Renewable energy vs. wildlife conservation - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 76

renewable power. Kilowatt-for-kilowatt, renewable electricity generation is
almost certainly less harmful to the planet and its wildlife population as a
whole than the coal- or gas-fired generation that it most typically displaces.
But how much less harmful are renewables?
Not surprisingly, opinions differ widely regarding the relative benefits
to wildlife of renewable energy development over conventional fossil fuel-
dependent energy generation. On the one hand, coal and oil production
and combustion clearly adversely impact the environment. 14 Petroleum
development and consumption can adversely affect animals through spills at
wells or pipelines, toxic air emissions, contamination of storm water runoff,
and other means. Coal-based energy strategies can likewise impose severe
harm on wildlife in multiple ways. For example, the open cooling system at
a single coal-fired power plant in the U.S. state of Massachusetts has been
blamed for killing about 16 billion fish eggs and larvae. 15 And generating
electricity from coal extracted at surface mines uses far more land area per
kilowatt hour than generating electricity on commercial wind energy farms,
potentially disrupting more habitats in the process. 16
On the other hand, some wildlife advocates might take the view that
a given wind farm's threat to a specific, endangered animal species is far
more troubling than the generalized wildlife hazards associated with fossil
fuel-generated energy. Even though wind farms are responsible for less
than 1 percent of human-caused bird deaths each year, it may nonetheless
be worthwhile to challenge a particular renewable energy project because
of its potential impacts on a single animal. 17 For instance, in light of the
tremendous investment that governments have made to save California
condors from extinction, one could easily argue the death of such a bird
would impose a greater social loss than the deaths of several dozen common
seagulls or fish.
Unfortunately, it is far easier to understand this principle in the abstract
than to apply it in practice. Would a given wind farm generate a net benefit
to society or to the natural environment if it inadvertently took the life
of one California condor but spared 1,000 seagulls from fatal harms due
to additional offshore oil extraction? What if only 500 seagulls would be
spared? Or just 100 seagulls? Even if policymakers had perfect information
about the types and quantities of species that a given renewable energy
project would indirectly spare over its existence, reaching any sort of policy
consensus based on such data would be extremely challenging.
Likewise, estimating the harm that a given renewable energy project
will cause to wildlife during its years of operation can be equally difficult.
Renewable energy projects can injure animals directly through electrocution,
collisions, or other direct contact, but they can also cause harms in less
obvious ways, disrupting critical habitat areas, interfering with important
survival activities such as migration or reproduction, or affecting creatures
or plants 18 that are critical to an animal's food chain. 19 In addition, some of
the environmental costs of renewable energy development occur at a great