Buddys Italian Restaurant celebrates 60th anniversary

Author : xpnew

Publish Date : 2021-02-07 23:32:09

Buddys Italian Restaurant celebrates 60th anniversary

Call it a deadly case of “distracted flying.”

Although highly intelligent and obviously skilled at flying, eagles can have their minds and eyes focused on what’s moving down below them or elsewhere and not on windmill blades slicing the air at 170 mph. The situation has seen dozens of federally protected birds killed at wind farms and landed one energy producer in hot water after its wind projects in Wyoming killed 14 golden eagles and 149 other protected birds and raptors.

A recent Colorado startup company has offered a solution with nearby towers equipped with artificial intelligence and precision optical technology to temporarily shut down the whirling blades when it detects protected eagles flying too close.

The product is called IdentiFlight and has been employed by Duke Energy Renewables Inc. after it was sentenced to pay fines, restitution and community service totaling $1 million and was placed on probation for five years in 2013 for violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act in connection with golden eagle deaths.

A recent study, led by The Peregrine Fund, a raptor conservation organization headquartered in Boise, took a look at how well IdentiFlight performs against the old system Duke Energy Renewables originally employed, that being biologists hired to sit and watch for eagles and shut down wind turbines when the raptors got too close.

“It turns out that the machines were way better at spotting and classifying birds than the humans were,” said Chris McClure, director of Global Conservation Science at The Peregrine Fund and lead author on the study released last month.

McClure said the study compared two wind farms, one at Top of the World wind power facility in Converse County, Wyoming, and another nearby facility.

“In terms of our study what we found was there was about a 60% drop in eagle fatalities at Top of the World,” McClure said. “We also had a control site and at the control site eagle fatalities actually went up. So, if you compare Top of the World with the control site it was actually about an 80% reduction.”

IdentiFlight vice president of sales Ben Quinn said because of the software it employs, IdentiFlight keeps getting more accurate and reliable.

“We’ve been continually updating our neural network and software capabilities to improve the detection capability for eagles,” Quinn said. “So the paper that was recently released showed 80% reduction and is based on what we would say is our older neural network which means that we are doing nothing but improving or performing better today than we were with that data that was gathered.”

Quinn said IdentiFlight is also being used at a wind farm in Tasmania to detect and protect wedge-tailed eagles. The product is also being tested in California and elsewhere. “But none currently in operation in Idaho,” he said.

The local eastern Idaho wind power company, Invenergy, said it is not using IdentiFlight.

“We are excited to see the deployment of technologies that can help minimize the risk to species, and we are encouraged by the initial results at operating wind sites that have adopted the IdentiFlight System,” said Invenergy’s Beth Conley.

While McClure was encouraged by the success of the IdentiFlight system, he said what would improve the odds of fewer eagle deaths would be to place wind farms out of known flyways.

“The number one way to not kill wildlife in a wind farm is to not put the windmills in a dangerous place,” McClure said. “IdentiFlight is great for when you’ve already installed the wind farm and subsequently learned that it is indeed a dangerous wind farm.”

He said birds and wind farms both like wind and sometimes it’s difficult to find places compatible for both. He advised power companies to consult with The Peregrine Fund on placement.

“They do not (contact us),” he said. “I wish they would. … It’s rare that conservation organizations get directly consulted for wind farm placement.”

Other experts agree.

“It is important to note that while this technology significantly reduced eagle collisions, it did not completely eliminate them,” said Todd Katzner of the U.S. Geological Survey. “Next steps could include partnering this technology with other mitigation actions, such as avoiding construction of turbines in high-risk areas for wildlife conflict.”

Quinn said one of the No. 1 questions he is asked about IdentiFlight by power companies is “what’s going to be our downtime or loss of production because of this?”

“The advantage of our system is we’re going to install it close to the wind turbine and have a much more accurate depth perception and be able to determine that a bird is a protected species and is in jeopardy of coming within a rotor’s sweep area and should we pause?” he said. “As the end result, we’re reducing the amount of downtime with wind turbines and producing more electricity.”

Duke Energy Renewables sounded pleased with the results of the study.

“This independent research confirms our earlier predictions and shows how the technology can effectively perform over an extended period of time,” said Tim Hayes, environmental director with Duke Energy Renewables. “It is our mission to reduce impacts to wildlife while generating affordable, clean energy for the communities we serve. IdentiFlight is just one way we support the environment in which our renewable energy projects operate.”

For now, IdentiFlight is hoping more wind power companies are paying attention so they can retrofit windmills that endanger raptors.

“We’re trying to show the industry, Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. government and the general public that there are creative solutions out there to help enable more renewable power sources,” Quinn said.