This is what these solar farms do >

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/08/24/ivanpah-thermal-solar-power-plant-produces-death-rays-torching-many-birds/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/26/solyndra-misled-government-get-535-million-solar-p/

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Ivanpah thermal solar power plant produces “death rays” torching many birds

By Ralph Maughan On August 24, 2014

In B.L.M., Desert Tortoise, Energy, Public Lands, Solar Roast bird record at Mojave solar plant even worse than predicted?

Plant workers call them “streamers.” Birds that fly through the beams of concentrated sunlight at the massive Ivanpah solar plant near Primm, Nevada catch fire and fall from the sky, leaving a smoky trail as they burn and die.

This solar plant is not the typical solar plant made of photovoltaic cells.

Photovoltaics are thought usually harmless to wildlife except for the cleared land. Photovoltaics are very scalable — they can be built in all sizes, shapes, and put on the ground, rooftops, parking lots, platforms at sea, etc.  

The Ivanpah style plant instead uses many thousands of large mirrors (300,000 at Ivanpah). They concentrate reflected sunlight into powerful beams aimed at “power towers” — boilers that use the steam to turn turbines and generate electricity in the old fashioned way. Photovoltaics produce electricity directly.

The Ivanpah plant has been controversial from the start. At first it was because the land selected in the Ivanpah Valley was splendid habitat for many hundreds of desert tortoises. The land was also very near to the Mojave National Preserve.

It is also on public (BLM) lands covering about 6 square miles from which all vegetation has been removed and the desert soil covered over.

As time went by it occurred to people that the solar beams with their temperatures up to 800º F would be dangerous to anything that passed through them. In addition the flashes from the mirrors could carry a long way and be a danger to pilots.

Now it is thought that the rows of mirrors reflecting light look like desert lakes to birds.  Moreover, the light from the mirrors attracts insects too, further attracting birds.

One formally reported incident of “flash glare” was reported in March this year. Extremely bright flash-glare from the mirror fields around the towers briefly blinded the pilots flying a corporate light 2 turbojet. It had passengers aboard.

There is no agreement how many birds are roasted, but a recent study made public by the California Energy Commission by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) indicates that the number is high.

The report says “It appears that   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.”

Unlike wind farms which seem to preferentially kill certain kind of birds, Ivanpah was “equal opportunity.”

The remains of 71 species were identified, representing a broad range of ecological types. In body size, these ranged from hummingbirds to pelicans; in ecological type from strictly aerial feeders (swallows) to strictly aquatic feeders (grebes) to ground feeders (roadrunners) to raptors (hawks and owls).

The species identified were equally divided among resident and non-resident species, and nocturnal as well as diurnal species were represented. Although not analyzed in detail, there was also significant bat and insect mortality at the Ivanpah site, including monarch butterflies.

Collecting birds on the ground does not give a full accounting of bird death because not all “streamers” fall and die on sight. Birds were observed to fly through, catch fire and then perch, only to make a erratic flight off to die somewhere else.  CBD estimated that perhaps 28,000 birds die from what happens at the site each year.

BrightSource Energy runs the place. They estimate about a thousand birds a year dead, but last year federal investigators report they saw “streamers” about every 2 minutes during their visit to Ivanpah.

Right wing fossil fuel advocates are criticizing environmentalists using Ivanpah as an example of what alternative energy, which they misleadingly call “green energy,” is like. It is not green, and Ivanpah was opposed by a number of environmental groups from the start, including CBD and Western Watersheds Project, who sued to try to stop it.

Back in 2011, we ran a number of stories in the Wildlife News about WWPs efforts to stop it. Excellent updates with photos on the project and other controversial solar projects can be found at http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/

Below are select articles from the News.

* Last Spring at Ivanpah ? April 12, 2009

* Ivanpah Power Plant – Not Clean Not Green. Oct. 5, 2010

* WWP Sues to Stop Fast Tracked Ivanpah Power Plant in California. Jan. 17, 2011

* BLM halts some construction at Ivanpah Power Plant. April 19, 2011

Despite the controversy over Ivanpah, BrightSource has applied to build another such plant in the middle of an important flyway where much larger birds, and larger numbers of birds are at risk. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reported to be trying to stop this project. This would be a 75-story power tower and mirrors. The tower would rise above the sand dunes and creek washes the run between Joshua Tree National Park and the California-Arizona border. The flyway is between the Colorado River and the Salton Sea.

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EDIT >

Bright Source Energy/Solyndra/SolarReach

https://twitter.com/BrightSource

Israel is building the world's tallest solar tower, with 50,000 mirrors #solar #Ashalim #CSP -

https://twitter.com/BrightSource/status/852931455424626689

BrightSource Energy‏ @BrightSource

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