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posted by Dopefish on Monday February 17 2014, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the solar-is-still-awesome dept.

mattie_p writes that this was originally submitted by cmn32480 via the forums.

"According to Fox News, environmentalists are concerned about the impact of the world's largest solar plant, which is located in the Mojave Desert, on the local bird population. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (a solar thermal plant) covers nearly five square miles, has approximately 350,000 garage door sized computer controlled mirrors, and has temperatures near the boilers reaching 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Plant owners NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc., and BrightSource Energy say they have found dozens of dead birds in the complex in the last several months, some with burned or scorched feathers. The plant cost $2.2 Billion to construct, and had been held up in regulatory and wildlife relocation fighting for several years. It has officially been open since Thursday, February 13, 2014."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by eravnrekaree on Monday February 17 2014, @01:47PM

    by eravnrekaree (555) on Monday February 17 2014, @01:47PM (#686)

    This is indeed a good point. When we have nuclear plants spewing radioactive waste and gas powered cars leaking gasoline and oils onto the roads, coal spewing mercury, the so called environmentalists complain about solar power! The solar power plant was in fact built in a place that has the least environmental impact possible, a desert, which has relatively low biodiversity, rather than a rainforest (tropical or temperate) which is an important oxygen producer and has many times more species diversity.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday February 17 2014, @07:57PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 17 2014, @07:57PM (#1002) Journal

    There's actually a bit of a problem due to the location. The species that generally live in a desert tend to be thinly spread, and easy to drive towards extinction. OTOH, birds in general are rather mobile, so this may not apply to them. You'd need to know what species. I'm much more concerned about the surface plants that are spread in such a thin layer that you can't see them. Traffic that breaks up the surface can take decades to recover from. And in the meantime, the sand is much more mobile (i.e., easier to blow around). IIRC they tried to mitigate this problem during the construction, but I don't know how successfully. However, if people and cars start going there, things could get very disruptive.

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    • (Score: 1) by ragequit on Tuesday February 18 2014, @08:37PM

      by ragequit (44) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @08:37PM (#1887) Journal

      If this is the one I'm thinking of, it's just west of the I-15 south of Primm, NV.
      The coolest thing is, during some times of day, the focus is just to one side of the tower. You end up with this little floating ball of light. It's neat to see.

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