Solar Two Demonstrates
Clean Power for the Future
The 10-megawatt Solar Two power tower pilot plant near Barstow, California, successfully completed operations in April 1999, having met essentially all of its objectives. It demonstrated the ability to collect and store solar energy efficiently and to generate electricity when needed by the utility and its customers. Based on the success of Solar Two, U.S. industry is actively planning the first commercial implementation of this technology.

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This Solar Plant Accidentally Incinerates Up to 6,000 Birds a Year
NATURE
12 September 2016
By JOSH HRALA

A rare and unusual type of solar power plant that concentrates sunlight in California is accidentally killing up to 6,000 birds every year, with staff reporting that the birds keep flying into its concentrated beams of sunlight, and spontaneously bursting into flames.

The problem has been going on since the site opened in 2014, and the team says it's trying everything to save the birds from a fiery fate. But so far, the perfect solution has eluded them.

"We're doing everything we can to reduce the number of birds killed out here," the plant's spokesman, David Knox, told Louis Sahagun at the LA Times. "If there's a silver bullet out there, maybe we'll find it."

The sight of a bird being fried to death is so common at the Ivanpah Solar Plant in California's Mojave Desert, that workers have nicknamed the smouldering birds "streamers", because they leave tiny wisps of white smoke behind as they burn up in the sky.

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