Slashdot Mirror
Solar Plant Sets Birds On Fire As They Fly Overhead
Elledan writes: Federal investigators in California have requested that BrightSource — owner of thermal solar plants — halt the construction of more (and bigger) plants until their impact on wildlife has been further investigated. "Unlike many other solar plants, the Ivanpah plant does not generate energy using photovoltaic solar panels. Instead, it has more than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Together, they cover 1,416 hectares. Each mirror collects and reflects solar rays, focusing and concentrating solar energy from their entire surfaces upward onto three boiler towers, each looming up to 40 stories high. The solar energy heats the water inside the towers to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate enough electricity for 140,000 homes." The concentrated solar energy chars and incinerates the feathers of passing birds. BrightSource estimates about a thousand bird die this way every year, but an environmental group claims the real number is much higher.
Number of birds killed by oil spills?
Number of birds killed by air pollution?
Thanks California. Human impact of using coal fired plants? Nope, think of the children has been replaced by "think of the birds".
The concentrated solar energy chars and incinerates the feathers of passing birds. BrightSource estimates about a thousand bird die this way every year...
Probably doesn't taste like chicken though as chickens can't fly.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Solar fried chicken.....hmmmmm...gurgle......drool
Seriously, wasn't Helios One powered by targeting mirrors and built by Ivanpah? As I recall from the end that quest, had any birds been alive they would've been in for one hell of a scare when the plant was activated.
So...does this mean the bird thing is just a cover-up while the government installs a secret weapon in there?
I was excited for a moment. I thought someone had made slaver sunflowers :). http://larryniven.wikia.com/wiki/Slaver_Sunflower
No seriously, I'd love to see a video of this.
Very interesting problem, wonder how it can be solved?
Be seeing you...
That's metal.
Mortality rate of fish through the turbine is close to 10%
Except fish are slimy, scaly and make weird mouth shapes when you pull them out of the water to look at them. They look pretty awkward.
Birds on the other hand, are beautiful creatures flying through the air, truly, beautiful, feathered friends, God's own creations.
But if 3 birds die in a 3500 acre site per day, heaven help us all for destroying nature. I can go out in my back yard and shake the six to eight trees on my half-acre and watch at least four birds fly out.
moox. for a new generation.
But it's Green! It MUST be good!
I read another story that said that only minutes passed between "streamers".
I can't look at a picture of this plant without thinking "Helios One"...
Why not skip all the expensive equipment and just use birds for fuel?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...build a KFC nearby
Table-ized A.I.
From the article;
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.
A thousand is not much of an issue but 28,000 could be. Both are estimates and it should be looked into.
Revenge of the replicants.
Crunching the numbers, it's foolish to delay solar power adoption for even 28K birds a year.
Climate change is expected to soon kill off 1/8th of all bird species.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
200M birds die from cats each year in Canada ( which has the human population of California).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
Either stop climate change pollution, or kiss some birds goodbye (peck on the cheek).
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
to kill them before the power plant does?
...aren't birds renewable resources too? :) ...and desert tortoises? :)
Frankly, the bigger problem is the possible impact to airplanes: http://energy.sandia.gov/?p=19...
You scale this stuff up enough, and pretty soon there isn't anywhere to fly planes safely.
This has been going on for months and months. I wondered how long it would take Slashdot to finally surface it.
This is Brightsource in Mohave. Feinstein et. al. held it up for years to protect turtles that were supposedly endangered.
Now it's frying birds. Certain species could be wiped out because they happen to inhabit the area.
This is the no. 1 best contemporary example of exactly why renewables will never displace more than a trivially small fraction of electric supply in the Western world; land use and its effects on ecology. Every form of wind or solar consume vast amounts of land, permanently altering the ecology of the region. Whether it's the "wind farm [that] imperils rare grass" (no, really — rare grass) or desert birds igniting in mid-air, the same greens that demand renewables will insure its failure.
Windandsolar is a pipe dream.
Hey, mdsolar ... you there man? Why you want to kill all the birds man? Quick! Go find a scary Fukushima leak story and post it!
Go ahead, pick "troll" or whatever. I have karma for the ages.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Every kind of energy generation has a price. It's the price of civilization. Only in California could this come as a surprise...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
http://dailydeadbirds.com/
According to their notes, 6,147 dead birds over the course of a year after the BP spill.
The low estimate is ivanpah is killing 1000 birds per year, upwards of 28,000 birds per year.
...set up some streaming cameras. I'm sure the nerds on the Internet will write something to count them.
Or are they afraid the videos will go viral. WATCH BIRDS GET ROASTED OMG WTF LOL!!!!
California has had 2-3 of these running for decades. Yes, newer ones are bigger, but even the smaller ones like the one in Coalinga can fry a bird if it flies near the focal point.
Maybe just stop building these. They are quite expensive. They are the most expensive source of electricity, bar none.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... (sort by levelised cost).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Open a new Kentucky Fried Bird! Offers only the finest organic, free-range birds, with no added hormones or antibiotics and fed only their natural diet. Guaranteed to be extra-crispy!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Delicious
I'll buy your number for cats - there are hundreds of millions of them, and they love to hunt birds. A power plant that kills a few thousand is completely irrelevant in comparison, but these are clueless "progressive" types, they aren't expected to understand basic math.
I'll pass on the latest climate change panic...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
A rebrand and a restaurant license, and they are golden: BrightSource Fried Poultry and Energy.
Think about it...California won't be shutting KFC down anytime soon, and they are not kind to birds.
Why does shouting and crying always get everyone's attention? When you try to advice, or (god forbid) educate in a clear and rational way on the other hand, no one will listen...
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says more than 9,000 birds are reported struck annually by planes in the U.S., a figure that is rising every year. (http://wildlife.faa.gov/downloads/StrikeReport1990-2012.pdf)
I am somehow thinking that the fossil fuel industry noticed that this way of generating power works a bit too well or something.
And to think that killing 2 birds with one stone is considered clever...
Back to my rock.
... seriously I hope that there is some areal indication that this area should be avoided by any parachuters or hang glider pilots who are blown off course
According to Science News, anywhere from 365 million to 990 million birds die each year in the United States from crashing in to windows. Science News also reports studies that show 1.3 to 4 Billion birds die each year in the US because of cats. Compared to those numbers, power generation facility deaths are not even a blip.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
There was a paper in the 80s about research done on Solar One - the first of these type of plants - I can't locate it right now.
From memory, it found most birds were killed by collision with the mirrors and only a few were killed by the concentrated radiation.
Glazed windows kill birds in the same way that mirrors do.
There will come a time when these 'green' people are made to stop being hypocrits - deny them energy and resources frrom the things that seem to offend them so. Off goes their electricity and heating (and air conditioning). They should now get to bicycle everywhere(that is if they can find a truely 'green' bicycle that works else they can walk). Food ditto. Clothes ditto, Every other aspect of their lives, ditto.
Let them live a life "mean brutish and short" as they advocate for others, when they arent willing to do so themselves by living by what they preach..
Yes let them cease to be hypocrits.
Solar to heat to mechanical to electricity as already reached its maximum efficiency.
Photovoltaic has still many recent discoveries for great efficiency improvements, and more are likely to come.
Using heat for conversion is degrading the energy to its worst and less usable form, direct conversion is the way to go. Halting those heat projects is good news.
Buy up some cats from a shelter and roast them too to cancel out the birds.
Many scientific discoveries are done by accident. This is simply one of them: a new solar powered weapon against birds. They should install one in the big city squares instead of the desert to solve the problems with pigeons.
Reminds me of the "peace dove" scene in "Mars Attacks!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I hope this simply causes birds to avoid those areas. It would also help lower bird shit on the heliostats.
Are those people shills and/or just plainly stupid?
Solar thermo electric plants are piece of the puzzle to prevent global warming. Global warming is bad for the environment. Birds are part of that environment. Most likely global warming would be bad for birds. Solar thermo electric plants are probably good for birds and those few birds aint gonna change that.
Unless they hope to convince a significant fraction of the human population to off themselves (to lower total consumption) they should not complain abut this.
That's 28,000 birds for this current, small, solar installation: 0.4GWh, when the US uses tends of thousands of GWh. Scale it up to just 1% of US power generation and you'll be talking about millions of birds a year. It may well be that it is the least harmful way of generating electricity, but just saying cats kill more (which is an issue in itself!) doesn't make it unimportant. Personally I think it's very important that the truth comes out on what the figure is, and if the companies figures are false they get fucked for it. If it really is 1,000 birds a year then it's probably an unfortunate, but better than the alternatives, consequence of greener energy.
I first read the headline word "plants" as "that kind of organism with roots and leaves", and well, if they start reflecting solar power in a co-ordinated way for self-defense like in the David Niven "Ringworld" series, it would be an interesting development.
I find it hard to believe that nobody considered these effects on wildlife during conception of this and similar projects considering that the underlying technology has existed for over two millennia.
That's 28,000 birds for this current, small, solar installation: 0.4GWh, when the US uses tends of thousands of GWh.
Please don't mix units or make up numbers. A GWh is different from a GW.
This installation has a peak capacity of about 400MW. Total installed peak capacity
in the US (Total net summer capacity) is just a bit over 1000GW.
Interesting note: the growth in capacity over the years shown in this graph is made up nearly
exclusively by renewables and gas, both contributing about half. I hate stacked bar graphs for
obscuring such things, but there's a "download data" option in the top right corner of the graph
so you can look at the raw numbers (they're also in the page source, as a JSON object).
I must have accidentally killed +/- 20 chipmunks this year while driving, and one bird, yeah.
If a dirty business/company was killing that much wildlife they would have been fined out of existence. You save the planet types can kiss my ass.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Sooner or later the birds will learn to not fly there and pass that knowledge on to their offsprings. If they do not, because their brains are so limited and are eventually exterminated totally, then a more intelligent species will take their place in the skies and fill the void (for example flying mammals, like bats).
Did federal investigators ask the Yucatan asteroid not to set dinosaurs on fire? Dinos were huge and hugely stupid and thus, became extinct. Little rodents and other pre-mammals had better brains and survived the inferno. Now the last remnants of dinos, the birds are providing proof that their brains didn't evolve a single neuron in the last 65 million years or so.
CD's in the sun scares the birds away. If not, use laser beams to redirect the birds.
They are the most expensive source of electricity, bar none
I can think of a thousand sources of electricity that is more expensive. Adding a dynamo battery charger to all the toothbrushes in China included.
At least then the Greens will be happy for a change.
I feel sorry for the birds that fly close enough to be injured, but not close enough to be killed. Burns hurt like #$%, so that must be really painful.
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus,
Where the three-body problem is solved.
Where microwaves play down at three degrees K
and the cold virus never evolved.
Home, Home on Lagrange ...
Where the space debris always collects
We possess, so it seems two of man's greatest dreams
Solar power and zero-gee sex
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Anyone have video of the birds bursting into flames? Because there is less than a 200 foot radius from the tower where that can happen. Solar death ray in action setting birds on fire as they fly through the beam!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Does just slightly wanting to go to the solar plant to see bird fireballs descending like meteors make me a bad person ;-)
Hmm no MDSOLAR comment?
I'm here with hundreds of people who have gathered to witness what has
been described as perhaps the greatest solar energy event in Earth Day history.
All we know for sure is that in a very few moments there are going to be a lot
of happy people out here...
Windandsolar is a pipe dream.
For a little while longer, perhaps. But oil is definitively a pipe dream - because it runs out! As production drops, oil prices go up. And the DIY crowd will put small windmills in their gardens, because it will be profitable. As oil price increases and electric cars improve, there will be wind & solar home products so you can lower your electricity bill. And people will say "fuck any bird that flies into MY windmill".
And then the large plants won't be controversial - being better engineered they will kill less birds per MW than a suburb full of garden windmills.
"climate change pollution" - LOL...
www.climatedepot.com
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Poultry
Seriously. People need to stop thinking of renewable energy sources as completely clean and utterly harmless.
They aren't. And never have been.
Once the lies and misconceptions are cleared away, THEN people can start making intelligent choices about the risks they want to take building out their power systems.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Mutant baby birds dying agonizing deaths as their parents hover over then in the nest helplessly trying to feed then radioactive worms. http://www.motherjones.com/blu...
Keeping birds away might help with this. http://birdcontrol.net/html/He...
Airports have been scaring birds away for quite a while now.
I don't have figures for birds specifically handy, but I can tell you the best and worst for wildlife generally. Ignoring minor things like tidal power, the two best are geothermal and nuclear. It's too bad that geothermal is limited to certain geological areas, because it's pretty good on all measures. It releases some greenhouse gases and often requires fracking, but it's pretty safe for wildlife and generally a good idea. Nuclear is quite clean, except of course on the two instances of a major accident.
The worst for wildlife are coal and hydroelectric dams. Hydro surprises some people, but in the best case a dam starts outby destroying a large swath of habitat, then permanently disrupts fish migration and the ecosystems dependant on the waterway. In the worst case, Banqiao. The Banqiao hydroelectric dam disaster was far, far worse than any nuclear accident ever has been.
Does the local nuclear power plant kill?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Carbon fuel cells and carbon dioxide capture can replace coal and biomass plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... Methane fuel cells can replace gas plants. http://www.technologyreview.co... Nuclear has no options and must shut down.
Ps, International Rivers is a good place to start if you want to know more about the environmental damage done by dams, particularly large dams as used for hydroelectric power. They are advocates of course ; just as the ASPCA isn't objective about animals, International Rivers isn't objective about rivers. They advocate for what they believe is right, but each is a good source of information about their side of the side of the issue.
We must eliminate these "Hawk" and "Raptor" predators before they kill all our birds!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It turns out that storage may not be needed for renewable energy. http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...
Cats killing birds is not an issue. Those little ground finches? The sparrows? They're prolific. They climb into other birds's nests and destroy eggs. They kill small birds. They're vicious, hateful little bastards, and they're extincting the native species of the United States.
95% of birds I see are sparrows now. They're ground-foraging. We need more cats.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
HELIOS One, the NCR would have to rely entirely on the contested dam for power!
Nuclear power is an enemy of bird life. http://www.motherjones.com/blu... It is horrible for fish as well. http://www.riverkeeper.org/cam...
ganjadude said:
Whatever blah blah
Oh Ganjadude. Never mind.
Bird life has been severely impacted at Chernobyl and Fukushima. You are being deceptive here.
I thought this article was about a carnivorous plant that somehow evolved to use solar beams to capture its prey... But yeah, this is cool too... I guess.
The design spec specifically stated "cities on flame with rock and roll" not "birdies aflame from old Sol".
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Climate change is expected to soon kill off 1/8th of all bird species.
Yeah, sure. Because all the other "global warming" prediction have been so fucking accurate. You morons are batting 0.0000
We put up dark cutouts of bird shadows on our windows to keep birds from flying into them. Surely these birds that are being cooked at solar plants have predators? Put up a couple of scarecrows or drones. Scare the birds away.
It's not exactly a new science. There's been a number of stories on slashdot over the years on chasing birds away from airports to prevent bird strikes...
When the Firebirds fall from the Sky
A non-pro solar article is being cited. The shock.
I'm certain we'll get a followup article about thousands of fish killed from Nuclear waste water. Or how about an article linking to the real life of Homer Simpson.
Is Chernobyl an operating plant? Fukushima? Try reading my post again.
Your bad assumption is that the desert was formerly useless.
They built something useful in California
Bet they don't make that mistake again.
Chernobyl IS an operating plant. But the "operating" part is not what affected local animal life.
But what mdsolar and his type forget is, Chernobyle is 1 incident. Fukushima 2. Over the life of all the nuclear plants, even taking those 2 horrible accidents (preventable they may have been) the track record world wide for Nuclear energy is better than most other types of energy.
Considering the number of birds killed every day from common human activity such as driving cars, flying planes, discarding certain trash, its hard to think a few birds killed by windmills or a concentrated solar power (CSP) should be a concern. Not that they shouldn't take practical steps to minimize it. CSP is a neat technology, but far behind Solar PV and wind in being ready for practical applications, so it will likely remain a quite small part of the energy mix if/when it gets out of the pilot phase. CSP development is however, a really interesting to follow. It involves a range of challenges that cross engineering and material science disciplines that aren't obvious when you think "its just generating steam with mirrors". But, in reality, it is really hard to obtain the steady heat input and control needed to obtain steady, quality steam. There are numerous trade-offs between heat absorbing coatings, their adhesive techniques and their ability to expand and contract frequently. There is a challenge in designing the right turbine which operates efficiently as possible over a wide operating curve. Central "boiler" tank type designs have very slow heating / cooling times, which helps dampen solar variances, but make it difficult to place turbine cycle equipment nearby in a way that doesn't impact the heating approach. The linear Fresnel mirror/tube type CSP plants on the other hand have big problems in maintaining even heating throughout the long tubes which leads to hammer and damage, and a lot of expansion/contraction related issues. I'd love to work on one of these projects, its worth reading about if that kind of thing gives you a rise.
Sadly, Suncor tried to use the same arguments when 230 ducks died after landing in an Alberta Oilsands Tailings pond that had equipment in place to scare off birds. Too bad for them that the argument is only permitted for environmental shill approved methods of energy production. **Likely to be modded down because truth hurts and makes illogical people lash out.
Cats do love killing birds, but I can tell you anecdotally that my cat has never brought in a raptor.
I would expect some level of bird deaths from Chernobyl accident, I think anyone would. For Fukushima, its not clear there will ever be any bird deaths attributable to radiological exposure, even if there were some, simply because it would be a low number and hard to show cause unless they actually find carcasses of contaminated birds with physical signs of radiological damage. You will more likely see 'assumed' numbers due to that reason. Some sources will make credible assumptions, others will not.
Not all birds are equal, or at least, some species are a lot rarer than others. for example, I doubt your cat can kill a large raptor, but apex predators typically have a large effect on the health of an ecosystem.
Did this solar-thermal power plan happen to be called HELIOS One?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Did you honestly just write David Niven "Ringworld" series?
David Niven (actor)
Larry Niven (author)
First, kill all the outdoor cats. Once the bird population recovers we can go after the power plants.
https://www.sciencenews.org/ar...
I suspect oil/coal shills here.
I thought the same thing but a brief skim of their donor list indicates otherwise, an easy to find annual report is also not something commonly available for the myriad of FF front groups.
Having said that, the last line of the summary is oddly misleading, the phrase "but an environmental group claims" should read "but federal wildlife officers claim". It was the Feds who observed "a streamer every 2min", which by simple linear extrapolation is ~25k/yr, they became alarmed and requested the construction halt. Notice they have not called for a halt to operations. I think a closer look is certainly warranted and Federal Wildlife people would appear to be the appropriate group to be doing the looking. Where the environmental group actually fit into the story I'm not sure, if they were the ones who called in the feds, then good on 'em for not turning a blind eye to a politically inconvenient truth.
Disclaimer: Self confessed "greenie" long before greenpeace and science parted ways in the 80's.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Larry Nive. Of course.
Redesign the heating towers to look like giant cats.
Next problem, please.
Free energy AND free snacks!
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
& that's just confirmed kills (she delivered the body to us) of birds! she's also delivered 8 chipmunks, two lizards though oddly only two mice (but again, that she's redeemed for praise/treats). she also likes to kill wasps...
kind of scary how she can flip a switch between limp rag doll w/the kids & ruthless serial killer - if she were a human we'd be terrorfied of her... (we did just tell wife's brother in law he couldn't bring his 10 lb yorkiepoo b/c we're afraid she'd hurt or kill him)
Solution: Build a chain link enclosure around the "danger" area for the birds, keeping them from flying through the concentrated heat anyway.
I wonder how many birds die from Fukushima ??? Yea bitchez fuck off
Just brush 'em with barbecue sauce and slap 'em on a bun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
What kind of idiot doesn't know there are difference species of birds, with different population and think cats bringing down sparrows is the same as a Solar plant taking down raptors?
"I'll pass on the latest climate change panic..."
Oh, that kind of idiot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"You morons are batting 0.0000"
Almost every one has been within error bars. Who ever is telling you otherwise is a liar.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
An efficiency argument is a little complicated to make here. "Single p–n junction crystalline silicon devices are now approaching the theoretical limiting power efficiency of 33.7%, noted as the Shockley–Queisser limit in 1961. In the extreme, with an infinite number of layers, the corresponding limit is 86% using concentrated sunlight." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... This is because the 86% number is the Carnot limit and solar thermal has the same limit. We don't see very high Carnot efficiency like that in practice at thermal plants because of material constraints. Gas turbines are made of material that will melt at too high a temperature, for example. Potentially, multi-junction solar PV with concentration will break 70% efficiency and beat gas turbines or their (eventual) solar thermal equivalents at 60% because the materials are being used differently. Efforts are presently aimed at 50% efficiency. But, you are back to concentrating sunlight which was the issue with the birds in the first place. A smaller reflector geometry would fix the bird problem, but that is true with solar thermal as well.
They were operating when the caused radiation accidents.
Hey, lay off.
finally, a solution for flying ants.
If we were just talking about birds in general, I'd agree with you. But in terms of cluelessness, you have to realize not all birds are created equal. We aren't talking 28,000 sparrows and robins, in a very low-population area you're talking raptors and condors. eg, imagine if this would kill around 28,000 cats. Not such a huge thing if built in Los Angeles. Now imagine you're building it in a natural remaining tiger habitat and the thought of losing a significant percentage becomes horrifying.
All the way back in 1858: Arthur C Clarke, "A Slight Case of Sunstroke"
There have been reports of FUD from the Koch brothers, trying to slow down the growth of alternative energy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04...
I wonder who's making sure this gets lots of press, and what the real numbers are.
I want to ask you a question but I'm not sure if it will be rude. My apologies if it is. ok, here goes.
Are you fucking retarded?
This story is marketed at conservative libertarian types. Someone wrote this to make you feel smug (mission accomplished!) about being smarter than the two group[s portrayed. Two liberal groups trying to out liberal each other and they're both wrong! haha! It's not about basic math, its about framing the debate.
Crunching the numbers, it's foolish to delay solar power adoption for even 28K birds a year.
You think solar power adoption will halt climate change?
What's the exact mechanism you're proposing for this, when all climate change temperature fluctuations are miniscule compared to the natural variation of the 4 seasons, or just plain day/night cycles?
I hate birds. Especially good that they are dying in fire, as I often daydream about using a flamethrower to take out the hundreds of seagulls that congregate on the roof of a nearby building.
Few birds, don't care. Ends outweigh the means.
And highly likely issue at hand was considered during solar plant design. Probably one of the first to consider. Hmmm... what if birds fly through the solar beams?
The "bad for wildlife" question basically comes down to:
* how much mass you have to move
* how much land area you have to occupy
per watt generated.
Coal and hydro lose because they both require a lot of mass (water and coal) and a lot of area (dammed waterway, mines and transport).
Nuclear and geothermal win because they both require very little mass and very little area other than the plant itself - uranium ore has at least 1000 times the energy per gram as coal.
Any kind of solar is in the middle because of the large area needed to capture relatively dilute solar energy.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I wonder if they could employ some sort of 3D tracking* and then selectively shutter the relevant mirror whilst the bird flies through, it should only be momentary and not impact performance to a great extent. I'm making an assumption here that there is a way to shutter or otherwise divert the mirror for normal servicing operations, or 'throttling back'
Of course, if the bird gets closer to the boiler, more mirrors will be in play and likely difficult to manage, but this could be combined with an appropriate scare that can be mounted, or flown around the central structure
* A quick search reveals similar systems for airports, may be adaptable? http://www.airporttech.tc.faa....
Cheap energy + dinner == win win
Obviously there is only one clear choice.
Make all the obese people pedal exercise bikes in specially created "Fat Farms" connected to dynamos to generate electricity.
Kills two birds with one stone! :)
The smartest birds will learn to avoid the mirrors and survive and in ten years, no more fried birds from the sky.
~Charles Darwin~
The smartest birds survival may lead to the bird rebellion against humans.
~Alfred Hitchcock~
Hmmm... what's that in square furlongs?
When I first read the headline, I immediately thought: "Larry Niven's Slaver Sunflowers for real??!"
http://news.larryniven.net/con...
The cats in the shelters are already confined and unable to access live birds as they are.
A better solution exists, and it involves halberds and crossbows.
The other thing is that Chernobyl isn't going to happen again. Nobody's going to design a reactor that can possibly do that ever again.
A Fukushima-style event is possibly repeatable, but it's going to be extremely rare. It took a lot of bad things run together to cause it. Further, once you get over the idea that nukular is SCAAARRRYY, how bad was it? Compare it with other deaths and devastation caused by power generation, and I don't think it looks that bad.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
They should just do a cat offset and have N feral cats "removed from the environment" / MW of power.
They could do a triple offset if they wanted.
collect these quick fried birds to feed the poor
Slashdot, What the fuck happened to you, man? Shit, your ass used to be beautiful!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
"I'll pass on the latest climate change panic..."
Oh, that kind of idiot.
Yup. That's right. He had the gall to question the one world religion. Burn him at the stake!
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
but the wingnuts that oppose renewable energy don't care about any organisms besides themselves. Hence, you will not see this finding in any anti clean-energy screeds.
I think what you said is true.
Also, as I understand it, the long-lived isotopes tend to emit alpha particles. Alpha particles are easily stopped- they don't penetrate most materials, including water. So most of the radiation is expended by the particles hitting the water.
On the other hand, if the fish eat plutonium particles and a human eats the fish, that's not good. On the other hand, taking a walk on sunny day exposes you to more radiation than a power plant ever will, excepting a worst-case scenario.
Seen it from I-15 driving to Vegas. Impressive engineering. Stupid birds.
So true. The people with loud voices, and the morons they elect to office, seem to think that destroying the civilization that's been created is the "right thing to do".
First rule of environmentalism - You Can't Win. Whatever solution you suggest to my Big Environmental Problem, it will always have a snag.
They can build the plant in the desert where there aren't any tree... Oh wait. Nevermind.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Solar to heat to mechanical to electricity as already reached its maximum efficiency.
Photovoltaic has still many recent discoveries for great efficiency improvements, and more are likely to come.
Using heat for conversion is degrading the energy to its worst and less usable form, direct conversion is the way to go. Halting those heat projects is good news.
You don't know what you're talking about.
High temp solar thermal (a future innovation) would take the conversion efficiency from 35% (straight steam turbine) to 50% combined cycle steam turbine (rankine) + gas turbine (brayton) on the back end.
Airports have been using a variety of bird repelling devices for decades. Take at look at some of these - http://www.bird-x.com/aviation-pages-155.php.