Energy and Environment

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in midair

By Washington Examiner
Published August 18, 2014 4:00am ET
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Emerging solar plants scorch birds in midair
This October 2013 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a burned Yellow-rumped Warbler that was found at the Ivanpah solar plant in the California Mojave Desert. Workers at a state-of-the-art new solar plant have a word for the birds that fly over the plant’s five-mile field of mirrors, “streamers,” for the puff of smoke as the birds ignite in mid-air and fall singed to the ground. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) | Uncredited

IVANPAH DRY LAKE, Calif. — Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

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Associated Press California Fish and Wildlife Solar Energy