
Increasing wind turbine rotor blade visibility reduces avian fatalities - seigando
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6592
======
dreamcompiler
I'm all for reducing avian fatalities from wind turbines. But it's also
important to understand that this is not going to make a significant dent in
how many birds are killed by human causes. Glass buildings kill 2500 times as
many birds as wind turbines. House cats kill _10,000 times_ as many.

[https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines-
are-n...](https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-
killing-fields-for-birds/)

~~~
tzs
It will make a significant difference for specific species of birds, such as
assorted eagles and other raptors, that generally live away from cities with
their tall glass buildings, and that would quickly kill any house cat foolish
enough to try to take them.

Wind turbines tend to be built in the same kind of places those birds hunt.

~~~
dreamcompiler
True. Residents of Juneau know not to let cats and small dogs play outside
because eagles will take them.

So yeah, I'm all for this technology but it bugs me that we hear so many
people who are obviously trying to defend fossil fuels and denigrate
renewables couch their rhetoric in terms of "the poor birds!" Yet we never
hear them advocate bird-saving technology for tall buildings (which does
exist) or keeping house cats indoors.

~~~
lambdatronics
Yeah, I saw a pro-logging meme that said sarcastically "Save a tree, wipe your
&$$ with an owl." (context: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/owl-
ruling-halts-l...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/owl-ruling-halts-
logging-on-56000-acres-of-private-land/))

You know it's disingenuous.

------
3JPLW
This seems like a noisy low-probability event.

> While the number of recorded carcasses increased at the control turbines (7
> vs. 18), they decreased at the treated turbines (11 vs. 6 [expected: 28])
> (Table 1).

I didn't read the article very closely, but it also reads like they're doing
lots of hypothesis tests on different groupings to find significant (p < 0.05)
results:

> However, the annual fatality rates fluctuated considerably between years
> (Figure 3 lower panel), stressing the necessity of a long‐term study.
> Seasonally, fatality rates (across years) were strongly reduced at the
> painted turbines after treatment during spring and autumn, but increased
> during summer (Figure 4). When grouping data by season instead of years,
> painting reduced seasonal fatality rates by 70.9% (95% CI: 61.7%–77.7%; z =
> −2.003, p = .042, n = 64).

I'm not convinced.

~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
I agree with you.

For some reason, every now and again studies like this -- ones that are
interesting but under-researched -- are posted on HN, and I don't get why.
People then treat these studies as if they are conclusive evidence of
something. Luckily nothing ever comes of it, but still

~~~
dylan604
maybe the results of their test will spur some doubting Thomases to pick up
the mantle and have a go themselves. They'll either find supporting results or
disagreeing results. Either way, sounds like good science.

If they are taking the results of the single study to say "This is the final
answer", then that would be bad. If they are just saying "These are the
results we achieved", then that sounds like what a study is suppose to do.

~~~
3JPLW
To be quite frank, repeated hypothesis tests on ad-hoc groupings is _terrible_
science.

------
sradman
> The most common species found were willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus),
> white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), common snipe (Gallinago
> gallinago), hooded crow (Corvus cornix), and meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis)
> (Table S1). Eagles are large conspicuous birds and will therefore often
> catch the attention of passers-by. Ptarmigan are often found near the
> turbine base as they are suspected to collide with the actual tower

This disproves my assumption that many of the collisions were with nighttime
migratory birds (maybe that is buildings?). I hope this simple fix applies to
all locales and is not specific to Norway.

~~~
wil421
Last night I watched an episode about Eagles on PBS NOVA. They said predatory
birds like eagles are constantly looking down and they also have a ridge above
their eyes to block the sun. They basically don’t look up, maybe the white
looks like clouds so they don’t think they can run into it.

It’s a pretty cool episode. They use eagle watchers to turn off turbines when
an eagle gets too close but the human can’t see in the direct sun. They built
a robot with a 360 camera and 2 cameras that rotate to find eagles. It worked
much better than a human.

IdentiFlight system:
[https://www.identiflight.com/](https://www.identiflight.com/)

------
barbegal
Wind turbines are painted white to reduce their visibility (particularly
effective on overcast days). Humans don't want to see wind turbines, birds do.
I wonder wether the turbines can be painted a color which blends in with the
natural scenery for humans but is really visible for birds.

~~~
Analemma_
Can't birds see into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum? I wonder if you
could get the blades to emit enough UV light for them to avoid it.

~~~
barbegal
If anything the black works because it absorbs UV (and visible) light.

------
frafra
News article from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research:
[https://www.nina.no/english/News/News-
article/ArticleId/5037...](https://www.nina.no/english/News/News-
article/ArticleId/5037/S-229-effektive-er-tiltakene-for-fuglevennlig-
vindkraft)

------
specialist
This research's analytical technique is so cool, I'm almost giddy.

Another hypothesis is that white paint attracts insects, which then attracts
their predators.

I'm hoping experimenters continue with all sorts of crazy paints and patterns,
optimizing for visibility to misc birds.

I'm certain that we can do many incremental improvements to reduce bird
mortality.

------
eganist
figuring there isn't much of a weight difference, I do wonder if the thermal
difference with one blade being black will have any impact on performance and
longevity of the structure as a whole.

~~~
navaati
Is there really thermal concerns for wind turbine blades ? These things are
literally aircooled by the wind, aren't they ?

~~~
jzwinck
They are only cooled by the wind when there is wind. Sometimes there is a lot
of sun and no wind. One side of the blades will heat up more than the other,
and potentially undergo rapid cooling when a rainstorm hits.

------
vz8
The real missed opportunity here is the one-two combination of reducing avian
fatalities and advertising with LEDs:

[https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15.LQMVXXXXXNXpXXq6xXFXXXZ/GTF...](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15.LQMVXXXXXNXpXXq6xXFXXXZ/GTFS-
Hot-AAA-battery-Powered-LED-Programmable-Message-Fan.jpg)

But seriously, is there a way to illuminate the blades in a low-cost way
that's obvious to birds and invisible to locals? Intensity, visible
wavelength, frequency?

~~~
saalweachter
I'm more curious if there are other colors or patterns that would be more
effective at warding away birds. For instance, would bright red or neon orange
be more visible? Or could you co-opt existing danger-patterns like the red-
yellow-black of a coral snake or the pattern of a monarch butterfly to trigger
the "I am poison, stay away!!!" response in birds explicitly, rather than just
being visible as "oh hey there is a giant thing there"? If we created a novel
patterning for wind turbine blades (or highways, for that matter), could
animals develop an aversion for it, and how long would that take?

------
frank2
The paint scheme they tested:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/41ca0d89-d383-425e...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/41ca0d89-d383-425e-97e7-bf55b854322f/ece36592-fig-0001-m.png)

------
fred_is_fred
I find it fascinating how much discussion and effort goes into birds hitting
wind turbines compared to the number of birds and mammals killed by mountain
top removal coal mining or killed in slurry ponds.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Do you have a resource in mind for learning about those too?

In UK coal mining has all but ceased but wind turbines are on the increase, do
it seems natural to talk more of the latter in any context.

------
soapboxrocket
I'm always amazed how inefficient cross industry pollination is. This was a
major issue in aerospace for years (see Hudson River) and there are a number
of solutions, one of the best being a high pulsing light on the wings. How has
that not gotten pulled over to the wings of a wind turbine?

------
elwell
Did they try posting a scarecrow on top of the turbine?

~~~
erikig
Or at least a conspicuous vane on the leeward/downwind side that makes the
whole thing a little more conspicuous to birds.

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LargoLasskhyfv
Lacks ((RGB LED) persistence of) vision.

Why waste the opportunity to have giant advertisement displays like in
Bladerunner?

------
Petrova
Would it be possible to emit high frequency sound that's undetectable to
humans to warn birds away?

------
ourmandave
_No negative reactions from local human inhabitants are known to us._

Maybe not the locals, but I think they're underestimating internet conspiracy
theorists ability to turn this into _something._

~~~
KiranRao0
But I certainly hope large scale policy/infrastructure decisions are made to
appease internet conspiracy theorists.

~~~
kiddico
I hope you intended a "not" to be somewhere in there lol

~~~
hhanesand
Sarcasm over the internet fails again

------
mrfusion
How about a drone with computer vision to identify birds and chase them away?

~~~
cornellwright
This company does fixed cameras which identify birds and then temporarily
shuts down the relevant turbines:
[https://www.identiflight.com/](https://www.identiflight.com/).

------
deevolution
I think evolution should largely take care of the problem here. Evolve or die.
It's the natural order.

~~~
mey
Evolution typically is a slow process. Not that smarter species don't have
learned behaviors that is passed down outside evolution that can compensate.
If a species is unable to adapt, loosing it can be an important part of an
ecosystem potentially triggering a further cascade impact. Obviously we
(humans) compete for resources on a grand scale and generally don't care about
the ants we squish along the way, but it is worth considering the impact,
understanding the repercussion. As much as we would love to believe otherwise,
we can't survive without the biomes around us.

