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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday August 21 2014, @10:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the Archemedes-Mirror dept.

AP reports that wildlife investigators who watched as birds burn and fell at the Ivanpah Dry Lake Solar Tower Plant are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand "streamers" by the plant operator to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group. Those statistics haven’t curbed the enthusiasm of the Obama administration for the solar-power plant, which granted Ivanpah a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee. The deaths are "alarming. It's hard to say whether that's the location or the technology," says Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. "There needs to be some caution." Federal wildlife officials say the plant might act as a "mega-trap" for wildlife, with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds that fly to their death in the intensely focused light rays.

The $2.2 billion plant at Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border is the world's biggest plant to employ so-called power towers. More than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect solar rays onto three boiler towers each looming up to 40 stories high. The water inside is heated to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate enough electricity for 140,000 homes. While biologists say there is no known feasible way to curb the number of birds killed, the companies behind the projects say they are hoping to find one — studying whether lights, sounds or some other technology would scare them away, says Joseph Desmond, senior vice president at BrightSource Energy. Power-tower proponents are fighting to keep the deaths from forcing a pause in the building of new plants when they see the technology on the verge of becoming more affordable and accessible (PDF). When it comes to powering the country's grids, "diversity of technology ... is critical," says Thomas Conroy, a renewable-energy expert. "Nobody should be arguing let's be all coal, all solar," all wind, or all nuclear. "And every one of those technologies has a long list of pros and cons."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Saturday August 23 2014, @11:31PM

    by evilviper (1760) on Saturday August 23 2014, @11:31PM (#84779) Homepage Journal

    I like how you apparently read the report, yet conveniently left out the purtinent details that don't happen to agree with your skepticism.

    "Solar flux injury was identified as the cause of death in 47/141 birds", and just as many were in too poor of shape to be identified. That's with only minimal attempts to recover carcasses, and solar flux was only active during HALF of the observation period, making the stats excessively weighted towards other causes of death that were occurring while still under construction.

    So even without YouTube, we've established that a large and inordinate number of birds are being killed by solar flux at Ivanpah, multiples of the numbers by other conventional causes.

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  • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:11AM

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:11AM (#84794)

    So even without YouTube, we've established that a large and inordinate number of birds are being killed by solar flux at Ivanpah, multiples of the numbers by other conventional causes.

    No you haven't established that at all. You don't have a figure for numbers by "other conventional causes", nor even the length of time that those corpses had been on site. And "large and inordinate" is nothing more than opinion.

    Birds, like every other living thing, die. They have a limited life span. This is just one cause, of countless human causes, and even more natural ones. Flying into building window panes and being hit by traffic being two major anthropogenic ones. There is precisely nothing in the document to show that the numbers from this solar plant are large or inordinate.

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    • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:43AM

      by evilviper (1760) on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:43AM (#84837) Homepage Journal

      Yes don't have a figure for numbers by "other conventional causes"

      Yes, I do. The cause of death is broken-down in the report.

      nor even the length of time that those corpses had been on site

      It was an active ecosystem. Scavengers were quite active. In addition, they made regular sweeps over a year and a half, not just one appearance, as you seem to want to think, so they have a very good time-frame on how long those corpses would have been there.

      There is precisely nothing in the document to show that the numbers from this solar plant are large or inordinate.

      The breakdown by cause of death shows that. The number of deaths at the two other sites where solar flux was a non-issue show that as well.

      You are clinging quite firmly to your willful ignorance.

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      • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday August 25 2014, @08:02PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Monday August 25 2014, @08:02PM (#85441)

        From the report: "It should be emphasised that we currently have very incomplete knowledge of the scope of avian mortality at these solar sites."

        Wilful ignorance is thinking you know that which you don't.

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        • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Monday August 25 2014, @09:14PM

          by evilviper (1760) on Monday August 25 2014, @09:14PM (#85463) Homepage Journal

          This coming from the guy who is convinced that birds are dying of natural cause in mid-air while they happen to be flying over Ivanpah.

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          Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.