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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 19, 2014 - 09:24am PT
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"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."
Owls are wiser than eagles, right? This one hit my windshield square in the center.
I ducked down behind the dash when it hit, thinking it would break the glass. This is what I found when I got home.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 19, 2014 - 09:32am PT
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Maybe they aren't as "wise" as advertised.
My parrot went ape sh#t when he saw me carrying the owl carcass to the trash can.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 19, 2014 - 09:38am PT
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I find it interesting that Fox News professes a sudden concern for wildlife. Oh wait, it doesn't. It just wants to be destroy alternative energy for its conservative cronies. I suppose next they are going to propose tearing down glass skyscrapers since they account for ten of thousands of bird deaths every year? No, that's free enterprise, which God personally handed to the Republicans as His prophets on earth. So why are polluting forms of generating energy like oil and coal free enterprise and green forms of energy production are invalid?
Anyhow, re:
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. I agree with badclimber. People criticize the transportation costs of solar power (though seem oblivious to the costs of transporting and processing oil), and yet it's beating down on top of us everyday. I think the same thing every time I see a new subdivision in the sunny Inland Empire. Why doesn't someone require that these new sunbaked homes have at least some form of solar energy system installed when built. Even a solar water heater would be a good start. The costs of production would go down because of the additional demand. The homes would be more economical to maintain, which is important since many people move there because it's less expensive; and they'd have additional market value because of the upgrade.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 19, 2014 - 09:40am PT
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Chaz, I'm sure you won't mind a little thread drift. From a book called
Why Elephants Cry, I think, was a story of a woman with two parrots.
She often kept them in different rooms, for her sanity. One day she had
one in the kitchen with her while she was making dinner. She was going to
bake a chicken and as she put the bird in the oven the parrot squawked out
the other parrot's name and then started laughing hysterically.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 19, 2014 - 09:41am PT
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Why is solar power so expensive?
We don't need to mine for sunshine, or import sunshine on tankers from the Middle East.
Greed is the only thing I can see to account for the high price of solar energy.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:15am PT
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are you folks saying that eagles don't get hit by cars completely unaware of this new technology called google?
eagles hit by cars
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:21am PT
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are you folks saying that eagles don't get hit by cars completely unaware of this new technology called google?
Who said Eagles DON'T get hit by cars?
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:31am PT
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There's really no alternative to cars.
Solar power is totally optional. And unnecessarily expensive.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:37am PT
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You, Reilly, and Ron all chimed in to say you didn't believe me cause you haven't seen it.
Google it.
Go to the Bald Eagle's wikipedia.
Go the Golden Eagles wikipedia page
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:40am PT
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There's really no alternative to cars.
Solar power is totally optional. And unnecessarily expensive. All forms of energy are 'totally optional'. All forms have their downsides. Solar and wind have less. And what we're discussing here is only one form of solar out of many.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 10:46am PT
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Yes, perception is a fickle thing.
Clearly my point is that the information regarding road kill is easily available to those who aren't intent on believing that solar and wind power are evil.
Do you believe we landed on the moon? You never actually saw that.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Aug 19, 2014 - 11:29am PT
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like i said and linked. google it. repeated studies have shown that the most common cause of death for eagles is accidental trauma (between 23-25%) with vehicles and stationary items (mostly powerlines, but separate from electrocutions).
and the 39 million bird figure is on the extreme upper end of things, and still would pale in comparison to all birds killed by cars.
as i mentioned in my first post on the subject. wind energy operators should be fined for kills.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Aug 19, 2014 - 11:43am PT
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It's odd that its not odd that it's not that odd Ron. It's good to have something to agree on!
Gumby, we're all good. I read the wiki page on eagles. However, we had already agreed that electro/wind/solar companies should not get a free pass.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Aug 20, 2014 - 10:20am PT
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Simply enormous. The Ivanpah site near Las Vegas covers 3,500 acres of the Mojave Desert. Each heliostat field is more than a mile across.
Few power plants can be called “small,” but nearly everything about Ivanpah is mammoth. The three-unit site sprawls over 3,500 acres—nearly 5 miles from end to end—near Nipton, Calif., about 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas (Figure 1). The facility is large enough to be visible from orbit, and the glow of the three power towers is visible from many miles away when the units are online.
edit: above is from power magazine, not my writing. "Regenerable" power without environmental impact is a pipe dream; nothing comes without a cost.
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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Apr 15, 2015 - 09:29pm PT
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Kit fox's thrive under the mirrors at Ivanpah.
But help in the form of drones could be on the way. To scare off birds and
reduce 'streamers' at the Ivanpah solar thermal generating stations.
Every 2 minutes, on average, a bird gets ignited in the flux.
71 bird species plus a Peregrine Falcon among the casualties.
Vastly under-reported because of predators cleaning up
on the bonanza of free food.
Avian Mortality At Solar Energy Facilities Southern California: A Preliminary Analysis.
http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/sourcefiles/avian-mortality-solar-energy-ivanpah-apr-2014.pdf
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Hoser
climber
vancouver
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Apr 15, 2015 - 10:57pm PT
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Cats and glass buildings kill more birds than clean energy. Anyways, the energy is for you, so you can have golf courses and casino's in the middle of nowhere. Why dont you write your politician and tell them that you would like to pay the full price of power, that which includes its total environmental destruction.
Then you would actually spend some time conserving power and you wouldnt need acres of turbines and solar panels.
The Euros do it...whats your problem?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 15, 2015 - 11:08pm PT
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Chaz: It became necessary to destroy the environment in order to save it.
Exactly. But then when did you start quoting Duke Energy...?
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