than the size of the replaced turbines, challenging a common assumption in retrofit work. At a given site, new turbines are less harmful to wildlife only if they produce less energy than the older models they replace. The implications are far-reaching, as 18% of wind capacity in the United States and 8% of global capacity could be considered for retrofit in about five years. USGS News Release An article describing the paper was published on March 31, coinciding with the release of the manuscript in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Huso, MM, Conkling, TJ, Dalthorp, DH, Davis, M., Smith, H., Fesnock, A., Katzner, TE. 2021. Relative energy production determines the impact of wind facility regeneration on wildlife mortality: Journal of Applied Ecology, online, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13853.