{"id":1442969,"date":"2022-04-18T08:01:05","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T12:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1442969"},"modified":"2022-04-18T08:01:15","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T12:01:15","slug":"supporters-of-wind-farms-more-than-nuclear-power-are-usually-eagle-killers-not-conservationists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supporters-of-wind-farms-more-than-nuclear-power-are-usually-eagle-killers-not-conservationists\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporters Of Wind Farms More than Nuclear Power Are usually Eagle Killers, Not Conservationists"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsupporters-of-wind-farms-more-than-nuclear-power-are-usually-eagle-killers-not-conservationists%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1442969&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/eagle-e1649864641872.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On April 6, energy firm NextEra pleaded guilty to three federal charges of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/04\/06\/1091250692\/esi-energy-bald-eagles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">killing eagles<\/a>\u00a0with wind turbines. The plea included an $8 million fine, an agreement to pay almost $30,000 for future eagle kills, and a commitment to spend $27 million to prevent future kills.<\/p>\n<p>The penalties should have been worse. Prosecutors alleged NextEra\u2019s raptor-slayers had executed 150 eagles in eight states.<\/p>\n<p>NextEra didn\u2019t act alone. Hundreds of hypocritical nonprofits implicitly endorse eagle elimination because they oppose nuclear energy and promote massive build-out of wind turbines. Their combined annual budgets exceed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/nuclear-power-hating-hypocrites-part-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$1 billion<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The notorious list includes the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/natural-resources-defense-council-nrdc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Natural Resources Defense Council<\/a>, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/league-of-conservation-voters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">League of Conservation Voters<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/sierra-club\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sierra Club<\/a>, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/environmental-defense-fund\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Environmental Defense Fund<\/a>. Financial support comes from big names such as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/ford-foundation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ford Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A March 2021 Department of Energy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/ne\/articles\/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a>\u00a0stated that a \u201ctypical\u201d nuclear plant \u201cneeds a little more than 1 square mile to operate,\u201d while \u201cwind farms require 360 times more land area to produce the same amount of electricity and solar photovoltaic plants require 75 times more space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Supporters of wind energy are not conservationists. There\u2019s nothing \u201cclean\u201d about energy that devours hundreds of times the land needed by another carbon-free option and then needlessly wipes out eagles as a cost of doing business.<\/p>\n<h2>Renewables Can\u2019t Meet Energy Needs<\/h2>\n<p>President Joe Biden hasn\u2019t learned this yet. In his March 1\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2022\/03\/01\/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-delivered\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">State of the Union<\/a>\u00a0address he pledged to \u201cdouble America\u2019s clean energy production in solar, wind, and so much more.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>But despite hundreds of millions of dollars in<a>\u00a0<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nei.org\/CorporateSite\/media\/filefolder\/resources\/reports-and-briefs\/analysis-of-us-energy-incentives-1950-2016.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">taxpayer subsidies<\/a>\u00a0already given out, solar, and wind together still accounted for less than 5 percent of total American\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/energy\/country\/united-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">energy consumption<\/a>\u00a0in 2020. Biden\u2019s speech didn\u2019t mention increasing production of nuclear or the other fuels that account for 95 percent of the energy we need.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020 the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/energy\/country\/united-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">combined output<\/a>\u00a0of every wind turbine and solar panel on Earth was\u00a06,037\u00a0TWh (terawatt hours). In comparison, the American nuclear program\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/energy-key-charts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>alone<\/em><\/a>\u00a0produced\u00a02,051\u00a0TWh, even as it represented just 8.4 percent of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/energy\/country\/united-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">total U.S. energy<\/a>\u00a0consumption.<\/p>\n<h2>Conservationists Should Support Nuclear Energy<\/h2>\n<p>If the president, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the rest were conservationists, \u00a0they\u2019d ditch the wasteful wind subsidies and instead demand a doubling (or more) of carbon-free nuclear energy. The Department of Energy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/energyexplained\/nuclear\/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reports<\/a>\u00a0uranium is \u201ca common metal found in rocks all over the world\u201d and \u201ceconomically recoverable\u201d in the United States and more than a dozen other nations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/energy\/country\/france\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">France<\/a>\u00a0obtained 36.1 percent of total energy consumption from nuclear in 2020. Of the five richest and largest industrial economies, the French are the least\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iea.org\/data-and-statistics\/data-browser\/?country=CHINAREG&#038;fuel=CO2%20emissions&#038;indicator=CO2PerCap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">carbon intensive<\/a>\u00a0per capita. In 2020, French carbon emissions measured 3.8 tCO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0per person, compared to 4.6 for the United Kingdom, 7.0 for Germany, 8.2 for Japan, and 13.0 for the United States.<\/p>\n<p>If 36 percent of American energy consumption in 2020 had been nuclear, that could have theoretically displaced all of the coal and nearly half of oil consumption. (Although this would have required many more vehicles to run on electricity).<\/p>\n<p>Fake conservationists are marching us in the other direction. Last April the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrdc.org\/experts\/kit-kennedy\/indian-point-closing-clean-energy-here-stay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Natural Resources Defense Council<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.edf.org\/media\/new-york-gets-closer-clean-energy-future-new-environmental-commitments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Environmental Defense Fund<\/a>\u00a0cheered the closure of the Indian Point nuclear station in upstate New York. In an absurd defense of the weather-restricted power industry, the Sierra Club\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/sites\/www.sierraclub.org\/files\/sce-authors\/u446\/Birds%20Fact%20Sheet%20043015%20FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">released a graphic<\/a>\u00a0showing house cats kill more birds than wind turbines.<\/p>\n<p>Well, yes, house cats prey upon America\u2019s inexhaustible supply of quickly reproducing sparrows, robins, and other small birds. For the Sierra Club to equate this with wind turbines wiping out big and slow-to-reproduce predators is as silly as saying a Formula One racer is comparable to what is found at a roadside used car lot.<\/p>\n<h2>Protecting Wild Animals and the Wide Open<\/h2>\n<p>Quoted by NPR after the federal plea deal, the leader of the eagle-killing wind firm copped a Sierra Club attitude: \u201cNextEra President Rebecca Kujawa said collisions of birds with wind turbines are unavoidable accidents that should not be criminalized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every single one of those collisions is avoidable, because wind turbines themselves are avoidable. We\u2019d be knocking almost all of them down if the sanctimonious anti-nuclear nonprofits acted like conservationists who enjoy witnessing wild animals and wide-open spaces.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Ken Braun is Capital Research Center\u2019s senior investigative researcher and authors profiles for InfluenceWatch.org and the Capital Research magazine. He previously worked for several free-market policy organizations, spent six years as a chief of staff in the Michigan legislature, and wrote political columns for MLive Media Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 6, energy firm NextEra pleaded guilty to three federal charges of\u00a0killing eagles\u00a0with wind turbines. The plea included an $8 million fine, an agreement to pay almost $30,000 for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":684,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1442969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1442969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1442969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1442969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1442969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}