From an article titled "Doubts fly over wind farm." Get it? Doubts fly? It's like birds can, like, literally, fly but in this case it is doubts about the net benefits of a wind farm:
The study is intended to determine the risk of erecting wind turbines, measuring nearly 500 feet tall, to visiting tundra swans and other migrating waterfowl that fly in the area to forage during the winter.
Duke University ecology professor Dan Richter, who also attended Tuesday's meeting, expressed skepticism that a study can resolve anything. Richter doubts the independence and reliability of bird counts financed by a company with a vested interest in the outcome.
Richter said the raw numbers of a bird count won't predict whether migrating birds would fly into the whirling blades, or whether they would avoid the turbines and fly elsewhere in search of food. Richter, along with some state and federal wildlife officials, say the unknowns involved in putting wind turbines near the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge don't justify the benefits of a wind farm's emissions-free electricity.
I teach my students that we should conduct benefit-cost analysis, not benefit-unknown analysis. In addition to counting the birds, I recommend valuation of those counts.
