Windfarms have been a point of contention for many years. On one level they offer a carbon free source of energy for the world – but at great cost, both in bird fatalities and financially.
The London School of Economics estimate that there could be up to 106,000 bird deaths a year, including many eagles and other birds of prey, as a direct result of wind energy generation in the UK. Already there are over 10,000 wind turbines in the UK with thousands more planned.
This week the RSPB criticised the government’s decision to allow an offshore windfarm in the North Sea, stating that it negatively impacts breeding seabirds.
The giant Hornsea Three development lies 120km away from Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast, which is England’s biggest seabird colony. The RSPB have also – publicly at least – opposed the development of many other windfarms across the country.
But the RSPB’s position on windfarms comes across as bizarrely hypocritical given how cosy their relationship is with select windfarm companies, most notably Ecotricity.
Ecotricity pride themselves as being a green energy firm, who boast of their support from the RSPB across their website. On their website they say: “We generate wind electricity at our wind parks up and down the country, as part of our mission to make Britain greener. We’re proud to be Britain’s greenest wind energy supplier”.
It is unknown how many of the 106,000 bird deaths a year predicted by the London School of Economics were as a result of Ecotricity Turbines.
Indeed, the RSPB have even allowed Ecotricity to build a wind energy plant at their headquarters in Sandy, Bedfordshire. As Ecotricity promote on their website, “Ecotricity helps power the RSPB with green energy from a windmill located at their headquarters. Our most significant windmill yet.”
It is little surprise to see Ecotricity are the regularly prominent advertiser across the RSPB’s members’ magazine, Nature's Voice.
So how does this work? On the one hand the RSPB are criticising the government for allowing the development of windfarms – yet at the same time they are happy to have their own windfarm for their benefit, and take advertising money from some of the biggest producers of wind energy in the UK.
It is yet another example of the ideological mindset of the RSPB management who inhabit a vision littered with contradictions, absurdity and hypocrisy.
It also begs the question, do the RSPB only complain about windfarm producers that don’t offer them commercial arrangements and sponsorship? Perhaps that’s the price worth paying for the 106,000 predicted bird deaths a year.