Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in their communities

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by Georgelemental on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:04PM (#37758233)

The French countryside is full of wind turbines, they ruin landscapes and kill millions of birds. Much better than coal smog, but France isn't replacing coal, it's replacing nuclear. Makes 0 sense

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by hutzlibu on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:15PM (#37758357)

"kill millions of birds."

They do, but ... maybe have some perspective:

"Merriman concludes that 1.17 million birds are killed by wind turbines in the US each year.

This is a lot of birds, but it is only 0.016% of the estimated 7.2 billion birds that live in the US. It is also significantly less than the 5–6.8 million killed each year by communication towers, the 60–80 million killed by automobiles, the 67–90 million killed by pesticides, or the 365 million to one billion killed by cats each year in the US, according to a study published in Nature."

https://www.energymonitor.ai/renewables/weekly-data-how-many...

So if you want to protect birds, you can do something about cats.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by notanothereric on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:19PM (#37758403)

And here I thought Perdue was the biggest threat to birds in the US …

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by maccard on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:20PM (#37758416)

> kill millions of birds

This is a well trodden anti-wind/anti renewable talking point. See [0], way more birds are killed by cats than by wind turbines.

[0] https://www.energymonitor.ai/renewables/weekly-data-how-many...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by Ericson2314 on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:07PM (#37758258)

I don't think they are doing that anymore? I think they've seen the Germans embarrass themselves and are realizing nuclear is actually good.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by Georgelemental on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @06:29PM (#37758496)

Nuclear requires time to build and expertise to maintain. You can't correct decades of bad policy instantly, even if you have the will to do so (which Macron doesn't).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Most Americans comfortable with solar panels, turbines in... by Ericson2314 on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @10:44PM (#37760251)

Well I am saying they are no longer trying to phase out, even if they haven't yet succeeded in phasing back in (e.g. getting all the broken plants back open).

[ Parent | on HN ]