Trial announced as Keir Starmer arrives in Washington to meet Donald Trump, a longtime critic of windfarms. Offshore windfarms are to be painted black in an effort to reduce the number of birds that die after flying into them. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a four-year trial to paint the wind turbines after officials raised concerns that the government’s plan to increase turbine numbers in the North Sea could spell danger for seabirds. Limited research has been conducted on the number of birds killed this way, but estimates range from four to 18 per turbine per year.
In the US, Donald Trump has signed an executive order pausing all wind energy projects and pushed for deregulation of the fossil fuel industry, and has previously expressed concern about wind turbines’ impact on birds. In December he told the prime minister, Keir Starmer, he was making a “very big mistake” by imposing a windfall tax on the North Sea oil and gas industry. He also told him to “get rid of windmills”.
News of the trial emerged just before Starmer’s visit to Washington to meet the president. Trump has been raising concerns about wind turbines since 2011, when North Sea windfarms were first proposed in view of his golf course in Aberdeen. A study in Norway which examined the effects of dyeing one wind turbine blade black found it resulted in a 70% fall in associated bird deaths.
Sign up to Down to Earth. The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential. after newsletter promotion. Iberdrola, a Spanish utility company, has tried another direction by using decals that look like eyes at the base of the wind turbine. This tactic was tested at the Lourdes-Tarbes-Pyrénées airport in south-eastern France and was found to be successful at deterring birds. Iberdrola said the number of birds of prey seen around the airport dropped by 65%.
