Our Eco House blog

Many people are afraid that wind turbines kill a huge number of birds. Opponents of wind power often use this argument to stop development of wind farms but is it really the true?

It is estimated that each year in the USA

• 57 million birds die in collisions with vehicles
• 1.25 million in collisions with tall structures (towers, stacks, buildings)
• more than 97.5 million in collisions with plate glass
• 4 million to 10 million night-migrating songbirds in collisions with telecommunications towers
• household cats in the U.S. are estimated to kill 100 million birds each year

In comparison each wind turbine kills 0 - 2 birds per year at worst.

Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) figures show that total installed wind energy capacity in 2006 was 74,223 MW

Let’s say that every wind turbine has a capacity of 100kW (usually they have more - even over 1500kW), it gives us around 742,230 wind turbines worldwide.

Let’s count with the worst scenario - 2 killed birds per turbine per year

Wind turbines kill 1,484,460 birds worldwide annually

Let’s have a look at the list above again and bear in mind that those numbers are only from the USA.

Source:
AWEA, 2002
Renewable energy, Godfrey Boyle, 2004
Wikipedia