Wind turbines harm birds and other wildlife, Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed against the over-dependence on renewable energy saying that it mainly harms birds and other wildlife.

Putin, while speaking at the global manufacturing conference said, “Wind-powered generation is good but are birds being taken into account in this case? How many birds are dying?”

The Russian president has taken into account the research that suggests that wind turbines are the reason behind birds and bats dying predominantly while getting hit with turbines.

“[Wind turbines] shake, causing worms to come out of the soil. This is not a joke,” he added.

According to a research of London School of Economics (LSE) estimated in 2014 that by 2020 wind energy could be a reason of bird deaths ranging between 9,600 and 106,000 birds a year.

Another research in 2009 looking at US and Europe estimated that wind farms were responsible for about 0.3 bird deaths for every 1GWh of electricity generated , compared with 5.2 deaths per 1GWh caused by fossil-fuelled power stations.

Putin said that people would not like to live on a planet dotted with “rows of wind-powered generators and covered by several layers of solar panel”.

Russia is a world-leading producer of fossil fuel, is lagging other countries in its development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind-powered energy.