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Solar Panel Farm Fries Hundreds of Birds Out of The Sky
Townhall.com ^ | February 24, 2015 | Katie Pavlich

Posted on 02/24/2015 3:09:13 PM PST by Kaslin

We already know wind farms kill thousands of birds every year, but now at least one solar panel farm in Nevada is frying birds out of the sky. From Nature World News:

The last thing you'd likely expect is for a new experimental array to literally light nearly 130 birds in mid-flight on fire.

the last thing you'd likely expect is for a new experimental array to literally light nearly 130 birds in mid-flight on fire.

And yet, that's exactly what happened near Tonopah, Nevada last month during tests of the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project.

According to Rudy Evenson, Deputy Chief of Communications for Nevada Bureau of Land Management (NBLM) in Reno, as reported by Re Wire, a third of the newly constructed plant was put into action on the morning of Jan. 14, redirecting concentrated solar energy to a point 1,200 feet above the ground.

Unfortunately, about two hours into the test, engineers and biologists on site started noticing "streamers" - trails of smoke and steam caused by birds flying directly into the field of solar radiation. What moisture was on them instantly vaporized, and some instantly burst into flames - at least, until they began to frantically flap away. An estimated 130 birds were injured or killed during the test.

I wonder if it smelled like chicken...

The good news is, the problem that cause the bird fry in the sky has been fixed. The plant opens in March.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: energy; solar
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1 posted on 02/24/2015 3:09:13 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

But if one bird got killed during drilling an oil well the MSM would be all over it. Shame! Shame!


2 posted on 02/24/2015 3:11:28 PM PST by beethovenfan (If Islam is the solution, the "problem" must be freedom.)
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To: beethovenfan

Or while logging off old growth forest...?


3 posted on 02/24/2015 3:15:02 PM PST by HiJinx (I can see Mexico from my back porch...soon, so will you!)
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To: Kaslin
Didn't the gubmint cut the water supply to farms in Central Valley, CA because of ONE stinking tiny fish? HYPOCRITES.

I demand EQUALITY for all animals, not just FISH! BIRDS ARE PEOPLE TOO!!!!!!!!!!

4 posted on 02/24/2015 3:16:30 PM PST by CivilWarBrewing
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To: CivilWarBrewing

#avian lives matter


5 posted on 02/24/2015 3:24:49 PM PST by gundog (Help us, Nairobi-Wan Kenobi...you're our only hope.)
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To: Kaslin

How does the old song go - ‘Old King Cole was a merry old soul, a merry old soul was he”???

Something about blackbirds baked in a pie! Looking at the pie-shaped solar energizer it is appropriate.


6 posted on 02/24/2015 3:25:00 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: Kaslin

Is there anyway to fry liberals with it?


7 posted on 02/24/2015 3:25:46 PM PST by ZULU (Je Suis Charlie. . GET IT OBAMA, OR DON'T YOU??)
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To: Kaslin

I have a solar panel on our Airstream trailer..... cool, another way to fry stuff.


8 posted on 02/24/2015 3:27:05 PM PST by Gator113 (Cruz, Lee, and Sessions speak for me.... most anyone else is just noise.)
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To: Gumdrop

I looked it up as I was not certain about Old King Cole -
It was “Sing a Song of six-pence, pockets full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie”


9 posted on 02/24/2015 3:27:28 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: Kaslin

Cue the “Mars Attacks!” pictures


10 posted on 02/24/2015 3:36:15 PM PST by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: Kaslin

During an oil spill, MSM blasts away with oily seagull and pigeon photos. Then there are the photos of the volunteers bathing each bird, drying them and releasing to the wild.

Then the interview with wildlife experts.

However, for bird deaths at solar plants: silence.


11 posted on 02/24/2015 3:36:33 PM PST by cicero2k
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To: Alex Murphy

Cue Slim Whitman!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBuk1HXcz1k


12 posted on 02/24/2015 3:41:22 PM PST by kaehurowing
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To: Kaslin

Who are they kidding? The problem has not been “fixed” as it exists at every solar power project that uses mirrors. Every one of these projects in the California deserts are killing thousands of migrating birds.

The birds mistake the mirrors for bodies of water and fly towards them. The mirrors are designed to reflect the heat from the sun’s rays towards elevated giant water tanks which turn the water into steam to drive turbines which generate electricity.

It is that reflected solar heat which hits the birds, burning their feathers off.

Here in the low and high deserts of Southern California we have several such solar panels. Plus, in the San Gorgonio Pass which leads into the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area), we have hundreds of wind turbines which also are a death trap for birds flying through that pass.

Oh, by the way, the electricity generated by those wind turbines, which have received taxpayer subsidies, that electricity costs more to generate than electricity from natural gas and coal generating stations. The State of California requires local utilities to purchase that electricity at higher prices which are then passed on to customers in the form of higher rates.


13 posted on 02/24/2015 3:49:26 PM PST by CdMGuy
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To: CivilWarBrewing

I believe that was in Klamath Fall, OR


14 posted on 02/24/2015 3:51:46 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

There was no fix done.

They repositioned some of the mirrors to reduce the extreme heat. That will lower the efficiency of the plant, tempting management to point the mirrors back at the tower to generate more power & resume the bird kills. This will happen just as soon as the bird lovers, reporters, & safety inspectors are gone.

This is a monumental boondoggle. No doubt Obama & Co. have again wasted the American taxpayers money, even as the developers, cronies of Obama, live the rich life on taxpayer loans & grants.


15 posted on 02/24/2015 3:51:57 PM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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To: Kaslin

They have inadvertently done the same thing with some of these all-glass skyscrapers they build. There was one where the reflected light was hitting cars in a parking lot and melting all the plastic inside and outside of the cars.


16 posted on 02/24/2015 3:56:27 PM PST by kaehurowing
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To: kaehurowing

Down in the DC corridor [Gaithersburg/Rockville/Bethesda] the grass beside the all-glass buildings is littered with the bodies of birds, all the time.

No one cares.

Once in a while, you pass a building and see a poster or masking tape X, where the cubicle dweller has attempted to warn off the birds.


17 posted on 02/24/2015 4:03:36 PM PST by Salamander (Like acid and oil on a madman's face, reason tends to fly away.)
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To: gundog

I’t harry reid’s fault!


18 posted on 02/24/2015 4:05:39 PM PST by justrepublican (Screaming like a "Vexatious requester" at a Wellstone memorial...........)
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To: Kaslin
#DONTFRYTHEBIRDS
19 posted on 02/24/2015 4:08:39 PM PST by PROCON (Always Give 100% - - Unles you're donating blood.)
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To: Salamander

When I was young boy, I knew a couple of kids that had grown up their first years in Samoa (their dad was a medical missionary there).

Back then, they didn’t have sliding glass doors or glass windows in their fales, they were just open.

Anyway, when they first moved here one of these kids ended up running through a sliding glass door. He didn’t realize it was there because he’d never seen one before. Off to emergency he went with some pretty bad cuts.


20 posted on 02/24/2015 5:15:27 PM PST by kaehurowing
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