How could they not see this coming -- from The Wall Street Journal:
The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project
A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is scheduled to speak Thursday at an opening ceremony for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station, which received a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee.
The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land southwest of Las Vegas, includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. Nearly 350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight onto boilers atop the towers, creating steam that drives power generators.
Geee - $1.6 billion. With 350 million people in the USA and with 50% of these not paying any taxes at all, this ammounts to about $9 of my tax money being spent for this boondoggle. More:
Utility-scale solar plants have come under fire for their costs -- Ivanpah costs about four times as much as a conventional natural gas-fired plant but will produce far less electricity -- and also for the amount of land they require.
Oh Noooeeessssss!!!
BrightSource wants to build a second tower-based solar farm in California's Riverside County, east of Palm Springs. But the state Energy Commission in December proposed that the company instead use more conventional technologies, such as solar panels or mirrored troughs.
One reason: the BrightSource system appears to be scorching birds that fly through the intense heat surrounding the towers, which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The company, which is based in Oakland, Calif., reported finding dozens of dead birds at the Ivanpah plant over the past several months, while workers were testing the plant before it started operating in December. Some of the dead birds appeared to have singed or burned feathers, according to federal biologists and documents filed with the state Energy Commission.
And you know that if they are admitting to "dozens", the real number is probably in the hundreds if not thousands. There is no temperature gradient to warn the birds as they fly, it is normal air temp and then blammo. There was already a huge flap about the Ivanpah Desert Tortise and how they had to relocate it. From Bloomberg's Businessweek:
Where Tortoises and Solar Power Don't Mix
For a sense of how complicated it is to combat climate change without collateral damage, consider the $56 million spent so far to rescue and relocate desert tortoises from the upheaval caused by the construction of a Mojave Desert solar plant.
