BrightSource solar plant sets birds on fire as they fly overhead

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: CranialSponge
If these massive solar panel fields are setting birds on fire, that gives you an idea of how much radiative heat energy is bouncing off of these things and rising up into the atmosphere.

A bit on the ironic side when the whole point of solar power is to save the world from manmade global warming.

Watch the video Wrathofall linked, it's directing the rays to a boiler system. I thought it was absorbing some, then reflecting the rest back up, too, until I watched it.

Yes, I made the erroneous assumption that this was a field of actual solar panels... when in fact, it's just a bunch of mirrors. New "state of the art" stuff - dontcha know. Pfft.

I didn't have the heart to watch a video showing a bunch of fried little birdies.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
It never ceases to amaze me how, in the 21st century, all we can come up with for "new-improved-state-of-the-art-technology" is to place a million mirrors on the ground to intensify and redirect energy over to a bunch of boilers.... to boil water.... to turn a turbine.... to produce energy.

[insert slap forehead here]

I say we take all the brainiacs who came up with this idea, place them in a paper airplane and fly them over the field of mirrors.

Solar cells are advancing all the time. They don't boil water or any other "boring" stuff, they just sit there and give us energy. That seems pretty amazing to me!

We still move stuff around on trains too, just because something doesn't grace the pages of popular science doesn't mean it's not important/useful technology.