# Presentation: 504656

## Wind Power in New Mexico: Good, Bad, or Benign?

- Dave Krueper
- USFWS, MBO Region 2
- Albuquerque, NM
- L:Dkrueper / Presentations / NMOS – Wind Power in NM

**Notes:**
Promise

## Outline

- Introduction: History of Wind Energy
- Technology: Advantages and Disadvantages
- Area Affected
- Threats and Concerns
- Potential Solutions
- Discussion and Information Sharing
- Conclusions

## History of Wind-Generated Energy

- Use of windmills dates back to 200 B.C.E. (pump water and grind grain)
- Cape Cod – 1,000+ working windmills in 1800’s
- Large-scale wind generation is a recent phenomenon and is exploding
- $1 billion already invested in the industry

## Slide 4

## Technology

- Wind resource potential maps (overall U.S.)
- Older turbines vs. New Generation turbines
- Height of towers currently over 525’
- Rotor sweep 300’
- Blades 17rpm; >165 mph at tip (“smearing”)
- Tremendous progress with energy production capacity per turbine
- No advances in safety design however

## Wind Power Advantages

- Clean and Green (renewable, sustainable, non-polluting)
- Each New Generation turbine can produce 1 MW (2.5 - 3.5 million kWh/yr)
- Avg. American household uses 10,000 kWh/yr
- 1 MW turbine generates enough electricity as is used by 200 - 600 households
- Economic benefits - $3,000 per turbine

## Wind Power in New Mexico

- Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) for NM: 5% in 2006 increasing 1% annually
- Total goal of 10% by January 2011
- Wind currently generates 267 MW/yr. (53,000 – 160,000 households)
- Wind energy potential 49,700 MW/yr. (>10 million households)
- Annual kWh potential of 435 billion/yr. (currently 12th in the United States)
- Incentives and tax credits through 2005

## Wind Power Disadvantages

- Direct mortality (MBTA, BGEPA, ESA violation)
- >40,000 birds killed annually (majority in CA)
- Differential mortality amongst avian families
- Site disturbance and habitat fragmentation
- Prairie grouse avoidance (at active leks)
- Unknown impact to other prairie-dependent passerines (e.g., SPPI and MOPL)
- Visual impacts for humans (?)

## Area Affected

- Wind turbine farms in 32 states
- Total number of turbines difficult to track (MW produced are the currency)
- USFWS Region 2 has three of the top ten states for wind potential (total production potential and capacity)
- Texas #1; NM #8; OK #10
- Plains and escarpments offer highest wind energy potential in eastern New Mexico

## Slide 11

## Slide 12

## Threats and Concerns

- Estimated that a minimum of 100 million to >1 billion birds are killed annually in U.S.
- Vehicles: 60 - 80 million
- Buildings and windows: 98 - 980 million
- Power lines: 10,000 - 174 million
- Communication towers: 4 – 50 million
- Cats: 100 million
- Pesticide and contaminants: unknown (?)
- Wind generation facilities: 10,000 – 40,000

## Threats and Concerns

- >15,000 operational wind turbines present in U.S.
- An average of 2.19 avian fatalities per turbine (U.S. – all spp. combined)
- 0.033 raptor fatalities per turbine
- >30,000 turbines predicted to be operational and on-line by 2015 (minimum)

## Threats and Concerns

- Some wind facilities must be lighted and many are guyed
- Raptor migration and concentration areas in the West not completely identified
- Prairie grouse species are particularly at risk throughout the Great Plains
- Potential for negative population-level impacts
- Cumulative concerns (additive impacts)

## Threats within New Mexico

- House, N.M. site is the 3rd largest wind generation facility in the world (204 MW = 94,000 homes)
- Birds of Conservation Concern – 31 species in BCR 35; 19 species in BCR 18 (LEPC, FEHA, BUOW, NOHA, MOPL, LBCU, BAIS....)
- Raptor migration and concentration area
- Passerine migration impacts unknown
- Lesser Prairie-Chicken – population level impacts?

## Slide 17

## Threats to Lesser Prairie-Chicken(and other prairie grouse species)

- Indirect impacts (no documented collisions)
- Visual disturbance
- Surface disturbance (footprint, electrical transmission lines and roads)
- Perch site concerns for predators (raptors)

## Threats to Lesser Prairie-Chicken(and other prairie grouse species)

- Prairie grouse avoidance (at active leks)
- Studies show >1 mile avoidance
- 5 mile buffer (FWS) vs. 0.25 mile buffer (industry)
- LEPC distribution and wind potential
- Contiguous blocks of habitat >7500 ha
- Movement and migration concerns (brood rearing, foraging, wintering)
- Areas of highest wind ratings (wind energy potential) are within highest concentrations of active leks

## Bat Mortality

- Bat Conservation International studies
- 3 studies conducted on bat mortalities
- Mortalities highest in East (forested habitats), lowest in West (open and fragmented habitats)
- Highest deaths in August (fall migration)
- 290 mortalities in 6 weeks at Meyersdale, VA, only 13 birds (hoary and red bats)
- Mountaineer site on Backbone Mtn., WV: 2100 bat mortalities and 200 birds (Apr. – Oct. 2003)
- No Silver Bullet

## The Five Axioms

- Wind industry will always build where wind potential is the greatest
- Birds and bats will always migrate in those areas where wind potential is the greatest
- In a direct confrontation with a turbine blade, birds and bats will always lose
- Teaching birds and bats new migration routes is a waste of time and energy
- Working with wind industry is a challenge due to inherent realities of business competition

## Potential Solutions

- Siting and configuration considerations
- Shutting down turbines during “events”
- Mechanical guards on turbine
- Pre-construction and post-construction studies
- Structural considerations for towers
- Seasonal and daily timing of use
- Radar research to avoid construction in areas with avian concentrations
- Upgrade, retrofit and relocate older turbines
- Balance “business sense” with “biological sense”

## Sources of Information

- FWS Guidelines (comments thru 7/2005)
- http://www.fws.gov/r9dhcbfa/wind.pdf
- American Wind Energy Association
- 		http://www.awea.org/
- National Wind Coordinating Committee
- 		http://www.nationalwind.org/
- New Mexico Public Regulation Commission
- 		http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/

## Conclusions

- Growth of electrical needs is 1 MW every 30 minutes = 2 turbines per hour to keep pace
- Good, Bad, or Benign?
- Great potential and promise
- Is not the panacea
- Paradigms need to be shifted as appropriate
- Toward the Future:  the concept of “Appropriateness”
- Building trust between publics, regulatory agencies, and the utilities

- “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
-                                           - Albert Einstein