Monday, Aug. 16, 2021
Are birds at greater risk from increased solar power generation than from continued reliance on fossil fuel sources?
A 2016 study examined the impact of large “utility-scale” solar energy plants in southern California on bird populations, and found that the risk to birds was far less than that already posed by fossil-fuel power plants. It estimated that up to 138,600 birds died each year because of solar plants then “either installed or under construction.” The authors cited a 2009 estimate of 14.5 million avian deaths annually from fossil-fuel plants.
No more recent research is available, but based on that data, the expected risks for birds from a planned fourfold expansion in large-scale solar plants would still be far less than the impact of equivalent fossil-fuel generation.
As larger solar installations began operating in the last decade, media reports noted the impact of designs using large arrays of mirrors. “Birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight and are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2016.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Renewable Energy Avian mortality at solar energy facilities in the United States
- Energy Policy Contextualizing avian mortality: A preliminary appraisal of bird and bat fatalities from wind, fossil-fuel, and nuclear electricity
- Los Angeles Times This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here’s why that won’t change any time soon
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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