Energy and environment
The Koala Killers? The Wildlife Cost of Renewable Energy
Renewable energy reduces greenhouse emissions, but wind farms, transmission corridors and associated construction can still impose real costs on wildlife and habitat. Kerry Plowright asks whether those costs receive enough scrutiny.
About this video
This advocacy film challenges the assumption that every renewable-energy development is automatically environmentally benign. It focuses on habitat clearing, bird and bat collisions, industrial noise, resource use, turbine-blade disposal and the effects of major supporting infrastructure.
Kerry Plowright approaches the subject from practical environmental experience. As a former Executive Director of EarthTrust South Pacific, he led wildlife-protection campaigns, whale and marine-wildlife rescue work, habitat restoration and a post-Gulf War coastal protection mission in Kuwait in 1991.
Context
Several environmental concerns raised in the film are well established, although their scale is project-specific. Australia's environment department assesses collision, displacement and barrier risks to birds and bats from wind farms, while projects likely to affect koalas or koala habitat may require referral under national environmental law.
Other claims require qualification. Turbine blades contain difficult-to-recycle composite materials, but the United States Department of Energy reports that approximately 90% of total wind-turbine mass can currently be recycled. Lifecycle analysis also finds wind generation produces far lower greenhouse emissions than coal or gas after manufacturing, construction and decommissioning are included.
Industrial underwater noise is a legitimate ecological stressor. Pile driving and some survey activity can disturb marine-mammal behaviour and therefore require monitoring and mitigation. However, NOAA and a 2024 study of United States East Coast whale strandings found no evidence that offshore-wind development caused the recent deaths; vessel strikes, entanglement, changing whale distribution and vessel traffic remain important documented factors. Temporal overlap alone does not establish the cause of an individual stranding.
The film is an opinion and advocacy work. Its imagery is illustrative rather than documentary evidence of a named project, and its strongest causal statements should be considered arguments for investigation rather than established findings.
Sources and further reading
- Impacts on birds and bats from onshore wind farms in Australia — Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
- Referral guidelines for the endangered koala — Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
- Frequent Questions — Offshore Wind and Whales — NOAA Fisheries
- Evaluating drivers of recent large whale strandings on the East Coast of the United States — NOAA Institutional Repository
- Wind Turbine Recycling Assessment Report — United States Department of Energy
- How Wind Can Help Us Breathe Easier — United States Department of Energy
- Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health — National Health and Medical Research Council