New San Bernandino, California solar plant MAKES BIRDS EXPLODE.

Oh, my.

“[BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah project] employees and [California Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE)] staff noticed that close to the periphery of the tower and within the reflected solar field area, streams of smoke arise when an object crosses the solar flux fields aimed at the tower. Ivanpah employees use the term ‘streamers’ to characterize this occurrence.

“When OLE staff visited the Ivanpah Solar plant, we observed many streamer events. It is claimed that these events represent the combustion of loose debris, or insects. Although some of the events are likely that, there were instances in which the amount of smoke produced by the ignition could only be explained by a larger flammable biomass such as a bird.

Larger.
Flammable.
Biomass.

Rejoice, America: after decades of toil and tribulation, we have finally figured out how to take the humble bug-zapper to the next level.

Via Hot Air, which notes helpfully that this is your tax money at work:

…the problem is that this Ivanpah solar farm is not serving as a competitive and cost-effective alternative form of energy. It was only built because it received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, on top of the tax credits and renewable portfolio standards that are otherwise propping it up, and the concentrating solar power (CSP) technology it employs comes nowhere close to providing energy as affordable as the value we’re currently getting from natural-gas plants.

Yeah.  Macabre humor is all very well, but I don’t think that this post was really worth spending $1.6 billion just to generate it, either.

Moe Lane

PS: Didn’t environmentalists use to be about preventing mass slaughter of animal species?  Yeah, I thought it was.  So, what’s up with the change?

5 thoughts on “New San Bernandino, California solar plant MAKES BIRDS EXPLODE.”

  1. The real question we honestly have to ask ourselves Moe, is one that I hold close to my heart:
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    Do they taste good?

      1. looks like a crap sandwich to me, but a certain class of leftist does seem to love those… at least when served up by their own ‘side’! 😉

  2. Just wow.
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    (I’m watching a robin – not the first one of spring – constructing a nest in a shrubbery outside my window and my first thought is *not* “where’s my magnifying glass?”…)
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    Mew

  3. I have to drive by this plant whenever I visit family in SoCal. There have been reports of pilots being nearly blinded when flying near it, and from personal experience I can say that it can be so bright that it’s a hazard to drivers on I-15. I have no problem believing that it’s frying birds.

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