WIND ENERGY PROJECT SITING WORKSHOP: THE CHALLENGES OF SUCCESS

The wind energy industry is literally growing as fast as it possibly can. That kind of success doesn’t come without resistance.

Here in Texas, the coal, natural gas and nuclear energy industries know they have a new peer. Some in the oil industry are resisting. The smart ones are investing. Environmentalists and animal rights activists have concerns. Scientists and engineers are hard at work addressing those concerns.

Texas is the biggest wind producer in the U.S. (click to enlarge)

How an individual or an industry responds to success speaks volumes. If anybody wants to know about the wind energy industry, they need to take a look at the presentations made at this American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Project Siting workshop.

Slide courtesy of Dr. Jim Walker, next head of AWEA. (click to enlarge)

The morning presentations: Two authorities discussed how not to violate property rights in the process of installing turbines and building transmission; A representative of Texas Parks and Wildlife explained the extensive efforts to write wildlife and wildlife habitat protections guidelines; A petroleum industry veteran explained how to avoid conflicts with oil and gas producers; A veteran scientist talked about careful studies on what harm wind energy has done to avian and other wildlife habitat and what can be done to avoid it; Experts explained early site screening, pre-construction surveys, state-of-the-art site monitoring and harm-mitigation tools (including radar).

There was a lot more of the same in the afternoon, as well as detailed information on how to best deal with bats, prairie chickens and black capped vireos. The last presentation of the day was a discussion about potential radar interference by wind farms, a problem that is slowing wind energy development in the US and UK. Reportedly, there are 3,000 megawatts of planned wind energy presently stalled over the issue. The wind industry is learning why there is a problem and how not to make it worse.

Conclusion: This is an industry determined to do a good thing in the right way.

How is it doing?

Kathy Boydston was the Texas Parks and Wildlife representative at the morning session. She talked to NewEnergyNews about a real life, real time conflict over a planned wind energy installation near Texas’ Gulf Coast (See RANGE WAR OVER TEXAS WIND HEATS UP and TEXAS WIND COWBOYS FACE TEXAS JUSTICE). The powerful Kenedy Ranch wants to install a wind farm. The powerful King Ranch is “ag’in it.” There are environmentalists on both sides.

Boydston is a really straight talker. She doesn’t sugar coat it: There are problems. But it is not clear how serious those problems are and Boydston is looking for legitimate science to assess that harm, not studies like the one done by the Coastal Habitat Alliance (CHA) on the proposed Gulf Coast project. That study merely picks and chooses items from other reports to reach its conclusions. “They didn’t actually go and do on-the-ground surveys, ” Boydston told NewEnergyNews.

Meanwhile, Boydston’s agency gets annual reports from the project developers (PPM and Babcock and Brown) done on the Kenedy Ranch site. Nobody is rushing to put up turbines without carefully assessing the impact; Boydston says the developers will do 3 years of study before proceeding further.

(From Dr. Walker. Click to enlarge)

To understand if there will truly be harmful impacts, the developers are doing the things regulatory agencies and their advisory board (which includes Parks and Wildlife, The Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy) have recommended. As they learn from their advisors and their studies, they make adjustments. It is called “adaptive management.”

It was pointed out to the project developers that some turbines were too close to favored ponds of migrating ducks. “We know of very few instances where ducks have actually been killed by turbines,” Boydston said. “They usually avoid them.” Yet the developers moved the turbines, just to be safe.

When asked if her agency had any problem with the installation, Boydston simply said, “Not yet…Nothing’s ever been done like this in a major migratory bird corridor so we don’t know what’s going to happen…We know that there are birds that are going to be killed because there are birds that are killed by turbines, just like there are birds that fly into buildings and birds get killed by cars and cats kill them. The question is how many birds are going to be killed by this project and is it going to have an impact on the overall population. But we won’t know that…”

"...Nothing’s ever been done like this in a major migratory bird corridor..." (click to enlarge)

Boydston is not an activist. She takes a scientist’s prudent point of view: Proceed cautiously, obtain data, adjust appropriately. “Adaptive management” seems to be the attitude of the wind project developers, too. “They have been working with us…and are trying to incorporate our recommendations into their design plans…We’re trying to find out as much information as we can about what kind of impact this is going to have because it’s new to everybody…Not all the data is in. The site hasn’t been constructed…”

It's not good, but it happens. (From Dr. Walker. Click to enlarge)

What emerges from listening to the presentations and talking to field-tested experts like Boydston is a picture of an industry that is in a boom phase and yet is not charging forward with a “devil fetch the hindmost” attitude. On the contrary, as one speaker phrased it, wind energy is looking to ask the right questions.

The U.S. New Energy infrastructure will grow bigger and better with each answer.

Then there's this... (From Dr. Walker. Click to enlarge)

AWEA Wind Power Project Siting Workshop
February 14, 2008 (NewEnergyNews)

WHO
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)

WHAT
AWEA Project Siting Workshop

WHEN
February 14 – 16, 2008

...Or this... (From Dr. Walker. Click to enlarge)

WHERE
Austin, Texas

WHY
Wind energy grew 45% in 2007. It has become the premier New Energy in the U.S. and the world. With that success comes responsibility. Getting more sophisticated and skillful at siting wind farms is part of meeting that responsibility.

...Or this. (From Dr. Walker. Click to enlarge)

QUOTES
AWEA: “With wind power development expanding and with new participants entering the wind development business, this workshop will look at the various ways wind power projects affect - and don't affect - elements of the human and natural environment. This regionally-focused program will include presentations on emerging issues of project siting, such as bat interactions and wildlife research, wildlife survey techniques and radar concerns, and updates on siting processes.”