Failing Ivanpah solar power plant gets temporary repreive, but is producing 'prohibitively expensive' electricity

AnonyMoose
As of a few years ago (and perhaps until this day) PG&E actually did something like this.
In the high Sierra Nevada mountains, Lake A was higher than Lake B. During the day, Lake A was drained into Lake B thru a power generating station. During the night, when electric rates were low, water in Lake B was pumped uphill back into Lake A.

Uh no. Might jump start the decepticons.

“Five miles deep in the ocean”, close to a subduction zone wherein it will be swallowed in the bowels of Earth forever.

Dear ttbroberg,
It just occurred to me that you may have missed the WUWT post containing this info.: “But the {Ivanpah} unconventional solar-thermal project, financed with $1.5 billion in federal loans, has riled environmentalists by killing thousands of birds, many of which are burned to death — and has so far failed to produce the expected power. …”
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/17/fail-ivanpah-solar-power-plant-not-producing-enough-electricity-may-be-forced-to-close/ )
Janice

Also from my post at Bishop Hill:

“Bird Deaths Continue Through May at Ivanpah Solar”
…But it’s important to remember that the animal mortalities listed for Ivanpah in each month’s Compliance Report are almost certainly a drastic undercount.
Of the 80 bird carcasses recorded in May, 55 were found during carcass surveys while the remaining 25 were “incidental” finds made by plant workers during normal work operations. As only about 20 percent of the facility is covered by the carcass surveys, it’s reasonable to assume the actual month’s death toll is upward of 300 or so.
Factors that might hide additional deaths include the lack of any surveys outside the plants’ perimeter fences, despite observers having seen injured birds make it past the fence.
There’s also the fact that ISEGS is apparently home to a growing population of desert kit foxes, with five active dens as of April apparently housing at least nine months-old pups. It’s hard to imagine an animal better suited to scouring a project site for small dead animals before the biologists can find them than adult desert kit foxes working to feed a litter, and the foxes’ presence means the official dead bird tally is almost certainly lower than the actual death toll…”

Five active kit fox dens is a huge amount for such a small area of Mojave desert. One doesn’t get such a burst of predators without significant food sources.
Only twenty percent of the facility is lacklusterly searched for carcasses.

“…Two apparently new species appeared in May’s roster: two lazuli buntings, strikingly colored birds common throughout open lands in the West that catch small insects in flight, and a Lapland longspur, a small songbird generally found in the Arctic in late May instead of the California desert. In fact, Lapland longspurs are rare enough in California at any time of year that range maps for the species generally exclude most of the state, as well as Nevada.
More so than in past months’ Compliance Reports, the descriptions of the injuries suffered by the dead birds are rather affecting. Take for instance the record of an unidentifiable hummingbird found on May 6:
Entire body burned. Missing feathers over most of its body. Skull and keel exposed. Bill broken.
Or a Costa’s hummingbird found May 2, of which the biologist simply wrote “most of tail burnt off.”…

Several quite rare birds are killed that would shut down any other economic or industrial activity. Ivanpah must have an Obama document similar to Altamont Pass’s document allowing them to kill eagles, condors, and rare animals without legal ramifications.

“…The five tortoises missing for a year from the tortoise pens leave 102 sub-adult torts in the pens whose whereabouts are still known. The other 18 missing tortoises are part of the group that was released to a relocation area, after having radio transmitters affixed so that biologists could monitor their movements and their survival. Those tortoises may not all actually be missing: there’s a chance that some of the transmitters are malfunctioning due to battery failure, or that some of the tortoises may have wandered out of range.
Of those tortoises, at least six went missing this year according to spreadsheets included in the December compliance document. Three of the tortoises that went missing this year were last detected in August. Eight of the tortoises were missing all year. Six tortoises missing this year and eight missing since last year adds up to 14 tortoises missing in December, a discrepancy from BrightSource’s reported 18 missing non-penned tortoises that was not immediately explained by the document. Of all the tortoises marked as missing in the spreadsheet, one turned up again a month after she was marked AWOL.
Desert tortoises are listed as Threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. BrightSource’s project ran into a tortoise speedbump in 2011, when project workers started finding hundreds more of the Threatened reptile than its biologists had anticipated…”

What is disgusting is the amount of PR spin by so many alarmist sites and news sources in vain attempts to minimize the Ivanpah environmental disaster.
Economically, environmentally, energy production, Ivanpah is a disaster.
There it is; classic eco-delusional wonders of science. Terrible economics, excessive environmental damage, immense damage to rare species, eco-loons waving their hands and crying ‘nothing here’!
Nothing there is so correct.

Dear Theo,
GREAT comment. Thank you (gulp) for all that horror-illuminating information. Money can be a pretty ugly god at times.
Here’s to SPRING! 🙂
Janice

Dear Mr. Gallun,
Thank you for taking the time to write. Glad to know it was just a communication glitch, and nothing more. In the small chance that I can make myself understandable here, lol, I write again only to say that I’m just going to let go of what I (not you) considered to be “in-your-face” tone along with what I (not you) considered to be coarse language.
I believe you when you say that you were not trying to give a sharp response due to having been offended by me. We just have a different way of using language, I guess.
I do not get your joke, and that’s okay! 🙂
You have a fine sense of humor. I have seen it and appreciated it many times. If I (or others) do not always “get” the joke, that’s just par for the course in human communication.
KEEP ON WRITING (humorously or weirdly or what-EVER)!
Going my way with a slight smile, a little shake of the head, and good will in my heart toward you,
Janice
P.S. Again, THANK YOU, for talking to me. That was a real gift.

Oops! I was reading from bottom to top, I see above I might have competition from Big Turkey.