Solar Panels Kill Wildlife

Solar facilities kill tens of thousands of birds every year and no one is quite sure why.

Solar panels kill wildlife.

A single california solar farm ivanpah required the killing of hundreds of desert tortoises the state s threatened reptile and annually kills six thousand birds by lighting them on fire. There are many ways to harness solar energy. The vast field of solar panels which would generate enough electricity to power 230 000 average california homes according to its developer would kill birds. The development of large scale solar energy facilities on public land in the desert has been a top priority of the obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation s dependence on fossil.

Now as concentrated solar farms start to sweep the globe solar energy developers are facing similar outcries and opposition for the harm that their clean energy facilities can cause to wildlife. Solar energy systems convert radiant light and heat from the sun into electrical energy. This is likely an underestimate because these estimates were based on 51 630 megawatts of installed wind. Cats eat more birds than wind turbines kill claim wind and solar activists.

In 2015 ivanpah killed about seven birds per gigawatt hour of electricity produced or more than 6 000 birds estimated over the course of the year. Meanwhile wind turbines and solar panels are. According to a study in the wildlife society bulletin every year 573 000 birds including 83 000 raptors and 888 000 bats are killed by wind turbines 30 percent higher than the federal government estimated in 2009 due mainly to increasing wind power capacity across the nation. But there are fewer cats in the united states today than in 2013.

Photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies in the united states are most commonly used to build large scale commercial solar power plants. The potential harm of this solar power method can be seen at the ivanpah concentrated solar tower in california. Solar photovoltaic projects consist of hundreds or thousands of solar panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity.