Good News: Solar Plants Scorching Birds

Don’t forget, this is all sustainable and protects the environment or something

(Washington Times) A new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds that solar facilities in California are acting like “mega traps” that kill and injure birds. As a result, “entire food chains” are being disrupted.

USFWS’s National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory studied three solar farms in Southern California: Desert Sunlight, Genesis Solar and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS). Two-hundred and thirty-three different birds from 71 species were found over the course of a two-year study.

The three main causes of death were:

1. Solar flux: Exposure to temperatures over 800 degrees F.

2. Impact (or blunt force) trauma: The birds’ wings are rendered inoperable while flying, causing them to crash into the ground. Birds that do not die are often injured badly enough to make them vulnerable to predators.

3. Predators: When a bird’s wings are singed and it can not fly, it loses its primary means of defense against animals like foxes and coyotes.

The study found lots and lots of different types of birds being harmed and killed.

In one instance, lab staff observed a “falcon-type bird with a plume of smoke arising from the tail as it passed through [a] flux field.”

Hey, the falcon was just taking one for Team Warmist.

The study found that besides the intense heat, birds may be mistaking large solar panels for bodies of water. The injured birds then attract insects and other predators to the area. They, too, are then vulnerable to injury or death.

In one instance, researchers found “hundreds upon hundreds” of butterfly carcasses (including Monarchs). The insects were attracted to the light from the solar farms, which in turn attracted birds and perpetuated a cycle of death and injury.

Kinda funny how Warmist prescriptions for saving the environment from “climate change” cause more problems, wouldn’t you say?

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23 Responses to “Good News: Solar Plants Scorching Birds”

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  2. Jeffery says:

    Wow, hundreds of birds killed. It’s laudatory that you are concerned about wildlife (I understand it’s it faux concern). As you know, all human technologies impact nature and the environment. As recommended in the article, facilities will have to derive methods to mitigate the bird kill.

    The article also noted that some 600 MILLION birds die each year impacting glass window panels on buildings in the US alone (Loss et al, 2014: http://gcpolcc.org/profiles/blogs/5242182:BlogPost:40039). Are you advocating replacing all glass window panels on buildings? At whose expense?

    “Extinction rates caused by the complete loss of core environments are likely to be severe, nonlinear, with losses increasing rapidly beyond an increase of 2 °C, and compounded by other climate-related impacts.”
    (Williams et al., 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 270: 1887).

    The fact is, slowing global warming by replacing CO2-producing energy sources will BENEFIT animal populations, including my favorite, humans.

  3. Jeffery says:

    I understand that you guys are skeptical of science and scientists in general, but take a look at the attached table from Loss et al (2014).

    http://api.ning.com/files/P2Q6K2rcr9G3zwPfVk-tAd1kM3O3M-UcOX0CDkSTGihJz4ldCRUGXqz8ib9-PRzorR5aszODo4EZeksgmfZmg-IlP9jt0pAY/Table1jganthropogenicmortalitysourcesrevisedAug2013.pdf

    They say between 2 billion and 5 billion birds a year die in the US by anthropogenic causes, including our pets, vehicle and building collisions, poisons, windfarms, powerlines, oil rigs, tailings ponds and cell towers.

    Housecats apparently kill even more birds than bird-building collisions. Do you also advocate getting rid of housecats?

  4. Jo says:

    We’re not skeptical of science, just junk science. And is the extinction rate “prediction” going to be as bad all the other failed predictions? It’s funny that you’d even risk posting another one.

  5. […] Info Wars made public the Harry Reid ties to the Chinese Solar farm that wants the Bundy Ranch land to burn up birds with solar panels right? Of course, I’m being sarcastic here. Of course the BLM pulled out […]

  6. Jeffery says:

    Jo,

    So you trust the data from Mr. Teach about bird deaths, but not the data from scientists?

    It seems the right-wing definition of “junk science” is either, “data that will cost me money” or “data that doesn’t support my belief system”.

    Can you please be specific? Right-wingers use fuzziness when arguing (it’s an effective ploy). Do you have a specific criticism of the data from the table in Loss et al, 2014? Or is it just, in general, “junk science”?

  7. Jeffery says:

    Let’s see… 233 birds found from 3 sites over 2 years. That’s about 40 birds/site/year. Let’s say we install 20,000 sites per state for a total of 1,000,000 major solar installations in America (will never happen). That would kill 40 million birds a year. Housecats kill over 50 times more birds in a year than solar installations ever could.

    Perspective, people.

  8. John says:

    Jo who do we think is better at determining what “junk science” is: you or the US Navy ? The U S Navy believes in AGW climate change. Ever hear of Dunning-Kruger ?
    Why is it that the climate deniers are often the same people who do not believe in evolution or think that the Earth is less than 10000 years old. Do you remember under Bush when Park Rangers were forbidden to answer questions about the age of the Grand Canyon? You know because if junk science vs Bible

  9. John says:

    233 birds ??? Really Teach is that the best you could come up with.

  10. Jo says:

    “Do you trust the data from Teach but not data from scientists?” It looks like the data was from the US government, not Teach. From what I read, it looks like they counted the actual number of birds, so yes, I would tend to believe hard data. What I don’t believe in are “predictions” that say something “may” or “should” happen, always far enough in the future that allow the predictions to change (which has happened very frequently) as the results fail to add up to what they thought they’d be. Yes, compared to other things you listed that kill birds, those are small numbers by comparison. But remember wind farms kill at least 500 million a year, also. I don’t think Teach was trying to win a numbers game, but rather showing the apparent hypocrisy of killing millions of birds while all along saying “look how green we are.” In effect, the government is helping, or doesn’t care, about the bird-killing as they subsidize entities that no doubt wouldn’t be there without them picking winners in this field when the market place should determine the winners and losers.

  11. John says:

    That works out to 1.5 birds per week per site
    Teach was this a serious post or are you going all Colbert on us now ?

  12. John says:

    Jo
    Audubon Society which loves birds puts the death by wind turnines at Less than 600000
    Should we believe them? Or you ?
    Have you looked up Dunning -Kruger yet ?
    Being off by a factor of 1000 is pretty bad

  13. Jl says:

    John- Saying the US Navy believes in AGW is like saying the Chicago Bears don’t. Who cares what one believes in? Either one side is right or they’re wrong, no matter who or how many believe or don’t believe. You say climate deniers are often the same people who don’t believe in evolution. Again, John, you seem to have a lot of trouble with this, but what one does or doesn’t believe about evolution has no bearing on whether AGW is real or not. What would you do if a person who only thought the earth was 6 thousand years old became the one to finally, without all doubt, have the data to prove once and for all that AGW is real-no more deniers? Shun him, or not believe him? Hopefully you can see the intellectual laziness of your ideas. But on that note, let me ask you this: so you believe that progressives, or smart people like yourself know that dumb people believe the earth is 6,000 years old, and that there was, according to the Bible, a great flood due to man’s sin. But progressives, the smart people, believe the earth will end in a hundred years due to a great flood caused by man’s sin (AGW). Ok.

  14. Jo says:

    John -yes that was a mis- print. Meant to say 500,000, not 500 million. The Wildlife Society estimates 570,000 birds, 880,000 bats, and 83,000 raptors, which are included in the bird count.

  15. Jeffery says:

    Jo,

    Teach was smearing solar energy by hyperventilating about a few hundred birds killed, but offered no perspective or context. Billions of birds are killed each year in the US by pets, oil ponds, windfarms, oil platforms, poisons, and collisions with vehicles and buildings. Windfarms kill a few hundred thousand birds a year, not 500 million, at least according to the evidence.

    There are trade-offs or unexpected consequences with most actions, what economists call negative externalities. Generating energy by burning fossil fuels delivers energy conveniently and relatively inexpensively (except for the negative externalities). What are the negatives? Global warming, oil spills, acid rain, lung disease, mercury and lead poisoning – but global warming is the most critical.

    If the science skeptics are now demanding that human energy production have no negative impacts than we should all move into caves now. In fact, by trying to reduce CO2 emissions, the government is trying to help all species.

    Governments always have and always will pick winners and losers. We subsidize all sorts of individuals, organizations and businesses. We subsidize religious organizations to the tune of at least $80 billion a year in the US. We tax wages at a higher rate than we tax unearned income like capital gains. We subsidize drug companies and tech companies by enforcing their patents and with direct grants. We subsidize doctor training, scientist training, childhood education, major league baseball and on and on. We’ve subsidized fossil fuels for decades by ignoring the impact on global warming.

  16. John says:

    Since my last post yesterday another bird has been killed by one of those 3 solar bird killers Sadz

  17. (I understand it’s it faux concern)

    You don’t know me. It is a concern.

    So you trust the data from Mr. Teach about bird deaths, but not the data from scientists?

    It’s not my data, dumbass. It comes from Fish and Wildlife.

  18. Jeffery says:

    dumbass? Suck my balls you lying little girly piss-ant.

  19. Don says:

    2100 bats found dead in one year at one location with 12 windmills in US.

    This is why Europe is moving away from Windpower:

    ‘ Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by wind farms. They kill roughly twice as many bats as birds. This breaks down as approximately 110–330 birds per turbine per year and 200–670 bats per year. And these figures may be conservative if you compare them to statistics published in December 2002 by the California Energy Commission: ‘In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden.’

    What is the accepted number of melted birds at a solar farm per MWH? How many dead birds and bats acceptable per MWH at a windfarm?

  20. dumbass? Suck my balls you lying little girly piss-ant.

    Yes, dumbass. And you’re too stupid, stuck in your ways, and hyper-political to understand that you were wrong.

    I also find it interesting that you don’t give a flying f*ck about the birds and insects, despite being a proclaimed Warmist, and you Warmists proclaim you care about the environment. What you really care about is pushing your unhinged cult and politics. You don’t care a whit about the environment.

  21. Jeffery says:

    “What is the accepted number of melted birds at a solar farm per MWH? How many dead birds and bats acceptable per MWH at a windfarm?”

    As few as reasonably achievable.

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