Skit
Christian- Hello, everyone! This is BNN- Your Bat News Network-, and we are here live in Gotham City.
Specer- That's right. And, today, we have a special guest with us- BATMAN!
BATMAN, enter, run in, cape action, theme music- THEN ROBIN COME BREATHLESS, AND LATE, RUNNING WEIRD
ROBIN- Hey! You never introduced me! I’m a human being too you know!
Specer- Er...right. We also have Batman’s sidekick, Robin…. here with us to report on our problem that wind turbines are causing the death and destruction of beneficial bats.
Christian- Batman, you called us all here to give a report about a problem that bats are facing.
Batman: Wind turbines- (SHUDDER)- they are turning against us more and more by the second.
EGEM- Batman is trying to make me seem like the evil dude here! I produce green energy, which is basically clean energy. And that’s beneficial. I’m actually big benefit for humans all over Earth.
Batman- That may be your point of view. (NERVOUSLY) Actually, I’m turning it over to my engineers to tell you why this evil green energy monster is malevolent.
BRUCE WAYNE ENGINEERING walk in, music, cheering, engineers waving.
Charis- Thanks for coming today. This new problem is bigger than we thought. Actually, according to BCI.com, we learned that over 600,000 bats die out each year- and we’re not even sure if that’s accurate or not. According to Cris Hein, through our interview with him, we learned that since many bats camouflage with their environment, it’s hard to identify all the dead bats- and other predators eat them before we can find them on the ground. Wind turbine farms are also ginormous, and it’s hard to go through all that land.
Ethan- As you already know, bats are getting killed by wind turbines, because they can’t detect the blades with their echolocation. Echolocation is how bats “see” at night. A bat uses a sonar click to see its environment. After the click comes back, the bat forms a picture in it's head, so it can tell where the object is, and then avoid it. But, when a bat echolocates towards a wind turbine, since there are moving blades, they can’t sense it's there.
Aishu- We collaborated with Crissy Sutter, a vice president, and bat team leader, from Normandeau Associates, which is one of the nation’s largest science based environmental companies. She told us in our interview with her, that only 5% of the bats that echolocate towards a turbine, hit the blades with the sonar click and survive. The other 95% doesn’t detect the turbine’s blades, so they have a much higher mortality rate from getting killed by turbines.
Robin- Ahem. This is also about birds, too!!! You're forgetting the eagles, They’re my cousins! HOW RUDE!!!
Aishu- But they don’t use echolocation. They get killed from the wind turbines for a totally different reason, which we’ll report to you on a different date.
Robin- (ATTITUDE, POUTY) Whatever.
Charis- We developed a solution and ran it by many experts including Mr. Tim Hayes, a bat biologist expert from Duke Energy, Crissy Sutter from Normandeau, Cris Hein from Bat Conservation International, Cliff Whitney, owner of Atlanta Hobbies and an expert in the drone field and Mr. Patel, an engineer from Georgia Power. After collaborating with all of these experts about our solution, we are ready to present to you….
All except Robin- The- Bat- Drone- Shield!!!!!
Robin- (LATE) That Bat- Drone- Thingamajig!!! (Excited) But still- I Think it should be called- (Low Voice)- The Robin Thingamajig.
Batman- (Slaps His Forehead)
Chase- The bat drone shield is composed of many different components. The first part is the Identiflight, a high resolution digital camera. Tim Hayes brought this system to us. It is like a night vision camera, which can detect bats. Once the bats are detected by the Identiflight, it will deploy the drones.
Raj- The drones will fly a set pattern that has been programmed, and they will emit the sound of a common predator, such as a great horned owl, using a speaker, that will be attached to the drone. These drones will form a virtual shield, to deter bats from going near the turbines. The number of drones will also vary, along with the size of the turbine farms.
(NRs nod and agree…)
Christian- Yes. This seems like a good solution. What would the cost be?
Aishu- Here is a complete cost analysis of our bat drone shield system. Remember- even though the cost may seem high, wind turbine farms are fined huge amounts of money when they kill endangered or protected species, such as eagles, songbirds, and bats.
Specer- So the cost is better than the fines you would have to pay for bats getting killed by wind turbines. That makes sense, because anyone would rather pay for drones than getting fined and the bad publicity. Next, could this be applied to other animals in similar situations?
Raj- Yes, we could apply this system to other situations, such as elephants. If poachers are detected in their area, the drones could scare the elephants away.
Christian- Wow. That does seem like an outstanding solution. I’m glad that we can apply this to many other problems. Well, thank you all for this extremely important idea.
Specer- BNN just reported to you live from Gotham City.
Christian- Hello, everyone! This is BNN- Your Bat News Network-, and we are here live in Gotham City.
Specer- That's right. And, today, we have a special guest with us- BATMAN!
BATMAN, enter, run in, cape action, theme music- THEN ROBIN COME BREATHLESS, AND LATE, RUNNING WEIRD
ROBIN- Hey! You never introduced me! I’m a human being too you know!
Specer- Er...right. We also have Batman’s sidekick, Robin…. here with us to report on our problem that wind turbines are causing the death and destruction of beneficial bats.
Christian- Batman, you called us all here to give a report about a problem that bats are facing.
Batman: Wind turbines- (SHUDDER)- they are turning against us more and more by the second.
EGEM- Batman is trying to make me seem like the evil dude here! I produce green energy, which is basically clean energy. And that’s beneficial. I’m actually big benefit for humans all over Earth.
Batman- That may be your point of view. (NERVOUSLY) Actually, I’m turning it over to my engineers to tell you why this evil green energy monster is malevolent.
BRUCE WAYNE ENGINEERING walk in, music, cheering, engineers waving.
Charis- Thanks for coming today. This new problem is bigger than we thought. Actually, according to BCI.com, we learned that over 600,000 bats die out each year- and we’re not even sure if that’s accurate or not. According to Cris Hein, through our interview with him, we learned that since many bats camouflage with their environment, it’s hard to identify all the dead bats- and other predators eat them before we can find them on the ground. Wind turbine farms are also ginormous, and it’s hard to go through all that land.
Ethan- As you already know, bats are getting killed by wind turbines, because they can’t detect the blades with their echolocation. Echolocation is how bats “see” at night. A bat uses a sonar click to see its environment. After the click comes back, the bat forms a picture in it's head, so it can tell where the object is, and then avoid it. But, when a bat echolocates towards a wind turbine, since there are moving blades, they can’t sense it's there.
Aishu- We collaborated with Crissy Sutter, a vice president, and bat team leader, from Normandeau Associates, which is one of the nation’s largest science based environmental companies. She told us in our interview with her, that only 5% of the bats that echolocate towards a turbine, hit the blades with the sonar click and survive. The other 95% doesn’t detect the turbine’s blades, so they have a much higher mortality rate from getting killed by turbines.
Robin- Ahem. This is also about birds, too!!! You're forgetting the eagles, They’re my cousins! HOW RUDE!!!
Aishu- But they don’t use echolocation. They get killed from the wind turbines for a totally different reason, which we’ll report to you on a different date.
Robin- (ATTITUDE, POUTY) Whatever.
Charis- We developed a solution and ran it by many experts including Mr. Tim Hayes, a bat biologist expert from Duke Energy, Crissy Sutter from Normandeau, Cris Hein from Bat Conservation International, Cliff Whitney, owner of Atlanta Hobbies and an expert in the drone field and Mr. Patel, an engineer from Georgia Power. After collaborating with all of these experts about our solution, we are ready to present to you….
All except Robin- The- Bat- Drone- Shield!!!!!
Robin- (LATE) That Bat- Drone- Thingamajig!!! (Excited) But still- I Think it should be called- (Low Voice)- The Robin Thingamajig.
Batman- (Slaps His Forehead)
Chase- The bat drone shield is composed of many different components. The first part is the Identiflight, a high resolution digital camera. Tim Hayes brought this system to us. It is like a night vision camera, which can detect bats. Once the bats are detected by the Identiflight, it will deploy the drones.
Raj- The drones will fly a set pattern that has been programmed, and they will emit the sound of a common predator, such as a great horned owl, using a speaker, that will be attached to the drone. These drones will form a virtual shield, to deter bats from going near the turbines. The number of drones will also vary, along with the size of the turbine farms.
(NRs nod and agree…)
Christian- Yes. This seems like a good solution. What would the cost be?
Aishu- Here is a complete cost analysis of our bat drone shield system. Remember- even though the cost may seem high, wind turbine farms are fined huge amounts of money when they kill endangered or protected species, such as eagles, songbirds, and bats.
Specer- So the cost is better than the fines you would have to pay for bats getting killed by wind turbines. That makes sense, because anyone would rather pay for drones than getting fined and the bad publicity. Next, could this be applied to other animals in similar situations?
Raj- Yes, we could apply this system to other situations, such as elephants. If poachers are detected in their area, the drones could scare the elephants away.
Christian- Wow. That does seem like an outstanding solution. I’m glad that we can apply this to many other problems. Well, thank you all for this extremely important idea.
Specer- BNN just reported to you live from Gotham City.