How to Stop Solar-Power Plants From Incinerating Birds

A federal report calls California's Ivanpah solar power plant a "mega-trap" for wildlife. Even solar panels can prove a fatal avian attraction.

Todd Woody Apr 28 2014

The Ivanpah solar thermal power plant in the Southern California desert supplies enough carbon-free electricity to power 140,000 homes. For birds, bats and butterflies, though, the futuristic project is the Death Star, incinerating anything that flies through a “solar flux” field that generates temperatures of 800 degree Fahrenheit when 300,000 mirrors focus the sun on a water-filled boilers that sit on top three 459-foot towers.

 

“It appears Ivanpah may act as a ‘mega-trap,’ attracting insects which in turn attract insect-eating birds, which are incapacitated by solar-flux injury, thus attracting predators and creating an entire food chain vulnerable to injury and death,” concluded scientists with the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in a report that investigated 233 bird deaths representing 71 species at three Southern California solar power plants........The feds saw what appeared to be a bird go up in flames every two minutes, according to the report. The birds killed at Ivanpah include a peregrine falcon, a red-shouldered hawk and an ash-throated flycatcher. ……To Read More…..

My Take - The article has a paragraph I left out because it was out of the context with what I wished to present - but, and this is a big "but" - it is important that we review that information regarding the amount of incidental bird deaths.  The article says that "988 million birds"...."nearly 10 percent of the United State’s avian population" are killed while flying into buildings. The writer's purpose in citing this statistic is to minimize the outrage over the avian death toll caused by solar power installations, which I actually agree with. It's hyperbole! However, consistency is a must, and the green/left coalition has very little affection for consistency or truth. If this was an oil facility of some kind these self same greenie enablers would be outraged at any bird killed there.  And the government would impose serious penalties. 

These are the same people who demanded the ban on DDT because according the mother of junk science, Rachel Carson, DDT was wiping out the avian population, especially the bald eagle, when in reality the avian population in North American,  including the bald eagle increased twelve times during the DDT years.  Yet, here we have actual evidence of avian slaughter and what is offered?  Excuses, logical fallacies and another pitch for climate change, insisting that 'climate change' is far more dangerous to avian life than solar power installations. If logical fallacies and the continued perpetuation of the greatest worldwide hoax ever perpetrated on humanity, climate change, are at the heart of their reasoning then we have to wonder at just how sincere they really are.  I think we also have to wonder at their sanity.