5 ms·
There are circular-ish arrays of mirrors which reflect light to a tower with a water tank. The water turns to steam which turns a generator. There's at least on
by SteveCoast 9y ago
There are circular-ish arrays of mirrors which reflect light to a tower with a water tank. The water turns to steam which turns a generator. There's at least one of these on the flight path from phoenix to SF somewhere.
Anyway, I read that this instantly incinerates any birds flying near the focal volume and you get these little puffs of vaporized bird every few minutes.
- rpedela 9y agoreference?
- hodgesrm 9y agoThe incinerated birds are called streamers. Here's a reference. [0] [0] https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-incinerates-up-to-6-000-birds-a-year https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-i...
- justincormack 9y agoAnd then it was adjusted and no birds have died since https://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/16/one-weird-trick-prevents-bird-deaths-solar-towers/ https://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/16/one-weird-trick-prevent...
- Scramblejams 9y agoThe fix described in that article was for the standby position. It doesn't explain why there would be zero bird mortality when power is being generated.
- ericd 9y agoVery interesting, but it'd be nice if they'd mention that many thousands of times more are killed each year by building windows, and pet cats, to put things in perspective for people.
- hodgesrm 9y agoThe bird deaths are mostly used by people who are against solar power (or this particular implementation of it) to begin with. Even if the article mentioned it but it would not change many minds. Sad.