Oops! Birds are getting fried when they fly over world’s largest solar power plant

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System officially opened earlier this month to much pomp and circumstance. 

Touted as the world’s largest solar farm, this $2.2 billion dollar piece of property southwest of Las Vegas has roughly 350,000 mirrors that are individually the size of your standard garage door. 

All of these mirrors are aimed at three 40-story-tall towers for the purpose of having the concentrated sunlight (which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit) boil water inside the towers. This generates steam which, in turn, drives special turbines. 

The system is pretty simple and straightforward, which makes the unforeseen consequences we’re about to report on all the more surprising. Dozens of dead birds have been discovered near the towers, with the Wall Street Journal’s Cassandra Sweet reporting there being at least “a peregrine falcon, a grebe, two hawks, four nighthawks, and a variety of warblers and sparrows.”

Their cause for expiration? They’ve all been accidentally burned to death.

The Ivanpah system has the capacity to generate 392 megawatts, about enough to power 140,000 homes annually, so its effectiveness is kind of hard to question. But plans to build a similar system near Joshua Tree have now hit a snag as biologists are warning regulators that the farm could kill golden eagles and other protected birds.

The only plan drawn up that addresses this problem is a two-year study, not nearly enough data to fully rely upon.

“We're trying to figure out how big the problem is and what we can do to minimize bird mortalities,” said Eric Davis, assistant regional director for migratory birds at the federal agency's Sacramento office. “When you have new technologies, you don't know what the impacts are going to be.”

Story via wsj.com