PowerSwitch

There is growing evidence that birds flying in the vicinity of a solar thermal power project in California’s Mojave Desert are being injured and even killed either by the solar heat that’s focused with mirrors on its three energy-collecting towers, or by colliding with the mirrors themselves.

Yet a task force set up to investigate the problem at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) has brushed aside several recommendations by the forensics laboratory of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), according to the minutes of a meeting on the subject obtained by the Los Angeles public television station KCET.

Full article at: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News ... d-Air.html

Unless it's on a bird migration path, or somehow accidentally attracts the birds, the numbers shouldn't be all that significant. The same as for wind farms: the early ones killed more birds because the locations weren't assessed for that sort of thing in the beginning (Altemont Pass being an example of this): now they are.

The other thing that happens, and that nobody quite believes but I think science will eventually show, is that populations of birds can collectively learn stuff as straightforward as "don't go there". Same as some populations of sheep have learned how to cross cattle grids.

There ya go, energy saving too - ready to eat birds.

I can see KFC surrounding their premises with mirrors.

Me, on birds: http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/0 ... rming.html

whats the bigger environmental damage - the dead birds, or the damage from fossil fuels

Far and away the biggest threat to birds is habitat loss, something that can only get worse with climate change.