Another look at ginormous windmills

Last week I wrote a blog entry about new designs for gigantic windmills that can generate astonishing amounts of energy. One of the advantages of such designs, I pointed out, was that the huge blades rotate more slowly than those of smaller windmills and therefore make them safer for birds that might otherwise get killed as they fly by.

Some commenters suggested that even at the slower RPMs (about 12 in the case of the windmill I described), the end of the blade is still moving at a lethal 180 mph, and that can't be good for a bird that flies into it. In fact, MSNBC has run a story out of Kansas that describes how a series of new 260-foot-tall windmills may be endangering migrating whooping cranes.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service is worried that, "As many as 40,000 turbines will be erected in the U.S. section of the whooping cranes' 200-mile wide migration corridor." It's a growth industry. The story says that wind energy grew 45 percent in the U.S. last year and now provides about one percent of the nation's energy.

For more on this, check out the February 23rd New York Times story about the big business of wind farms in Texas. There are some great photos that give you a good idea of just how big today's windmills can be.