re the bat issue if there is one, are there many bats on ilkley moor?
do lights on the turbine sites attract moths and therefore bats?
could a light rig divert bats from danger areas?
what else could be done to safeguard any bats ?
much as i am fond of bats and wish them no harm in the greater scheme of things are some casualties acceptable? could potential casualties be offset by population boosting schemes elsewhere?
that seems a bit callous but it is the sort of thinking that seems to hold weight with planners, conservationists and the public.
from personal experience i preferred to support (well at least not to oppose) 7 million tons of stone from 3 out of the way sheep fields than to fight against 1 million from a very disruptive, biodiverse and archaeologically important site .
i would support a useful and sensible low carbon power scheme that overall added more bats that it removed even if that would be rough on the bats at the turbine sites.
i favour moving water over wind if it is available but that also has critter issues as well as various engineering ones.
pumped water storage combined with wind seems worth looking into.
using gravity and water for power generation can be done in various ways ,big dam/big drop/big turbine at one end of the engineering scale and small drop/screw at the other with a lot of options in between.
considering you have gravity, water and some dams/weirs already looking into the possible options seems sensible.
Some 'conservationists' get rather silly about birds and bats. A big wheel was only given planning permission for certain limited times of the year in Portsmouth because of the risk of 'birds flying into it'. Admittedly Farlington Marshes are an important transit/nesting grounds for certain types of migratory birds, but the wheel would have been quite a distance away and big enough for the birds to see. It also wouldn't move very fast.
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