It’s not just Wind Turbines that kill wildlife, from the Wall Street Journal:
“A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds.”
“The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land southwest of Las Vegas, includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. Nearly 350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight onto boilers atop the towers, creating steam that drives power generators.”
“The owners of the project— NRG Energy Inc., NRG, Google Inc. GOOG and BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that developed the “tower power” solar technology—call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”
“Ivanpah is among the biggest in a spate of power-plant-sized solar projects that have begun operating in the past two years, spurred in part by a hefty investment tax credit that expires at the end of 2016. Most of them are in California, where state law requires utilities to use renewable sources for a third of the electricity they sell by 2020.”
“Utility-scale solar plants have come under fire for their costs–Ivanpah costs about four times as much as a conventional natural gas-fired plant but will produce far less electricity—and also for the amount of land they require.
That makes for expensive power. Experts have estimated that electricity from giant solar projects will cost at least twice as much as electricity from conventional sources. But neither the utilities that have contracted to buy the power nor state regulators have disclosed what the price will be, only that it will be passed on to electricity customers.”
“The BrightSource system appears to be scorching birds that fly through the intense heat surrounding the towers, which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The company, which is based in Oakland, Calif., reported finding dozens of dead birds at the Ivanpah plant over the past several months, while workers were testing the plant before it started operating in December. Some of the dead birds appeared to have singed or burned feathers, according to federal biologists and documents filed with the state Energy Commission.”
“Regulators said they anticipated that some birds would be killed once the Ivanpah plant started operating, but that they didn’t expect so many to die during the plant’s construction and testing. The dead birds included a peregrine falcon, a grebe, two hawks, four nighthawks and a variety of warblers and sparrows. State and federal regulators are overseeing a two-year study of the facility’s effects on birds.”
“The agency also is investigating the deaths of birds, possibly from colliding with structures, found at two other, unrelated solar farms. One of those projects relies on solar panels and the other one uses mirrored troughs. Biologists think some birds may have mistaken the vast shimmering solar arrays at all three installations for a lake and become trapped on the ground after landing.”
Still need sun. Where I live sun does not shine 24/7. Environmentalist don’t mind a few birds going down. They have new agenda now!
Reminds me of the game, Fallout – New Vegas. Should make a nice target for someone’s ICBM.
I wonder how many homes are there that need illumination at noon. On the other hand, they may be able to figure out how to focus dark light at night to boilers, especially if Google is involved in the project, because nothing is impossible for them.
My Forbes 500 buddy has a Marcellus Shale gas well (Pa)
It produces 5980 thousand cu ft/day
http://netrightdaily.com/2014/02/infographic-north-america-sits-enormous-natural-gas-reserves/
that’s 1.4 million KwHrs/day or 1400 MW hrs per day
http://www.kylesconverter.com/torque/kilowatt–hours-to-cubic-feet-of-natural-gas
Instead of all that, I’m going to get me a partner, guess who? Uncle Sam will go for that!
and I’m going to build me some wind turbines!
The 1.5MW wind turbines maybe??? will work 33% of the time, and give me an output of
1.5MW x .33 X 24hrs = 24 MWhrs
So, instead of going through all that trouble of dealing with the environmentalists, I’m going to put up 117 wind turbines. Of course, I’ll to sneak around and dig a gas well and have a turbine somewhere for the 66% of the time when my turbines aren’t working.
Oh, it’s such a good feeling to be a righteous man!
Yep. It’s locatable in Google Maps: Dang close to Nipton and Primm just like in the game (Fallout – New Vegas). Guess the high-priced electricity will power the water pumps at the Primm Valley Golf Course! 😀
What a coincidence that this massive project should be located in the home state of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, the same guy who single-handedly shot down the Yucca Mountain storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods. Conflict of interest? Nah…
I am sure this solar array is not only cooking birds, but also frying a great quantity of insects. If so, dead bodies need to be collected, be ground to powder and sold as environment friendly health food. I would be happy to cash royalties.
More info: All from Reuters News
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/13/solar-ivanpah-idUSL2N0LI1D420140213
So, the same department that funded the losses at Solyndra, from the same people, all using evil-oil money. All knowing already they cannot make money from it – even before it turns on.
And, 3, 500 acres of glass over the desert – turning it barren and sterile below .. at 5x the price per Magewatt to build for 1/4 of the day able to get power out. (Yes, they could store the solar energy (somehow) and let it cool down as it generated “some” power overnight then heated again up in the morning. But THAT just means that 3/4 of each afternoon’s “potential” power gets wasted going to storage + losses + reheat losses + power gen losses. So the maximum afternoon output goes down by 3/4.
Mmmmm … scorched birds.
I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to find out what is the installed capacity (in MW) of this plant alone. I would like to compare the cost of a MW to nuclear, coal, nat-gas, or hydro. $2.2B seems extremely steep. For what output?
Anyone having this information?
GogogoStopSTOP says:
February 13, 2014 at 4:27 pm
I think there is some land available that is inexpensive, or even ‘free’ on Federal lands; however, those won’t suffice for very long should they try this farce on a large scale. But, yes, transmission infrastructure will be a significant new cost and yet another source of inefficiency.
Alarmists like theirs extra crispy.
Being an engineer myself, the first thing that would come to my mind when designing something like this is how long these mirrors would last exposed to sand storms, before being sand blasted to next to no reflectiveness. This plant is in a desert, isn’t it?
Was looking at the site on Google Earth:
35°33’27.69″ N 115°28’00.29″ W
Copy and paste in Google Earth search to see the location. Boy, that’s a lot of mirrors!!!
Don’t they have to move all the mirrors as the sun moves across the sky to keep sunlight focused on the top of the tower?
Maybe it creates just enough electricity to move all the mirrors.
Oh, am I gonna’ have fun with this. In fact, it’s gonna’ be so much fun I don’t know where to begin.
‘“The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land … includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. …350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight … creating steam that drives power generators.”
“The owners of the project … call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”’
Now, let us start by asking for their interpretation of what it is to “light up” a home? Simple, you say? Probably not with these people because on so many occasions they conjure a magical meaning for a word, but then, wham, when we least expect it they become word meaning literalists. When they say, “light up a home” are they also including air conditioning that home, running a dehumidifier, refrigerator, dishwasher, electric oven (if so equipped), & flat screen. Or, does it (and don’t be surprised) it only mean literally turning on nothing other than a couple compact fluorescents?
Now, for the fun part. In the US each home is considered to be occupied by 2.58 human beings. (And yes, there is such a thing as a 0.58 human being: I turn into one after 4 martinis.) So this major feat (or, maybe ‘feet’ is more accurate) of engineering which can “light” (I believe we just discussed that) 140,000 homes can therefore provide this service to 361,200 people. Sounds impressive, right? But, just how many square miles do 361,200 people occupy … in homes? I’m sort of assuming they’re not considering a 10 story, 500 unit urban housing project as a home (but who knows). So, let us use a more traditional definition. One of the most, if not the most, densely populated suburbs of Chicago is Oak Park; famed for having been the residence of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the location of the Unitarian Church he designed. Anyway, Oak Park, bordering Chicago, with city characteristics of its own, has a mix of tightly packed single family bungalows, spacious single family homes, two flats, and a proliferation of old and new apartments and condos. In other words, it’s fairly dense with a population of 15,443 people per square mile. The overall population of Oak Park is scrupulously maintained so as not to fall below 50,000 (something about qualifying for matching funds). Oak Park encompasses about 3 1/4 square miles. Thus, this major feet of engineering, this engineering marvel, this stepping stone, this glimpse into the future can supply the electrical needs of about 7 Oak Parks occupying about 22 3/4 square miles while only occupying a mere 5 square miles itself. Maybe we can raze 1 1/2 of those 7 Oak Parks so that we can power (or, maybe, just light) the remaining 5 1/2.
Exactly, Tom J. Now, where are they going to install that solar farm for Manhattan? There’s cheap land around there, right? Maybe Central Park? Why is the acronym NIMBY flowing back into my memory all of a sudden?
James at 48 says:
February 13, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Steam can be very carbon neutral and much more benign to wildlife. I am referring to burning biomass.
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Apparently this solar farm is burning biomass. 🙂
First it was windmills, now solar plants. Why do environmentalists hate birds so much?
This plant is 392 MegWatt, according to Reuters above. “That means the private sector must fill the gap at a time when building a natural-gas fired power plant costs about $1,000 per megawatt, a fraction of the $5,500 per megawatt that Ivanpah cost.”
A single modern large natural gas fired single-stage gas turbine creates a little over 375 MegWatt, and its secondary steam generator from the waste heat creates an additional 225 to 275 for “free” energy otherwise lost up the exhaust pipe on older single stage units.
So, you buy get a single CT combined cycle for 24-hour/365 day a year 570+ Meg capacity of generator for under 1.000 billion … and release free fertilizer to the feed the world. Or you can spend 5.5 x the money to get 3/4 the capacity running only 1/4 the output time.
Guess what the democrats chose?
What The United States most urgently needs is a way to “fix stupid”, something that heretofore has been deemed to be entirely unfixable. Perhaps a Manhattan-Style project is appropriate here.
Chris Riley,
“Here’s your sign.”
“BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that developed the “tower power” solar technology—call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”
Personally, I don’t think too many homes need much lighting between 09:00 and 14:00 every day.
There is no need for a study, just administer the law which already provides fines for killing protected species. I believe that killing a falcon will cost you $5000 and maybe even more if you persist in killing more falcons. There is nothing about this facility that should exempt it from the law.
Is anyone going to stop Obama and his war on birds?
This may actually be a viable alternative to photoelectric technology. It also offers the additional feature that environmental disruption is localized, thereby forcing immediate scrutiny of its impact. No more shifting the side-effects of “green” technology from recovery to reclamation, which has caused a distorted perspective of its value. We may yet have a rational review of each technology on its merits. There is no energy utopia and we should avoid forcing a misaligned development based on the false promise that it exists.