If the white wind turbines to which we are accustomed have the advantage of blending into the decor, they are also fatal to many birds. In the United States, onshore wind turbines alone would kill between 140,000 and 328,000 birds each year, recalls an article in the Courrier International, not counting wind turbines at sea. So faced with this danger to wildlife, two researchers imagined a simple solution: cover wind turbines with black stripes.
The idea of ??these two-tone wind turbines is defended in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation by Graham Martin, a researcher at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, and Alex Banks, a member of the environmental protection organization Natural England. Painted with black stripes over the entire surface of the white wind turbines, they would indeed become more visible to birds.
Because, notes Graham Martin, “a lot of collisions take place when the light is low”. Hence the usefulness of a pattern “easy to see in the dark” and a “strong contrast” between two colors, which “will allow the wind turbine to stand out from its surroundings, like when the sky is overcast or sunny. »
However, will this simple solution be to everyone’s taste? In France, where the installation of white wind turbines is often the object of virulent opposition on the part of those who find that they obstruct the landscape, the possible arrival of two-tone striped models could well make some wince.
