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Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year
- mabramo 10y agoI wonder if they have tried or are considering spreading a scented substance (a powder?) in the immediate area. It wouldn't stop birds from flying into the solar plant, but it might condition the roadrunners such that they know not to run in that direction when fleeing a coyote. It could be costly anywhere else, but in the mojave desert, scent probably lingers for a much longer period of time. That's my guess, anyway.
- ars 10y agoI don't know roadrunners specifically, but in general birds don't have a great sense of smell, and don't much use it day to day. A visual warning would work better for birds. I wonder if there is something about the fence that makes it "invisible" to roadrunners.
- logfromblammo 10y agoMethyl anthranilate [0], commonly used as artificial grape flavoring and naturally found in Concord grapes, is a bird repellent. They can certainly smell it, if not other odors. If you want to keep birds out of your strawberry patch, for instance, you can sprinkle packets of grape Kool-Aid over it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_anthranilate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_anthranilate
- akg_67 10y ago> They have fitted each tower with machines that emit a nonlethal avian respiratory irritant derived from grape juice concentrate, a method typically used to keep birds from congregating on agricultural fields and commercial centers. Your comments might be helpful to discussion if you read the article first to understand what has been already tried instead of jumping to offer a solution.
- bm1362 10y agoHe was referring to the roadrunners, dude.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoNot that I don't think 6k birds isn't an unfortunate number, but even if we built 1,000 more of these power plants they'd only kill about 0.20% of the amount of birds killed by cats in the US every year [0]. [0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-wild-birds-mammals-study/1873871/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-wi...
- huuu 10y agoIt would be more interesting to look at what kind of birds are killed.
- jordache 10y agoMay be a necessary evil However then uniqueness of this is the concentrated location of the deaths. Solve it at one place and you prevent thousands. Cats are everywhere
- Retric 10y agoBan cats and you solve it in one location. This does not happen in part because people don't really care that much about wild birds.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoBan cats and you still have feral cats. They eat birds because nobody's keeping them inside away from the wild birds.
- thoughtsimple 10y agoThat's 16 birds a day. Unless the birds are endangered, that seems like a relatively small number for 390 MW of mostly green power.
- beefman 10y ago74 MW of solar power in 2015 (up by a factor of about 1.4 from 2014 but still only about 2/3 the planned output). At the cost of $2.2B, and 3500 acres (14 km^2) of steel and precision-ground glass and wilderness.
- dahart 10y agoThe Ivanpah facility was built on public land, not wilderness.
- erikpukinskis 10y agoWhat makes public land not wilderness?
- dahart 10y agoIn this context, it's a US federal government designation for protected land. http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-designation-faqs http://wilderness.org/article/wilderness-designation-faqs The word does also mean in some contexts any land that is undeveloped, so the meaning can be overloaded.
- beefman 10y agoUpdate: The 74 MW figure is given by EIA as "net solar generation". The plant also burns natural gas, and made slightly more power in total (which still rounds to 74 MW on average for the year). In particular, it burned 564,814 mcf of natgas, which is worth 9 MW in our existing fleet of combined-cycle power plants. But Ivanpah made < 1 MW out of it, according to EIA. It's unclear how EIA is partitioning the plant's output. If we use the total generation and subtract the potential (or CO2-equivalent) value of the natgas, it made only 66 MW from the sun.
- antisthenes 10y agoFlagged because this is an attempt to turn non-news into something clickbaity.
- ch4s3 10y agoI wonder how many birds are killed by coal and natural gas to produce 390 MW
- beefman 10y agoI don't have any estimates for coal handy, but here are some other numbers for reference: Syncrude says their tar sand surface mining operations (the most extensive form of oil mining in wide practice) kill 2.5 birds/PJ. For wind power, estimates of annual bird deaths for the U.S. circa 2013 include 234,000[1], 440,000[2], and 573,000 (including 83,000 raptors and not including 888,000 bats)[3]. EIA says wind made 507 PJ in 2012[4]. So it's something like 800/PJ. For the U.S., a 2014 meta-analysis[5] gives 600 million[6] fatal collisions with buildings each year. A 2013 study says, "free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually".[7] Ivanpah made 74 MW of solar electricity in 2015 (644,506 MWh, according to EIA). So 2600/PJ. [1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.10.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.10.007 [2] http://1.usa.gov/IhyaHv http://1.usa.gov/IhyaHv p.188 [3] http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wsb.260 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wsb.260 [4] http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_03_01_b.html http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_03_01_b.html [5] http://dx.doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-13-090.1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-13-090.1 [6] They give a range from 365-988 and a median of 599. Gotta love that kind of precision! [7] http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380
- ch4s3 10y ago>Syncrude says their tar sand surface mining operations (the most extensive form of oil mining in wide practice) kill 2.5 birds/PJ. That seems way too low. I feel like I've read about huge bird kills from migratory birds landing in the containment ponds.
- beefman 10y agoIt may be. Oil has a really high energy density though. Overall, surface mining of tar sands has to be one of the worst ways to get energy (in situ extraction techniques like SAGD do somewhat better).
- gohwell 10y ago"coyotes eat dozens of road runners trapped along the outside of a perimeter fence" i've heard that before...
- georgemcbay 10y agoThe coyotes in the Mojave buy their traps on Amazon instead of relying on the Acme Corporation.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- keepper 10y ago"In addition, coyotes eat dozens of road runners trapped along the outside of a perimeter fence that was designed to prevent federally threatened desert tortoises from wandering onto the property." Well, nice to hear the ACME(tm) solar plant trap finally did the trick for Wile E. Coyote...
- whoopdedo 10y agoClearly the solution is to paint a black half-circle on the fence that looks like a tunnel. The roadrunners will be able to pass through but not the hapless coyote.
- davesque 10y agoCall me a jerk, but what is the real problem here? Can someone bother to actually quantify the risk to the ecosystem? There are plenty of unfortunate ways that different critters die all the time whether natural or unnatural. However, the mere fact that it is sad to think about means nothing.
- Eridrus 10y agoI was sort of hoping they'd have a video...
- codecamper 10y agoIt would be interesting to compare how many birds are killed by flying into the windows of glass skyscrapers. Anyhow, it's good that solar thermal will soon not be cost competitive vs solar PV + battery.
- ajuc 10y agokfc kills more
- cbhl 10y agoWhat if they ran a ring of flood lights (to attract insects) to create a fence around the solar plant, so birds wouldn't enter the plant area itself?
- Namrog84 10y agoBut wouldn't increased insects cause the solar panels needing to be cleaned a lot more and cause reduced efficiency?
- cp9 10y agoand fossil fuels are directly responsible for the largest ecological disasters the planet has ever seen, so...
- strommen 10y agoIvanpah is a black mark on renewable energy. Its price was ridiculously expensive, and it has failed to perform to expectations. The good news is that the industry has learned from it. Almost nobody is doing concentrated solar thermal anymore - photovoltaics are better in nearly every way.
- appleflaxen 10y agoWhat are the numbers behind your statement? Price info is easy enough to find, but what's the conversion rate from KW of solar energy to KW of electrical energy for concentrated solar thermal vs. PV? And is that the right metric to use?
- strommen 10y agoThe right metric is probably cost per annual kWh. 1 kW of photovoltaic (PV) will generate about 1,800 kWh per year over its lifetime, and costs probably about $1,800 to build at utility scale. So $1 per annual kWh. Things are more complicated for CSP, because it usually has thermal storage built in. This allows it to generate more kWh of energy per kW of max power. For example Crescent Dunes generates is 110 MW, and generates 501 GWh per year: 4,500 kWh per kW. But it cost $1 billion to build, so it's about $2 per annual kWh. Ivanpah does not have storage. Its cost per annual kWh is over $3. (I am glossing over the fact that PV lasts for "just" 25-30 years and CSP lasts longer. Revenue generated 30 years from now is not worth very much.) EDIT: to answer your question about "conversion rate from KW of solar energy to KW of electrical energy" - this does not matter, at least here in the US. We have way, way, way more solar energy hitting the ground than we will ever need. Converting it efficiently just doesn't matter.
- finid 10y ago6000 birds/years in one location is a very big deal. > But company officials suggest that estimates of the number of birds killed annually at the site are exaggerated, and federal wildlife authorities believe they are too low. In practically all cases like these, "company officials" always say things are exaggerated. Whether it's about the effects of smoking, pesticide residues in foods, etc.
- transfire 10y agoIn the U.S. we eat over 20 million birds every day. Not saying they shouldn't make some effort to reduce the number of unintended bird deaths. But give me a break!
- stuaxo 10y agoWould be amazing if there was some futuristic tracking of the birds, then obscure the relevant part of the mirrors with lcds so they can fly without being cooked.
- tn13 10y agoWhat is the alternative ? Building a nuclear power plant ? the same newspaper will come up with a story of how nuclear waste is going to kill babies with cancer. We need to calm.
- paulddraper 10y agoWe should all kill ourselves and let nature return to unmolested beauty. I think.