User:AlexH555/Environmental effects of wind power

http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-540-30905-5

http://www.abcbirds.org/conservationissues/threats/energyproduction/wind.html

Danger to birds is often the main complaint against the installation of a wind turbine. However, the Audubon Society finds that, for each unit of electricity generated, wind power kills around 1/15th the number of birds killed by fossil fuels. The number of birds killed by wind turbines is also negligible when compared to the number that die as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, electric power transmission and high-rise buildings, the introduction of feral and roaming domestic cats, and especially the environmental impacts of using fossil fueled power sources. For example, in the UK, where there are several hundred turbines, about one bird is killed per turbine per year; 10 million per year are killed by cars alone. In the United States, turbines kill 70,000 birds per year, compared to 80,000 killed by aircraft, 57 million killed by cars, 97.5 million killed by collisions with plate glass, and hundreds of millions killed by cats. An article in Nature stated that each wind turbine kills an average of 4.27 birds per year.