Bird burning? As in "burning killer coal kills birds"?
There seems to be some hysteria online about bird deaths associated with the Ivanpah solar project in California. For example, this news article calls the solar power plant a “ death ray“ as if it is a weapon. The same article says that hundreds of thousands of birds might be dying, or 28,000 or 1,000. That is a very wide range, and at least suggests that no one may have precise numbers. So is the total 100,000 or 1,000? Brightsource says the number is much lower than 1,000.
What do these numbers mean compared to other sources of bird deaths? Power lines alone might kill up to 175 million birds a year, according to a US Fish and Wildlife Service document. Up to 3.7 billion are killed by cats.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has said that coal and other fossil fuels are a greater risk to wildlife:
Based on the comparative amounts of SO2, NOx, CO2, and mercury emissions generated from coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro and the associated effects of acidic deposition, climate change, and mercury bioaccumulation, coal as an electricity generation source is by far the largest contributor to risks to wildlife found in the NY/NE region.
cleantechnica.com
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