This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here's why that won't change any time soon.
Federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die from collisions or immolation annually while chasing flying insects around the facility’s three 40-story towers, which catch sunlight from five square miles of garage-door-size mirrors to drive the plant’s power-producing turbines.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html
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I'd like to see more government subsidies and feed-in tariff schemes for small-scale solar PV systems. This was extremely successful in South Australia where I am from. I'm for decentralized power generation but I guess that doesn't make a handful of power companies wealthy in the same way.
The choice of the site of the solar plant was very poor, and opposed by many biologists. However, the title is somewhat misleading, as the article describes the many steps that are being taking to minimize effects on wildlife.
6,000 birds a year is bad - but far less than fossil fuel sources of energy, and much less than cats.
Cats that live in the wild or indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year, says a new study that escalates a decades-old debate over the feline threat to native animals.
There have also been efforts to make wind power less lethal to birds. Clean energy looking at steps to minimize impacts on wildlife is far preferable than the hellish tar sands in Canada that have affected millions of migrating birds, and where we get most of our oil.
http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/2014/nwf_issue_briefs_Interactive2.pdf
Great point about the cats. I remember hearing that feral cats had made their way in to a part of Northern Australia that had been isolated for the longest time that has rare and undiscovered species in it. Very concerning..
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