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.”
If you wanted to ask about the reasons why I believe what I do, then you could have. But you instead chose to ask a loaded question, that is only reasonable if one agrees that enhanced plant growth is the only effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere, when I do not agree with this. Your choice to go about things this way.
Something else I’m pretty sure of is that Willis or Bob wouldn’t have lead with a question like that if they disagreed with me on something. I wonder if you can think of any reasons why that would be? Do you disagree?
And, to add one final note, Bob and Willis are the reason I decided to actually keep reading WUWT, and take part in the discussions.
They are too busy with facts and figures to have time to run around looking for reasons to take offense at someones response to a loaded question they wouldn’t have posed in the first place.
drumphil:
I am replying to your posts addressed to me at
February 16, 2014 at 1:09 pm
February 16, 2014 at 1:18 pm
February 16, 2014 at 1:22 pm and
February 16, 2014 at 1:38 pm
in which you laughably accuse me of “rambling”.
I again remind that you made the daft assertion
and I replied saying I was “asking you to explain that assertion” by asking you
Your response was a series of evasive and objectionable posts which attempted talk about anything except your assertion.
Eventually I managed to get a response but not an answer to the question when you wrote
You “can’t really comment” on a requested justification of your assertion!?
You “can’t really comment”!
And you try to excuse that saying
The question was NOT “loaded”. It was a direct request for you to justify your daft assertion by explaining why the ONLY discernible effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration should be assessed as being “a negative”.
And the best you can do is to say you “can’t really comment”.
OK. drumphil, the stage is now reached where the ONLY reasonable response from you is to withdraw your untrue assertion which you admit you cannot justify and to apologise for your behaviour.
I will be pleased to accept the withdrawal and apology, and I will ignore any more of your ridiculous waffle.
Richard
drumphil:
I observe that while I was writing my response to your previous four posts you added some more ridiculous waffle at February 16, 2014 at 1:54 pm.
My reply to the four earlier posts incorporates my response to your additional irrelevant nonsense.
Richard
Gawd, the arrogance.. It’s so bright it burns! The goggles do nothing!
“The question was NOT “loaded”. It was a direct request for you to justify your daft assertion by explaining why the ONLY discernible effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration should be assessed as being “a negative”.”
Right, so the “fact” that you are right means your question isn’t loaded, and the “fact” that I am wrong means that mine is. I get it now. The double standard is crystal clear.
I wouldn’t ask you “Why do you think it is a “negative” to have reduced sea level rises”, because I know that you don’t agree that increased CO2 levels are causing this. The answer is meaningless for the real issue, which ISN’T whether or not sea level rises are bad.
drumphil:
I see you have decided to make additional unjustifiable assertions instead of apologising for your first one.
Sad. Very sad. Not even good trolling.
Richard
“You “can’t really comment” on a requested justification of your assertion!?
You “can’t really comment”!”
You question was about whether or not I think enhanced plant growth is a good thing. I don’t know. Probably… But you are relying on the tortured logic, that because you are right about the “fact” that this is the only effect increased CO2 has, that this somehow makes the question relevant to my statement.
Tell me this. Why didn’t you just ask what I have to justify my belief? Why did you feel the need to ask a different question instead?
You could have asked a straight question, but chose not to.
“I see you have decided to make additional unjustifiable assertions instead of apologising for your first one.
Sad. Very sad. Not even good trolling.”
Yeah, well, I work as a musician playing in pubs, so the bile of an angry old man really doesn’t phase me.
drumphil:
Your problem is that I DID ask “a straight question” and it exposed your comment for what it is; i.e. baseless nonsense.
Apologise or go away.
Richard
“Your problem is that I DID ask “a straight question” and it exposed your comment for what it is; i.e. baseless nonsense.”
A straight question would have been “Why do you believe that increased CO2 concentrations are bad?”
You instead ask why I think enhanced plant growth is bad, which is only relevant if I agree that enhanced plant growth is the only effect. I mean, you weren’t just randomly wondering what I thought about enhanced plant growth.
I fail to understand how you can’t see what you are doing there. Do you really not think that “Why do you believe that increased CO2 concentrations are bad?” isn’t a better question? More direct? Straighter?
argh.. double negative….
drumphil:
Just withdraw and apologise. Your resort to sophistry makes you a laughing stock.
Richard
@ur momisugly richardscourtney:
Has it ever occurred to you, that new ideas can be hard to accept.
Your tactics of persuasion suck.
u.k.(us):
re your post at February 16, 2014 at 3:34 pm
Has it ever occurred to you, that trolls are not open to persuasion?
The best one can do is to expose the pausity of their “ideas” to onlookers.
If you have “tactics of persuasion” that would not “suck” then display them.
Richard
He hasn’t tried to persuade me of anything. All he has done is try to win at the game of arguing. This achieves nothing useful outside of massaging his ego.
He manufactured a question where the yes answer would imply I believe that CO2 doesn’t have any other effects on the environment, and the no answer would imply that I don’t like plants growing faster, when I don’t agree with either.
I basically comes down to:
“CO2 has no other effects other than enhancing plant growth, so what is negative about enhancing plant growth?”
Except that I don’t agree with the premise that CO2 has no effects other than enhancing plant growth.
Seriously, this is playground level bullshit. I expected better.
or to put the thing even more simply:
“I say this is a fact, so why do you disagree with facts”
I’m sure I don’t have to explain exactly how strong that is scientifically.
Anyway, I’m use to richardscourtneys outbursts. He had a go at me for what I said calling Don Easterbrook out on his bullshit. How’s that going richard? Has Don actually provided the data, and actually updated the correct graph yet? Do you still think what I said justified your response, because I believe that my statements have been shown to be dead right by Don’s failure to do what he said he would do.
drumphil:
I threw you in the deep end, but I am now taking pity on your floundering because I have some pity for your plight. This post throws you a lifeline if you care to grab it.
Please note that I recognise you are a warmunist troll so I know you are immune to reason, evidence and logic. But I am offering you a way to recover some appearance of sanity.
You made a stupid assertion and I responded by asking a question which required you to justify your assertion. You could not and you admit that you cannot. So, you are faffing around by squealing about Easterbrook and any other irrelevance you can imagine. That is pointless: it only emphasises that you made a stupid assertion which you cannot justify.
Allow me to point out how you could make a rational response to my having asked you the question which torpedoed your daft assertion below the water-line.
My question is based on the fact that increased plant growth is the only discernible effect of increased atmospheric CO2 concentration since the industrial revolution. My question would be shown to be an incorrect request of you if you were to provide evidence of any other discernible effect of the increase and that the other discernible effect is harmful.
Please note that this is NOT a debating trick. It is a genuine solution to your problem and it is the ONLY way you can show your assertion was not pure bollocks.
Richard
“You made a stupid assertion and I responded by asking a question which required you to justify your assertion.”
You leave out the bit where you attached a premise to the question that I disagree with. You would not answer a question like that from me on the basis of what I claim are facts. I wouldn’t expect you to.
Tell me richard, why did you state the question in the manner you did, with your claims (sorry, FACTS!) about enhanced plant growth being the only side effect, rather than just ask me directly why I believe that increased CO2 levels have negative effects on the environment?
You still haven’t asked that direct simple question. If that is what you want to know, then why can’t you express it in a straight forward manner.
Anyway, I’m done with this discussion. It is plain that you wont acknowledge the problems with how you dealt with this, and it is a complete waste of time discussing things with anyone who is so sure they know for a fact what is true about these things. I wish I had the arrogance and ego to be able to proclaim facts so freely, and use the fact that I am right as a justification for attaching a premise like that to what would otherwise be a simple question..
I’ve wasted enough time on this crap.
drumphil:
re your silly post at February 17, 2014 at 5:29 am.
You are wrong. I explained how you could refute what you wrongly claim is my false premise.
You can still save some face by withdrawing and apologising.
Richard
Oh yes how many birds will it take to equal 1 day of the last oil spill’s die off? Or all the marine life killed from oil runoffffrom marine production facilities? Seriously, think it through before spouting idiotic crap. As for solar at night, well liquid salt would be the way with focusing towers. But all of its a joke when you compare it to thorium reactors that cannot melt down. Or pebble bed reactors which also cannot melt down. This entire nation energy debate is a joke. We have the tech to do it all insanely cheaply and safely but no one makes windfall profits so its like it doesn’t exist. Eventually greed will destroy this system.
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