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rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 18, 2014 - 05:42pm PT
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http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/08/18/california-weighing-bird-deaths-from-concentrated-solar-plants-as-it-considers/
Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air
Published August 18, 2014
·Associated Press
This October 2013 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a burned Yellow-rumped Warbler that was found at the Ivanpah solar plant in the California Mojave Desert.(AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
IVANPAH DRY LAKE, Calif. – Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant's concentrated sun rays — "streamers," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one "streamer" every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version.
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The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.
The deaths are "alarming. It's hard to say whether that's the location or the technology," said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. "There needs to be some caution."
The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.
"We take this issue very seriously," said Jeff Holland, a spokesman for NRG Solar of Carlsbad, California, the second of the three companies behind the plant. The third, Google, deferred comment to its partners.
The $2.2 billion plant, which launched in February, is at Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border. The operator says it's 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.
Sun rays sent up by the field of mirrors are bright enough to dazzle pilots flying in and out of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Federal wildlife officials said Ivanpah 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.
Federal and state biologists call the number of deaths significant, based on sightings of birds getting singed and falling, and on retrieval of carcasses with feathers charred too severely for flight.
Ivanpah officials dispute the source of the so-called streamers, saying at least some of the puffs of smoke mark insects and bits of airborne trash being ignited by the solar rays.
Wildlife officials who witnessed the phenomena say many of the clouds of smoke were too big to come from anything but a bird, and they add that they saw "birds entering the solar flux and igniting, consequently become a streamer."
U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say they want a death toll for a full year of operation.
Given the apparent scale of bird deaths at Ivanpah, authorities should thoroughly track bird kills there for a year, including during annual migratory seasons, before granting any more permits for that kind of solar technology, said George, of the Audubon Society.
The toll on birds has been surprising, said Robert Weisenmiller, chairman of the California Energy Commission. "We didn't see a lot of impact" on birds at the first, smaller power towers in the U.S. and Europe, Weisenmiller said.
The commission is now considering the application from Oakland-based BrightSource to build a mirror field and a 75-story power tower that would reach above the sand dunes and creek washes between Joshua Tree National Park and the California-Arizona border.
The proposed plant is on a flight path for birds between the Colorado River and California's largest lake, the Salton Sea — an area, experts say, is richer in avian life than the Ivanpah plant, with protected golden eagles and peregrine falcons and more than 100 other species of birds recorded there.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials warned California this month that the power-tower style of solar technology holds "the highest lethality potential" of the many solar projects burgeoning in the deserts of California.
The commission's staff estimates the proposed new tower would be almost four times as dangerous to birds as the Ivanpah plant. The agency is expected to decide this autumn on the proposal.
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, said Joseph Desmond, senior vice president at BrightSource Energy.
BrightSource also is offering $1.8 million in compensation for anticipated bird deaths at Palen, Desmond said.
The company is proposing the money for programs such as those to spay and neuter domestic cats, which a government study found kill over 1.4 billion birds a year. Opponents say that would do nothing to help the desert birds at the proposed site.
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, said Thomas Conroy, a renewable-energy expert.
When it comes to powering the country's grids, "diversity of technology ... is critical," Conroy said. "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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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 18, 2014 - 05:52pm PT
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HaHaHa! See? There's always a silver lining to a toasted fowl.
And I guess that puts paid to my rejoinder that there ain't no free lunches.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Aug 18, 2014 - 07:46pm PT
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How many birds to fossil fuels kill? lots more than solar plants, difference is we do not see them
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mirv
climber
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Aug 18, 2014 - 08:09pm PT
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Yeah, flew to Vegas from LAX a couple weeks ago and these dual towers in the middle of the desert were so bright they looked like mini suns. Couldn't look at them directly, and has to be a hazard to air navigation. Solar energy may be clean chemically or emission-wise, but it degrades the physical environment so badly that I think it's worse than burning natural gas to generate electricity. Acres and acres of solar panels destroy habitat and disrupt wildlife. I'm not much of a fan of windpower either.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Aug 18, 2014 - 08:13pm PT
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Yeah?
and how many salmon were killed by dams.
and how much of our ecosystem has been killed and is still being killed by coal-fire power plants?
and how much of earth's future is fuked up by Nuclear plants.
If you are not a paid shill for the above industries, may I suggest that you get off the grid.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Aug 18, 2014 - 09:13pm PT
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Jim: A good point.
Sure! Move the solar plants to the big sh/cities. No problem with that.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Aug 18, 2014 - 09:15pm PT
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Sounds good Jim until poached pigeons begin falling onto the streets of downtown LA from all of the solar panels.
Believe me - nothing messes up the finish on a Mercedes quite like like half baked pigeon innards - the beehive dwellers will be up in arms in a second demanding that "THEY" do something.
"THEY" know this which is why "THEY" put the panels out there in the first place.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Aug 18, 2014 - 09:21pm PT
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^^^Yer just miffed cause you can't stuff em once they've been fricasseed!
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Aug 18, 2014 - 09:33pm PT
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Same people behind the toxic, evil Prius.
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dindolino32
climber
san francisco
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Aug 18, 2014 - 10:34pm PT
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How many really die? Compare this to poisoned water from fracking etc. This problem is more solvable than cleaning up after an oil spill, or nuke problems.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 18, 2014 - 10:43pm PT
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It became necessary to destroy the environment in order to save it.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 12:45am PT
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Ron your point is a bit off the mark. More eagles are killed by cars than by windmills, and the drivers are never fined, while in November 2013 Duke Energy was fined $1 million for killing 14 eagles and 149 other birds.
Having said that, it is a problem, and the fine to Duke Energy was an exception rather than the rule.
Unlike Fox news, I'm a big fan of renewable energy. Still I think there should be an incentive for them to do better and that likely will have to be in the form of fines.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Aug 19, 2014 - 06:45am PT
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Exactly why is it we can't have solar panels on every rooftop in SoCal? Why is it when need these monstrosities in the desert?
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Aug 19, 2014 - 06:51am PT
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The bright light of knowledge attracts some extremely stupid people.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Aug 19, 2014 - 07:27am PT
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How many birds to fossil fuels kill? lots more than solar plants, difference is we do not see them
The Feds have also been after fossil fuel companies, and others, for many years. It's good to know that they are not giving these new outfits a free pass just because they're "green."
For example, in most of the country, there are far fewer large birds fried on power poles than in the past. This is because the Feds forced them to retrofit untold thousands of poles, making it so birds can't contact two wires at once.
Thank gawd for the watchdogs.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 19, 2014 - 08:07am PT
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More eagles are killed by cars than by windmills
I would like to see some data on that. I've not seen too many eagles
flying 3 feet off the ground except when they're getting lunch.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Aug 19, 2014 - 08:10am PT
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Reilly, I thought the same thing.
I've seen an eagle fried by a pole, but never one hit by a car. And let's just say I've been around a lot more cars than power poles in my life.
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Bad Climber
climber
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Aug 19, 2014 - 08:42am PT
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Let's see: 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Seems to me that most homes could function pretty well on an equivalent sized solar array. So for that many solar panels--instead of the mirrors and all mounted on or near the homes--shading parking areas, roof tops, existing infrastructure--we could power about 150,000 homes, ore 10,000 MORE than this existing monstronsity. How many stinking baking hot parking areas, for example, does Vegas have? A million acres? Every parking area, industrial building etc., in the American sun belt should have solar panels, which are getting cheaper all the time. There is simply no need to despoil virgin desert. These solar farms are really stupid technology when placed so far out. Lots of energy is lost on the transmission wires traveling so far to where the power is used. Why the hell isn't there a big push to add this simple tech to our already developed areas? I read about some place where they placed a long line of solar panels over an aquaduct--which is feakin' brilliant. Easy access with roads on both sides and the panels shade the water to reduce evaporation! There's so much we could do, but no. We do the stupid mega-technology thing while private companies soak up ungodly amounts of tax $$. Grrrrr....
BAd
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Aug 19, 2014 - 08:43am PT
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Totally Green Power.
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