Quote:
Originally Posted by Hersbird
But then the birds and insects are removed from their natural habitat. Much like the complaint of dams shutting off fish runs. Oh sure, you can have a million of them on the new giant lake on the other side. I'm joking now but just wait and see.
|
If you have a better idea for renewable high energy production, please feel free to chime in. I'm all for liquid fluoride thorium reactors. However, the general public has been poisoned to hate anything nuclear. Until we get over that hump, "renewables" is the only thing that can replace some of our energy needs along with conservation. The only way renewables work is with the careful application of all available technologies. None of them work with the surety of nuclear but can interleave to provide viable energy stability to a modern society.
As to the "burning bird" studies and the insect eradication.
We simply need more time to study the biological mechanisms that are at work in the heliostat farms. There is some evidence that shows that insects do not travel from far and wide to seek self immolation. Insects at a certain radius ignore the glow. Also, there seems to be an avenue of transport along vegetation. Simply clearing brush reduces their tendency to migrate onto the solar farm. There will always be insects that will wander in but the insect count out in the Mojave is several orders of magnitude below what is found in much more fecund environments. The giant insect "zapper" effect can be minimized.
The bird studies bear some mention. One study simply used a camera to record "flares and smokers" over a period of time and extrapolated that over a year to come to the conclusion that tens of thousands of birds would be killed per year. There was no way to delineate weather the cause of the smoke plume or trail was a bird, large insect or trash and debris. This study as well as others, is holding up construction of an even larger heliostat farm which is in the flight path of waterfowl migration. There is little to no evidence that waterfowl are even attracted to the solar power stations. A more concise study should tally local indigenous species in the mortality count and separate the flying vermin that are attracted to human activities such as crows and the ever present pigeon. Body count studies do show that there is a problem with bird mortality. But the reporting needs to be less sensationalized to determine the over all effect and what needs to be done.