BrightSource Energy Plant Concentrated Solar Rays Killing Birds - Pheromone Traps for Insects a Desert Feast to Keep the Birds Safe

Solar Power is indeed a Wonderful Alternative Energy Resource.

But what If I told you that Solar Concentrators were killing Birds by the thousands? Well it’s true, as the BrightSource Energy Plant, a solar Concentrator Planet based in California is responsible for killing Birds with its super concentrated Death Ray of sunshine as stated in the article “Solar Bird Kill”, published Wednesday, August 20, 2014, The Jamaica Observer.  

BrightSource Energy Plant is a US$2.2-billion Solar Concentrator Plant that is located in the Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border. The company is a joint partnership between the following three (3) partners:

1.      NRG Solar of Carlsbad, California,

2.      BrightSource Energy Ltd

3.      Mountain View, California based Google

Launched in February 2014, it features a large field of 300,000 Mirrors focus sunlight onto a triad of 40 Storey (122m) tall central towers filled with molten Sodium Chloride in what’s really an oversized Sterling Engine. This Sodium Chloride is kept in that state by the concentrated sunlight that can reach temperatures of close to 6000◦C (10,832◦F).

This thanks to the mirrors tracking the movement of the Sun across the clear, arid Skies of the Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border. The molten Sodium Chloride is used to heat Water to Steam that then turns a Steam Turbine, generating Electricity for some 140,000 homes.

So with that kind of potential why shut it down due to few bird kills? The story is a lot more complicated than that and is an example of Alternative Energy that's somewhat bad.

BrightSource Energy Plant - Pheromone Traps for Insects a Desert Feast to Keep the Birds Safe

According to the Federal Wildlife Investigators, the owners of the BrightSource Energy Plant can't be allowed to build an even bigger version as Birds are being killed by the concentrated Death Rays of the Solar Concentrators at a rate of 20 birds per hour.

The workers at the plane call them streamers, after the fact that as the birds fly through the concentrated solar Radiation being focused by the Movable mirrors at the BrightSource Energy Plant, their plumage bursts into flames, literally cooking them in mid-flight.

An expert for the Centre for Biological Diversity environmental group places the death toll at some 28,000 birds per year, a far cry from the 1000 that BrightSource Energy Plant claim die at the hands of the Sun. This is because the bright sunlight from tall those 300,000 mirrors attracts insects which in turn attracts birds that follow them in flight. Both Bird and insect thus get roasted when they pass through the Solar Death Ray created by the Solar Concentrator.

So what can be done about this menace to Birds that's probably decimating Birds faster than Feral Cats as pointed out in my blog article entitled “The Zoological Society of London and their Cat Map - How UWI's Department of Biotechnology, the JSPCA and Telecom Providers can Kick Ass 2 against Feral Cats and Dogs”?

The simple solution is to kill the insects before they fly through the Concentrated Solar Rays by using pheromone Traps that would be located in and around the towers. Insects would be attracted to them and fly towards them, thinking it's a mate only to be gobble up by waiting Birds.

Albeit it won't stop the Bird Kills, it'll reduce the high number to a level that would make the BrightSource Energy Plant a go for further construction! Either that or they could always resort to building s Solar Concentrators that didn’t focus the sunlight to a tower but rather onto smaller Sterling Engines or even Solar Panels.