Building offshore wind can permanently deafen porpoises, but OK now with Bubble Walls?
January 4th, 2024
Now they tell us
Wind farms save the world, and absolutely do not hurt dolphins or whales but did you know the industry has developed bubble curtains to protect porpoises hearing from the things that never harm them (isn’t that nice of them)? Bubble curtains are being “widely” used in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The BBC is happy to report it now there are good results from a study, but apparently they weren’t too enthused in 2013 about telling us how pile -driving during construction can permanently destroy hearing in marine mammals. Indeed, ocean noise is such a problem the pile-driving teams use acoustic deterrents — loud noises designed to scare marine life away before they get started on the industrial noise. But even the “safety warning” may itself be dangerous.
So that’s alright then, windfarm construction used to kill porpoises, and the BBC kept that a secret, but now that we’ve solved it, it’s news we can use, right?
“Like a giant jacuzzi.”
https://www.cfact.org/2024/01/04/building-offshore-wind-farms-can-permanently-deafen-porpoises-but-its-ok-now-with-bubble-walls/
