Bird deaths down 70 percent after painting wind turbine blades

Enlarge Aurich Lawson / Getty Images Something as simple as black paint could be the key to reducing the number of birds that are killed each year by wind turbines. According to a study conducted at a wind farm on the Norwegian archipelago of Smøla, changing the color of a single blade on a turbine from white to black resulted in a 70-percent drop in the number of bird deaths. Further Reading 2019 saw over 60 gigawatts of wind power installed Wind power is surging right now, with more than 60GW of new generating capacity added worldwide in 2019. As long as you put the turbines in the right spot, wind power is reliably cheaper than burning fossil fuels. And most people would prefer to live next to a wind farm than any other kind of power plant—even solar. Not everyone is a fan of wind turbines, however, because of their impact on local populations of flying fauna like birds and bats . Politicians with axes to grind against renewable energy say that we should continue to mine coal and extract oil because of the avian death toll, and US President Donald Trump has called wind turbines " bird […]

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