The sentiment against renewable energy is about as rational as the sentiment against vaccines. Yet here we are.

I don't know if I've ever seen anyone else talk about the Tripod series

They're like a perfect setting for a liminal space game, endless water all around and a bunch of menacing, all-white and smooth man-made structures where our monkey brains don't expect them

Im guessing they want them to stand out for safety for pilots

Speaking in German numbers:

Wind Energy kills arround 100.000 Birds a year. Lovely furrballs arround 20.000.000 (likely more) Glass plates like windshields, Windows etc. Arround 100.000.000 So yeah pretty minor.

That wind turbines kill birds is entirely sensationalized and overstated, absolutely.

Birds die from way more sources, like feral cats and flying into glass windows. Looks like someone else posted the source.

Things have gotten better since we noticed that birds recognize the turbine blades more easily if 1 of 3 of the blade are painted a non-white color.

Don't think we've really done anything with cats and windows to mitigate those issues

I don't honestly know.

The problem is its actual history.

Windmills did kill way too many birds

• when they first built at Altamont pass, a natural constriction on a major migratory bird route
• when they used open lattice towers, which present tons of tempting roosting spots
• seems like at least one more major factor.

But this was in like the 1970s and they paid attention. Since then, wind turbines kill effectively zero birds, but it’s a huge problem when there’s an actual grain of truth that conservatives can grab onto and never let go

Edit: apparently still in production despite the poor site, but it looks like they cut bird fatalities in half and are looking at newer turbine designs to be safer. I guess the real lesson is don’t build in a mountain pass constricting a major Migratory bird route

• www.mobileranger.com/blog/altamont-pass-what-is-the-story-with-those-windmills/

I don't see how they could kill birds anymore than trees do. Birds have pretty good eyesight in many cases better than humans I can't reasonably see why wind turbines would be any more of a threat than any other structure natural or organic.

Well they're not zombies, since they actively hate the concept of brains.

Don't worry, it will come back.
Source: trust me bro

So the image in the post communicates sarcasm for sure, but the post text itself doesn't communicate sarcasm to me. Could just be dense.

Either way, the underlying concern is that boomers are old and don't like change. Younger people enjoy seeing wind turbines, so this whole issue is getting smaller and smaller year over year.

The joke works because people do use the argument. And to play the devil's advocate: Wind energy takes up a lot more space than conventional energy. So for every coal power plant that destroys one landscape, replacing it with wind energy will "destroy" many more.

That said, I like the view of wind wheels. I don't think they destroy the landscape. But we shouldn't silence all criticism. While we need to get to 100% renewable, we also need to reduce what 100% means. Too often, renewable energy is used as an excuse to use even more energy.

I've seen one of those bases on a truck, too—using an angle grinder on it would be quite impressive. They're made of very thick metal, at least anywhere a human can reach.

Has anyone ever tried using the heat from those chemical refineries to supplement a power grid? We convert fossil fuels into electricity by boiling water to turn turbines, so pretty much anything that creates adequate heat could be a potential energy source, right?

Nuclear fission is not renewable. It relies on mined uranium, which is rather limited.

The uranium is gonna continue to undergo fission, whether we mine it or not, whether we enrich/refine it or not. At that point it's like collecting energy from our surroundings, really functionally no different than harvesting geothermal, wind, solar, hydro, etc.

And if you have to always evaporate a lot of water to cool your power station you will have a problem in a drought, you will either have to turn off the power station or use a lot of water for it when you already don't have enough.

It's another advantage of wind turbines and solar panels since they don't need to be cooled like that.

solar isn't renewable bc eventually the sun will explode

I think that photo might have been taken with a relatively long lens, so it appears that they are closer together than they really are.

Yes, often on farmland, they're larger and more dispersed.

I am, to clarify, intentionally choosing what I think are pretty images of wind farms. I actually like the way they look and wish the OP used an example like this (even though the wind capacity in this second image is still comparatively small, it's much more representative than the OP of what typical landscapes with wind turbines look like).

Haha, I honestly cannot tell either. I think they were trying to say "look how ugly this is" but I think it looks cool as fuck

right?

Wrong, and I can't imagine how you reached that conclusion based on my first comment, let alone the second one where I say the exact opposite of this. I guess it's easier to fill in the blanks by assuming whatever you want to be true than by reading.