I have a plethora of articles on the wide range of economic, environmental, and biological harm caused by wind and solar power. Will try to get caught up. So much devastation. So little time.
3/2/15 – Coyote Blog – New Business Opportunity: Lolo’s Eagle and Waffles Next to Large Solar Plants – Post points to the following two articles. Those articles plus this headline suggest that if the solar plants can get away with killing eagles and other federally protected migratory birds, then perhaps there is a business opportunity from serving up the carcasses as exotic dishes at a nearby café.
2/18/15 – ReWire – Scores of Birds Killed During Test of The Project in Nevada – During a test on 1/14/15 at the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project outside Tonopah, Nevada, federal biologists counted 130 streamers.
Streamers are birds that enter the solar flux surrounding the top of a solar tower. The temperature is so high the birds combust and fall to the ground, streaming smoke behind them. Picture a B-17 during World War II that was hit by antiaircraft bursts and fell to the ground streaming smoke from a burning engine.
130 birds were killed in the six hour test.
130. Six hours.
20 per hour.
Of most concern are some reports that one particular Common Raven heated up so much that it incinerated. Completely. There was no carcass to fall to the ground.
That means you can’t get an accurate tally of the death count from a solar tower by the number of carcasses on the ground. Of course, that assumes you actually count in such a way as to find all the carcasses instead of leaving most of them as dinner for the kit foxes.
Article says a Common Raven typically weighs two and a half pounds. What do you suppose happens to sparrows, starlings, or federally protected birds that only weigh in at the 1 pound range?
8/20/14 – Coyote Blog – Equal Protection Under the Law? – Article points out Exxon was fined $600,000 after pleading guilty to causing 85 bird deaths over the course of five years spread across five states. A guilty plea. Bird deaths over five years.
Crescent Dunes did more than that in six hours.
If equal protection were in play for solar plants and Exxon, can you imagine how huge the fines would be for Ivanpah and Crescent Dunes? Maybe 900 grand a day?