A few articles on the danger to flying birds, flying planes, and barely-flying economies.
flying birds
Intentional, willful undercounts of toasted wings – 6/25 – ReWire – Panel Discards Scientists’ Recommendation on Wildlife Kills at Solar Plant.
Tag: solar power
A way forward for a better energy future without slice-and-dicers or wing-toasters
If you have read more than, oh, say 5 consecutive posts on this blog, you know that technology in place today for solar and wind power ranks poorly on any scale of value I can think of. Whether I look at the cost of energy, level of environmental damage, devastation to wildlife in general, loss of protected species in particular, general disruption, exorbitant costs, visual pollution, noise pollution, corruption caused by crony capitalism, or damage to cultural artifacts, it is obvious to me that slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters are lousy sources of energy.
What is a better way forward? For the near term, abundant oil and natural gas.
Longer term? I don’t know.
Nobody knows.
And that is the point.
Update on solar and wind power – 7/2 – solar #21
Here are a few articles on the environmental damage from solar and wind energy.
Oh. And I expect to never hear another word about the horrid amount of water used to drill an unconventional oil well. The Eagle Mountain Pumped Storage Project in Riverside County will initially use as much water as it takes to drill 1,369 fracked wells and in addition for each year for 50 years will draw water sufficient to drill 130 wells.
Wing-toasters, or unknown numbers of streamers
6/17 – ReWire – Bird Deaths Continue Through May at Ivanpah Solar – Number of dead birds at the Ivanpah toasting facility dropped slightly in May to 80 birds and 2 bats. Scorching, singeing or melting feathers was visible on 44 of the birds. Several had burns on their bodies. Severe impact of not covering the whole facility when looking for birds is described in the article as follows:
As only about 20 percent of the facility is covered by the carcass surveys, it’s reasonable to assume the actual month’s death toll is upward of 300 or so.
Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power – 7/2 – solar #21”
Increased number of toasted wings found at wing-toasting facility in the California desert (solar #20)
The count of toasted birds at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System doubled in April. Two possibilities for the accelerating death count.
First, the wing-toasting solar tower was in operation a higher number of hours in the month. Second, staff from the U.S. Geological Survey were on site a lot during the month giving a more accurate count.
Check out April Was Bad Month for Birds at Ivanpah Solar, by Chris Clarke at ReWire.
Mr. Clarke says the Ivanpah monthly compliance report lists 100 birds as either killed, mortally wounded, or injured during April. That consists of 40 that were scorched, singed, or had melted feathers and 12 showing signs of collision with heliostats. That is 52, so that leaves 48 decomposed enough that the cause of death couldn’t be determined. By biologists. Who know what they are looking for.
Actual deaths are a large multiple of the reported number
Update on solar and wind power, 5/9 – solar #20
Here’s a few articles on the environmental issues with solar and wind energy. Since the uncontained, unresearched, unquantified environmental damage from slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters is not particularly good, I can’t call this series more good stuff like the other updates on this blog. So here are a few updates including more consequences of wind power, impact of natural gas, and two articles on solar facilities in California:
4/28 – Syracuse, byline AP – 4 dead after small plane crashes into South Dakota wind farm in fog Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power, 5/9 – solar #20”
Bird tally at Ivanpah in March ‘13
ReWire discusses the March 2013 compliance report from Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System: Bird Deaths Continue at Ivanpah Solar.
Mr. Clarke summarizes the report by explaining that in March, 22 of 55 dead or injured birds were clearly injured by the solar flux. Most of the rest were sufficiently decomposed that the cause of death couldn’t be determined.
Mr. Clarke is concerned the heat may be so high that there isn’t enough left of smaller birds to identify them at all. Any such birds in that category wouldn’t be included in the official count.
The March casualties took place while the facility was operating at 55% of capacity, according to Mr. Clarke’s research. The mortality will likely be higher when the plant sustains maximum output.
The compliance report for March can be found here. I browsed through it, although at 967 pages, there is a bit too much for me to absorb. A lot of it is way over my head.
I looked at table 9 of exhibit 9 on page 890. That lists the avian mortality and injury for March. I noticed a few things of interest to me.
Question: What are “streamers” at a wing-toasting solar facility? (solar #19)
(photo by James Ulvog)
Answer: Birds that fly into the solar flux at the top of the solar collector and ignite, producing a trail of smoke as they fall to the ground. Thus, a streamer.
That is the word used by the people who work at the Ivanpah solar facility, according to an article at ReWire by Chris Clarke: Federal Lab Offers Grim Look at Solar Harm to Wildlife. The article summarizes a few pieces of information from a report from a lab of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You can read the report for yourself here.
Do you suppose it is a bad sign that people working at a solar farm have a special word to casually describe birds that fall out of the sky after being toasted?
I picture movies about World War II in the air over Europe. Remember those views of an armada of bombers? One of the lumbering B-17s takes a flak burst, starts streaming smoke from an engine on fire, and slowly spirals into the ground. A streamer.
While staff from the FWS Office of Law Enforcement department were on site they saw a “streamer event” every 2 minutes. That could be dust particles or it could be a cloud of insects, as claimed by the staff who work at the facility. OLE did observe birds (plural) fly into the solar flux and incinerate.
Perhaps the California regulators ought to know how many of those thirty incidents per hour are birds and how many are humongous clouds of concentrated dust drifting hundreds of feet in the air before they issue any more wing-toaster permits.
Undercounts of birds and no counts of butterflies
Continue reading “Question: What are “streamers” at a wing-toasting solar facility? (solar #19)”
35,000 tons of CO2 annually equals insignificant environmental impact (solar #18)
The Ivanpah solar facility will need to increase the amount of natural gas burned in order to keep the facility running efficiently. Using an extra 601 million cubic feet of gas each year will not have any significant environmental impact.
Chris Clarke reports on the plant owner’s request on 3/27: Ivanpah Solar Plant Owners Want To Burn a Lot More Natural Gas. The application is found here. Most of the application is over my head, but I was able understand much of it.
To keep each of the three powerplants running requires having a gas-powered turbine running 4.5 hours a day. This is to help warm up the water and maintain production as the sun goes down.
Continue reading “35,000 tons of CO2 annually equals insignificant environmental impact (solar #18)”
Update on solar and wind power, 3-24-14 – solar #17
Here’s a few articles on the environmental and economic issues with solar and wind energy.
Since the uncontained, unresearched, unquantified environmental damage from slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters is not particularly good, I can’t call this series more good stuff. So here are a few updates on opportunity cost, the views of wind power hardware will last forever, more solar farms approved, and regressiveness of solar subsidies.
Opportunity cost
One of many problems with massive subsidies for wind and solar energy is doing so diverts attention and effort from developing new technologies. Some amazing things not yet invented could possibly some day actually be efficient, competitive, environmentally friendly, and not kill off lots of protected birds, non-protected birds, endangered animals and threatened plants.
Walter Russell Mead makes that point on 3/23: Chinese Firm Races to the Bottom of Global Solar Market.
Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power, 3-24-14 – solar #17”
What’s the disposal plan for the cadmium in solar panels? Solar #16
Cadmium is a heavy metal that can make humans quite sick. Cadmium is a major ingredient in one particular type of solar panel called cadmium telluride. Dangers of putting that into a few hundred thousand panels, risks of leakage into ground water, and lack of disposal plans 30 or 40 years from now might, just maybe, possibly, be worth considering today.
A few minutes of research starts to outline the issues. My learning points are in bold italics, with article for each idea, and my comments on the article.
- Cadmium is bad stuff.
Continue reading “What’s the disposal plan for the cadmium in solar panels? Solar #16”
Unintended consequences of solar power keep coming into view – Next, reflection off panels as a threat to airplanes – solar #15
I am particularly intrigued by the concept of unintended consequences. You try to do something to fix one problem and wind up causing another problem.
Here’s another unintended consequence for those massive solar farms out in the desert – blinding pilots who are flying over the highly reflective panels.
Chris Clarke at ReWire on 3/12 reports Desert Solar Power Plant a Risk to Air Safety, Say Pilots. (How does he crank out all those articles?)
A few other things I wonder about solar and wind farms – solar #14
Here’s a few more ideas on the downsides of solar and wind farms that I’d like to pursue when I can. In the meantime, I’ll throw out a few more concerns for my future research.
How many birds get missed in the official counts?
In addition to birds found at solar sites, how many are mortally wounded by the solar flux but have enough energy to fly another one or 20 miles before giving in to their injuries?
In addition to birds found at the sites, how many get eaten in between the surveys of the site?
Continue reading “A few other things I wonder about solar and wind farms – solar #14”
Do solar facilities make life easier or harder for wildlife? ‘Spose we ought to have an answer before construction? Solar #13
Will another several hundred thousand solar panels in the desert make life easier for ravens? Will those same solar panels store heat, thus making survival harder for desert tortoises? Or does it fail the reasonableness test that solar panels will provide relief from and increase exposure to temperature simultaneously?
I would like to discuss two news articles and then bring the information in them together.
First –
2/19 – KCET / ReWire – Feds Green Light 2 More Solar Projects in Ivanpah Valley – On 2/19 the Interior Department approved 2 more projects near the Nevada-California border. Expectation is the two projects combined will kill or injure or require relocation of 2,115 desert tortoises. Those critters are in the threatened category under federal law. (2,115? Two thousand tortoises? Do I need to add some sarcasm or is merely stating the expected impact sufficient ridicule?)
Interesting unintended consequence of the two projects is that hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic cells will provide lots of shade in the hot desert, thus increasing survival rates for ravens, thus reducing survival rates for desert tortoises. Ravens are apparently quite fond of desert tortoises, and not in a BFF kind of way.
Second –
2/24 – KCET /ReWire – Solar Plant May Make Deserts Too Hot For Tortoises – Run that by me again?
Update on solar and wind power, 2-26-14 – solar #12
News articles on the environmental damage from slice-and-dicers and wing-toasters are piling up faster in my archives than I can post the info.
So, I guess it’s time to start writing short updates. On other topics covered on this blog, I’m calling those brief comments about a topic more good stuff. Since uncontained, unresearched environmental damage is not particularly good, calling these updates more good stuff won’t work.
Here’s some brief updates:
2/15 – San Bernardino Sun – Ivanpah partners tout solar-thermal generating plant’s success – Article discusses the gala grand opening of the Ivanpah plant, which is a sufficient large scar in the desert that it is visible from the International Space Station.
Article says there are dangers to insects and bats, as well as birds. I’ve not had opportunity to research that issue.
Continue reading “Update on solar and wind power, 2-26-14 – solar #12”
Financial results for wing-toasters and future prospects, part 3 – solar #11
This is the third post in a series based on an article from the Canada Free Press dated 1-18-14: Hard Times Hit Large Scale Solar Energy.
The first post here summarized why solar farms are in trouble generally and described the extensive subsidies that supported them. The second post here described more of the environmental harm generated at one solar farm. This final part got bumped by the opening of the big facility near the Nevada border.
Solar plants used to be quite lucrative financially.
Solar plants used to be quite the money-maker, what with unwilling demand from customers created by regulators, big federal tax credits realized before construction, and huge loan guarantees.
From the article Continue reading “Financial results for wing-toasters and future prospects, part 3 – solar #11”