AIM-listed Renewable Energy Generation, a windfarm operator and developer, has ordered a further 18 wind turbines for its Canadian wind farm projects and expects delivery in autumn 2008.

The company has other farms in the UK and Poland. But they are a fraction of the size of the estimated 2.5 GW that they could exploit in Canada - much easier to do since they acquired AIM Powergen Corp in August last year. There still isn't really much windpower in Canada - just under 800 megawatts in capacity in a country voluminous in empty space and plenty of hydropower to back it up. So REG looks strategically well placed in Canada.

And yet I think I've said it before, but couldn't someone have come up with a better name for the company than Renewable Energy Generation?

It's a bit like calling a computer company, the computer company. It makes it totally impossible to drown out the white noise of non-related information to the company on the internet - very important these days.

Slightly off the beaten track from alternative energy stocks, but worth a post. There is an ongoing debate of raging intensity as to how serious the risks of wind turbines are to birds. The technical lingo for this is "avian mortality rate". No question, it does happen and I have found a picture from this site which I assume is genuine of 2 eagles, in pieces post an encounter with a wind turbine in Spain.

Not a pretty site.

But there's more to it than this. We must have some perspective. Many things kill birds (and for that matter, bats) in far greater numbers - particularly domestic cats and cars, both of which kill millions and millions each year. I've yet to hear however of anyone advocating a mass cull of domestic cats to help the birds. What's more, Industrialised agriculture has probably done more than both of these put together.

The problem comes from the type of birds wind turbines kill - typically slow maturing predator species (eagles) and the emigrating kind (geese). There just isn't much you can do about this. Eagles like to soar on currents and wind turbines can interfere with this. Some believe putting more turbines out at sea would go a long way to reducing bird kill. That though runs into statistical issues. Avian fatalities are not fully accurate because of scavenger removal - i.e. you can' t record a dead bird if a fox takes it before you see it. Accounting for scavenger removal becomes a whole lot more difficult out at sea and some would say impossible.

So surely, it is not beyond the wit of man to develop some sort of device that keeps these birds at a safe distance?