Renewable energy will kill us all
There’s a lot of concern trolling going on these days related to solar and wind power. The most recent I found is probably the dumbest. Yep, they’re saying solar is way more deadly than nuclear. No I’m not kidding. The (tortured) logic of this argument is that the number of people killed by, say, falling off roofs installing solar makes it a more dangerous (by number of human deaths) than other forms of power. Even if this were true (hint: it’s not), the more intelligent approach would be to improve safety techniques and equipment vs. just dismissing an entire industry. There are construction deaths all the time, should we just not build anything ever again?
This is all part of the general strategy of old energy industries like oil and nuclear to muddy the waters. Oil might be destroying the planet, but hey, windmills kill birds!! You don’t hate birds, do you? To further muddy the waters, they love to throw the word “clean” in front of their products. “Clean” coal, Environmentally friendly propane. “Energy Solutions” from Shell Oil.
There are issues worth examining when it comes to new energy sources. What are the impacts of solar panel construction? Do windmills kill birds? If so, in how great of numbers? And what can we do to help limit this collateral damage? For more information, check this out.
We need to ensure we’re not being suckered by an industry that has made the highest profits ever seen in the history of mankind. Their marketing can blur the lines about what the right decisions are for us as a society and cause hesitancy when decisiveness is needed.
Birds might be dying from windmills, but bats might be dying from cell phones and we don’t see the same uproar. Why not? If windmills are killing birds, let’s find out why and make them safer. But let’s keep things in perspective.
After all, there is another energy source with a history of killing birds.
Photo courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I hear that eating causes a lot of deaths due to choking. Let’s stop eating.
Walking is a big problem too.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Actually, the activity with the highest fatality correlation is birth; ergo, being born causes death!
March 20th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, tick, tick, tick!
May 15th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Actually, that site shows that oil ands coal are both much more dangerous than the various renewables and nuclear. And while their methods for trying to estimate dangers associated with domestic solar might be less rigorous than they could be, the overall point is valid: generating tiny amounts of electricity with installations put up on inherently dangerous places (like roofs) will probably generate more risk than generating huge amounts of power in tightly regulated and controlled conditions where safety can be monitored.
If you want safe solar power, your best bet is to build a solar power station, instead of climbing up and down a thousand different roofs that were never designed for the job.
And if you want an immediate, large scale reduction in fatalities, phase out coal in favor of nuclear as an intermediate step to a renewable grid.