Thousands of Birds Meet a Fiery End at the World’s Largest Solar Power Plant
Solar power also comes at a price, and in the case of California's BrightSource Energy plant, the cost may be the lives of 28,000 wild creatures.
Stay away from the light, oh winged ones! Shutterstock
Solar power also comes at a price, and in the case of California’s BrightSource Energy plant, the cost may be the lives of 28,000 wild creatures.
CBC News:
Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the concentrated beams of solar energy focused upward by the plant’s 300,000 mirrors — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife investigators who visited BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.
The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.
—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
Biologists identify another tale of conflict as African birds compete with European natives for resources in a fast-warming world.
Scientists say that birds essential for controlling pests are at risk amid climate change.
British researchers study 481 species across the globe to find out how climate change and land-use change interact to affect mammals and birds.
New scientific reports highlight yet again the threats that climate change and rising temperatures are posing for many species.
Like something out of a storybook, 8-year-old Gabi Mann has established a reciprocal connection with the crows that visit her backyard.
British butterflies which appear early in the year may soon run out of time to adapt to ever-earlier springs, researchers say.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.