And actually this doesn’t look like all that bad an idea for a solar project. Ground mirrors, tower boiler. It would work well anywhere on land there is plenteous sun. Some space age scarecrow is needed, perhaps. Seems a shame that such a problem has to completely stymie the project.
Vegas will be lit up well, in the day time.
Americans have become pretty stupid.
The primary limiting factor in bird population is and will always continue to be the food supply. There will always be more birds hatched than the food supply can support.
In fact, there will always be more birds hatched that figure out how to not run into windmills or get frickaseed by mirrors than there is enough food for. Additional survival hazards are just changing some of the birds who would have starved into birds who live because a better forager wasn’t clever enough to figure out a hazard.
Its an epic non problem.
Back in the Carter years a group of tinkerers came up with a parabolic mirror smaller than the old satellite dishes that would power a small turbine generator that would power a single dwelling. The hot spot was small enough that it was little danger to critters. However the government quickly declared it to be a pressure vessel with the licensing and regulations and inspections that go along with that and it became to expensive to build and operate for a single household. It was featured in Popular Science or Mechanics I think.
$2.2 BILLION to produce a PEAK output of 377 MW, but with only a 29% capacity factor - which translates into 110 MW (avg) power plant. That is a cost of over $20/W! Conventional power plants cost $1-2/W.
Another payoff from Obama to Google.
The problem is you also need the water and lots of it.