Do Wind Farms do more harm than good?

Renewable energy projects are vital if we are to stand even the remotest chance of combatting Climate Change, the self-inflicted blight caused by amongst other things human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation and farming. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is only by adopting sustainable lifestyles that the human race, or come to that Planet Earth, has a long-term future. But embracing seemingly green policies invariably comes at an environmental cost. The elements used to make batteries for electric cars and wind turbine blades have to be mined and extracted, and the products manufactured, for example. And the precise location of wind turbines can make the difference between an environmentally acceptable number of bird deaths, and wholesale massacre.

The secret of success is to understand and not underestimate the risks and consequences, thereby ensuring the benefits of any green technologies don’t outweigh the harm they cause. How do you assess this risk? Listen to conservation science and don’t ignore or override it in a single-minded quest for carbon neutrality. In the case of wind turbines, and from a biodiversity-loss perspective, one of the keys is location, location, location. Wind turbine blades are always going kill flying birds. Build a wind farm on an avian flightpath or where birds feed and you will kill more than if the turbines are sited elsewhere. Rather obvious I would have thought.

The other day I woke up to a report on Radio 4’s Today Programme (also featured on the BBC Website) about the RSPB criticising a government decision to grant permission for expansion of the Hornsea Wind Farm – Stage Three - off the coast of Yorkshire. RSPB is concerned about the cumulative impact of the project as a whole on seabird mortality. The seabird colonies affected by the windfarm are located on the Yorkshire coast, at Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs; together they are designated a Special Protection Area for species including Gannets, Kittiwakes and auks.

One of Bempton Cliff’s Gannets. The site is home to England’s only mainland colony of the species. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Kittiwakes congregate where the feeding is good and nowadays that can mean a round trip of more than 200km from the nesting colony. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Out of sight and out of mind the wind farm may be for us humans (Phase Three is more than 100km offshore) but for the breeding birds Hornsea Wind Farm could hardly be in a worse location. The complex is vast, roughly the size of Yorkshire when completed I am told. So, it is hardly surprising that it blocks the flightpath of birds moving between nesting cliffs and feeding grounds; at best this necessitates a detour and at worst it poses a collision risk. And it also encroaches on the feeding grounds themselves. Seen as a whole the cumulative impact of the Hornsea Wind Farm has the potential to be devastating to seabirds. The RSPB is said to be dismayed by the decision and the prospects for seabirds.

As an aside, the Hornsea Wind Farm may sound remote but these days seabirds – particularly Kittiwakes but also Gannets – have to fly huge distances to find food for their young. That’s the result of another human endeavour, namely overfishing. How do we know about their travels? Well, the RSPB has definitive scientific evidence about seabird (particularly Kittiwake) feeding patterns, thanks largely to satellite tracking research.

Sand-eels are among the most important fish species in the diet of Kittiwakes, Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills, all of which nest on the Yorkshire coast. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Incidentally, the developers are a Danish energy company called Orsted, which on its website proudly describes itself as ‘The most sustainable company in the world’. Not only that but an extremely profitable one if their 2019 Annual Report is anything to go by. If Kittiwakes were shareholders in the company, I wonder what they would make of this? Predictably the developers have proposed mitigation measures to ‘help’ the seabirds, Kittiwakes in particular. These include the construction of four bespoke nesting towers for the birds. Seriously? For Kittiwakes to flourish they need reliable sources of food and to not to be sliced in two by turbine blades. Not new nesting ledges.

Outside the breeding season, Kittiwakes, including birds in their first winter, spend their lives at sea. They are the only members of their kind in the UK that merit the term ‘sea gull’. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Predictably, wind turbines pose a threat to terrestrial birds as well as their marine counterparts. A vivid reminder of this came in 2013 when a White-throated Needletail (an Asian swift species, and a very rare visitor to Britain) turned up on the Isle of Harris. In front of an audience of hard-core birders the bird flew into a wind turbine and was killed. The fact that dozens of people travelled hundreds of miles to see the bird will not have done much for their carbon footprints, and there is a cruel irony to the fact that it was killed by an object built with green intent.

Apart from when nesting, Common Swifts spend their entire lives - night and day - on the wing, making them vulnerable to collisions with wind turbine blades. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

The Isle of Harris is contiguous with the Isle of Lewis and the location for the Stornaway Wind Farm. Interestingly, in 2012, after raising initial objections to the proposed development the RSPB withdrew its objection after the number of turbines was reduced from 42 to 36. It was not just the reduction in numbers that influenced their decision, but the removal of specific turbines that were located in spots likely to be disproportionately harmful to birds – eagles in particular I seem to remember. Clearly, the blade that killed the needletail was not attached to one of the Stornaway Wind Farm turbines, but its close proximity perhaps hints at the dilemma faced by conservation bodies. And it serves as an example of the trade-offs we all make between the desire for green energy and the almost inevitable adverse biodiversity consequences that come with them. And the moral of the story for governments is to listen to independent conservation science, not consultants paid for by developers, if you want to achieve an environmentally-nuanced outcome that truly minimises the damage.

Perhaps there is a bigger picture to consider here. By focussing too exclusively on our carbon footprint there is a danger we will lose sight of the myriad other ways that humanity threatens wildlife and the environment, and exploits and destroys habitats. The unpalatable truth is that we are a very destructive species, and that almost all our actions have environmental consequences, even if these actions started off being well-intentioned. At the risk of sounding apocalyptic, what’s the point in having a planet whose atmospheric temperature has returned to within acceptable parameters when, from the perspective of anyone who cares about wildlife for its own sake, all that was interesting has been destroyed? That could well be the outcome if we single-mindedly focus on our quest to combat carbon emissions and neglect our other environmental responsibilities. In theory, humans are a species capable of enlightenment: after all, the literal translation of our scientific name Homo sapiens is ‘wise man’. Let’s hope for signs of wisdom among decision-makers in the year to come.

10% of the UK population of Kittiwakes nests on Bempton Cliffs. The species is classified as Red Listed in the latest Birds of Conservation Concern report because of declining numbers. ©Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd