this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
600 points (99.3% liked)

Science Memes

19700 readers
1199 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 7 points 15 hours ago

I know this is a meme community but I was curious about this. It seems some birds do get burned, but not blasted. It varies a lot depending on the installation and it can also be mitigated. Also, the amount of birds dying from this is significantly lower than just the amount of birds hitting windows. For the benefit of other curious people, I'll try to condense the relevant information from wikipedia and the sources.

In more general terms, a 2016 preliminary study assessed that the annual bird mortality per MW of installed power was similar between U.S. concentrated solar power plants and wind power plants, and higher for fossil fuel power plants.

How it was calculated for fossil fuel

Sovacool estimated avian mortality from fossil fuel power plants across the United States as a result of collision with infrastructure, electrocutions, pollution and contamination, and climate change. In addition, Sovacool estimated climate change-induced avian mortality (in terms of habitat loss and changes in migration) predicted to be the result of fossil fuel power plant operations.

A preliminary assessment of avian mortality at utility-scale solar energy facilities in the United States: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148116301422?via=ihub

Review of Avian Mortality Studies at Concentrating Solar Power Plants: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1364837