The research on changing the majorly used white color of wind turbines (which poses a substantial environmental risk) to black could be a reason in accepting this electricity-producing technology at large.
Amongst various ways of producing electricity such as solar, hydro, nuclear, the most reliable, cheap, and clean electricity is produced using wind turbine technique. In the stats laid out by the World Wind Energy Association, wind energy is collectively making more than a massive 6,508 gigawatts all across the globe. This method of producing electricity is more beneficial in the areas with continuous higher speeds of wind flow, as the name suggests.
The technology is advancing, and humans are deteriorating the natural habitat of almost every other species on the planet for creating comfort for themselves. The same goes where various studies, and researches have shown us the risks and dangers that wind-turbine methods of producing electricity poses to birds and have killed significant numbers of these flying creatures.
Some of the most influential politicians, such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, have blamed wind power for the bird’s death at large instead of trying to rectify the simple reason behind it. They did so to negate this specific tech to cater to their massive interests in oil. The U.S president even termed this method as “Bird Graveyards.”
Some of the statistics on the environmental harm this electricity-producing method has caused were laid down by the U.S Fish and Wildlife departments, and the number of bird deaths it causes in a year is as horrific and massive reaching to five hundred-thousand.
Significant Risk Reduction With A Simple Finding
The research work took place on a Norwegian farm, and the study intended to see if painting a turbine blade to black instead of commonly used white color would decrease the rates of birds colliding, what the researchers found out was an incredible decrease of about 70% in the bird’s collision.
The reason behind the birds crashing more into the white-colored turbine fans is simple. These flying creatures have a hard time visualizing objects when in flight; its the same reason that we hear air accidents due to a bird colliding with an airplane fan.
The results demonstrate to us that if these turbine fans are colored in darker shades, it will make it easy for the birds to trace these obstacles.
This useful research was carried out in 2013; however, the findings are not yet applied to the tech for odd reasons. In the following years, the analysis was carried out again, and the team only found six dead birds on their model, which had darker shades of colors on turbine fans. In contrary to that, the typically used white fans had killed 18 birds, making it three times more harmful.
The study was published in the Journal ‘Ecology and Evolution,’ now we wonder when the world is going to take these measures to create a much more friendly environment for the species with whom we share our planet.