The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada is set to come online in March. Once completed, it will use thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight on a tower, melting millions of pounds of salt contained inside. The molten salt will heat water into steam, which then turns turbines and generates electricity without any carbon byproducts. There’s just one little problem: During a test run on January 14, the intense heat from the mirrors reportedly incinerated and/or vaporized more than 100 birds.
Rewire reports that during the test, operators fired up a third of the 110-megawatt facility’s mirrors, concentrating sunlight on a spot 1,200 feet off the ground. Over a six-hour period, biologists counted 130 "streamers," or trails of smoke and water left behind as birds ignited and plummeted to their deaths. Rewire’s anonymous source said that at least one of the birds "turned white hot and vaporized completely."
Another solar power plant, Ivanpah, reportedly scorches one bird every two minutes. Both companies are trying to devise measures to keep birds out of the concentrated solar energy.
It’s certainly a gruesome way to die. But solar power plants may not be that much worse for birds than other sources of electricity. This graph from a U.S. News & World Report in 2014 shows that overall, fossil fuels cause a lot more feathered fatalities.
However, the chart is not a perfect data source. The estimates weren’t taken in any standardized way, and some of the studies were outdated. It’s also not an apples-to-apples comparison, since fossil fuels supply way more power to U.S. homes than renewable sources. So we combined the chart with data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration to calculate how many birds each type of power kills for every 1,000 megawatt-hours of power that’s generated. It's just a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but here’s what we found:
Coal still stands out as the big bad bird killer, but solar and wind power aren’t so angelic either. If you accept the higher estimate for solar power, the impact on our feathered friends is higher than for oil and natural gas. Does that mean we should stick to fossil fuels? Of course not. (A world scorched by climate change is good for nobody.) But it does underline the fact that clean energy needs to clean up its act.
I don't think that this is a good idea because while doing this you are also killing birds. well "vaporizing" them which to me is even worse. I think that they shouldn't be doing something that kills another animal in the process. I don't even understand the point in this solar thing anyway.
ReplyDeleteI dont think killing birds is a good thing. Even though coal is killing more birds than anything humans have to have it. We need electrcity. Many other resources are also killing birds.
ReplyDeleteI know killing animals are a bad thing and im against any thing killing an animals. I personally i know no one wants to be vaporizied. So i feel bad for any bird that flies past it. But we do need electricity but its terrible that the solar power plant are killing birds.
ReplyDeleteIm do not agree with killing birds, i think this is not right at all. I think maybe they could try and find another way to do this.
ReplyDeleteI dont agree with killing birds. they are gods creatures and deserve a chance. I do think this is interesting though. I would like to see one of them vaporized. It seems like it would look cool but it is still wrong.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what I would do if I was a biologist and I was watching the experiment and then saw a bird fly near it and then all of a sudden I saw it vaporize. I think it's terrible that it kills birds, but solar energy is important. I think it's even more important to find a repellent for animals so they don't fly near it.
ReplyDeleteI really like birds but i dont think killing them is a good idea. solar energy is important but they should find a way to not make them kill birds. Also i do want to see a bird be vaporized.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that they should kill birds like this. What they do is very dangerous to them and if other places start do this then it could lead to the bird population could greatly decrease.
ReplyDeleteI dont think they should be killing birds. They should like found a different way to solve their problem without killing animals and making them even more extinct.
ReplyDeleteTo hear that coal is the biggest thing that is killing the birds is upsetting. Kentucky is big on coal so that's a huge issue for the birds. I didn't know that this was happening but I guess there is really no solution to it because we really need coal.
ReplyDeleteI think solar energy is like really cool, but, the fact that it harms birds is a not as cool. But i still feel that solar panels are essential because they are more economically friend and all and all, cheaper. This though would be better if they could find a way to make it to where birds and other wild life animals wont be vaporized cause thats kind of extremely terrrifying to think of.
ReplyDeleteI dont think killing the birds is a good idea. Although I dont like birds, i wouldnt want to see them be vaporized. But Solar energy is important. I think they can come up with a way of doing it besides it killing the birds.
ReplyDeleteI don't care how much better this may be for our earth and our health, I refuse to do it if it harms any animal. If they want to make better energy sources, then find something that doesn't harm birds. It's really not that hard.
ReplyDeleteI dont think killing birds is a good thing. What harm have birds ever caused? They need to find a different way to create power. Like a solar way would work but not to kill birds in the process.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that coal is the thing killing the most birds. Coal is much more dangerous than solar energy. Solar energy is necessary because of climate change but it's also not right that birds are being vaporized from it. They need to find ways to make it more safe or keeps birds out of harms way. Coal won't be around forever anyway and we need sources of energy less harmful to the environment
ReplyDeletethis solar thing is bad for the birds cause they are killing lots of them but solar energy is better for the earth and it is amazing how wind power is close to are equal to the danger of coal to the birds and could mess up the bird population
ReplyDeleteThis would be a good source of energy instead of using coal all the time. But the bird thing could be a draw back because they prolly don't want to kill a lot of birds for no reason at all. But I think it is a very good idea.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that this is a good idea because while doing this you are also killing birds. well "vaporizing" them. I think that they shouldn't be doing something that kills another animal in the process. They should find a better way to get solar system not involving animals.
ReplyDeleteI think the solar energy is important but I don't like that idea of birds being killed. We already have coal vaporizing birds. We don't want another resource killing more and more birds. They should fix the solar power so that way birds wouldn't die as much.
ReplyDeleteReading this really upset me knowing so many birds were being killed. I never knew so many where killed by coal in Kentucky. We shouldn't be vaporizing birds, they are living things too. I think solar energy is a great thing but not by taking the birds life. Would you want to die for solar power?
ReplyDelete