Wind Energy Blog No. 2: The Nature Conservancy

Wind energy has a lot of benefits for the environment compared with power from fossil fuels. However, wind energy and specifically wind farms can have serious detrimental impacts on the environment if the proper research, planning and placement of the farm are not taken into consideration.

Rob Manes, who currently works at The Nature Conservancy, began working in wildlife conservation 10 years ago at the Wildlife Management Institute. As he was working there, he began hearing about the placement of large commercial wind farms on the landscape and began to wonder if there were negative impacts to wildlife caused by these wind farms. Since this time, Manes has been involved in the placement of several wind farms and has helped in the development of guidelines for wind farms in several states and at the national level.

Despite the many concerns about the impacts these wind farms can have on wildlife, there are no current regulations that developers must follow before building their sites.

“The unfortunate situation with wind energy development is there are — in Kansas and in most of the country — no regulations that affect the sighting of a wind farm,” Manes says. “So if a developer chooses to ignore any ecological concerns and just go out there and haphazardly develop a wind farm there is really nothing to stop a developer from doing that except for the will of private land owners.”

While some state departments have voluntary guidelines for these farms, there are no requirements stating that wind companies must meet with organizations such as The Nature Conservancy to get advising on where to place these farms, Manes says. Some developers have been concerned about their impact and have approached The Nature Conservancy asking for their advice on where to place a wind farm, but unfortunately others have not.

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