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.

Comments

god dammit.

[rogoshen1]

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 Nope, think of the children has been replaced by "think of the birds".

Re:god dammit.

[itzdandy]

~3 birds each day seems like a lot of KFC for a power plant....

anyway, seems like the environmental impact is quite less than mining of coal etc etc, and more easily solved....audible chirps, clicks, etc to scare the birds away? Or maybe a little metal eagle or hawk statue on the roof..

Re:god dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even: "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."

Re:god dammit.

[wallsg]

I think it's funny that BrightSource's bird kill numbers are being trusted when they say 1,000 per year. This story says that "federal wildlife investigators" are estimating one "streamer" every two minutes on average. That would be 240 per day assuming 8 hours of operation. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates 28,000 per year. That's only about 76 per day.

The Exxon Valdez spill killed (from my quick search) an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 birds, about what this would kill in 10 years or so at mid-20k birds killed per year. So, build 10 of these plants (or larger with even more roasting capacity) and you have the equivalent (in bird deaths) of an Exxon Valdez oil spill each year. A wise sage once said "It's not easy being green."

If this were a coal or oil source quoting bird kills, would people be so willing to accept their numbers at face value? BrightSource is wanting to build a much larger plant right in a migratory corridor. They have a strong incentive to lie about the numbers.

Also, if you want to compare birds killed here to birds killed by "dirty" energy, scale this ONE complex's Kill per Megawatt up from its (planned) capacity of 392 MW to that of what you're comparing to. Assuming that the plant generates power 8 hours per day year round at 100%, you get about 3.2 GWh of electricity. A search found that for 2010 in the US coal power production was a bit larger than that at 1,994,000 GWh. So, multiply the bird kills by over 600,000 (1,994,000 / 3.2) and you can now compare the kills scaled for power generated. That would be scaling to over 600 million birds by BrightSource numbers and about 17 billion by the environmental group's numbers. The "federal wildlife investigator's" numbers would yield somewhere around 53 billion. I wonder how much coal could be saved by just burning 53 billion birds each year instead...

Don't forget to add in the tortoise habit that was damaged to build this too. I'm trying to think of the name of the thin, extremely fragile layer of crust on undisturbed desert ground that environmental groups want to shut down land so people won't walk on it. (It isn't Desert Varnish. That's what's on rocks.) It takes forever for it to recover. All gone on that six-and-a-quarter square mile site.

But on the bright side, ha ha, at least the owls are safe.

Re:god dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the catapults are for.

Re:god dammit.

[jklovanc]

Decreasing the number of birds killed in high population areas does not compensate for killing birds in a low population desert area. For example, raptors are attracted and killed because prey birds are attracted to the bugs which are attracted to the light. Very few raptors are killed by cats. Raptors are much more endangered than the song birds generally killed by cats. All birds are not equal.

Re:god dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that hard to believe - very few automobiles get killed by skyscrapers in my experience.

Re:god dammit.

[gymell]

I agree with your sentiment, but as someone who volunteers with raptor rehabilitation, I can speak from some experience. Actually more raptors than you might think are killed by cats. There are many raptor species which are quite small and easily taken by a cat. And of course all are vulnerable when in the nest or just after fledging, unable to fly or defend themselves. People always ask me if a raptor would take their pet cat, and I always tell them that the raptor is much more in danger from the cat than the other way around. Also there are many endangered songbirds (grassland species, neotropical migrants, etc), and many cats in both low and high population areas.

That all being said, the environmental impact of these supposed "green" energy sources is significant. The production of biofuels like ethanol has decimated habitat, the dangers of wind power to raptors are well known, and now this. There needs to be more study beforehand rather than after the fact. And green energy apologists need to concede that their industry is just as hypocritical about the environment as any other energy producer.

Cut out the middle man!

[Black Parrot]

Why not skip all the expensive equipment and just use birds for fuel?

Re:Hydroelectric Dams

[Hadlock]

Three humans die each day due to obesity-related health reasons within 3500 of the McDonalds by my house. They say humans are attracted to the site by the brightly-lit golden arches which some say is a food source for the species.

Re:god dammit. The Numbers

[saskboy]

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).

NIMBYs? Crackpots?

[YesIAmAScript]

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).