A VAST SOLAR POWER ARRAY, JUST OUTSIDE LAS VEGAS
When you drive, or fly, past the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, you can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on. Three massive towers surrounded by thousands of giant motorized mirrors dominate the desert landscape. The towers glow with such a brilliant light, focused sunlight from the mirror array, that they are said to incinerate migratory birds in flight as they pass by. The site stands as a symbol of the tradeoffs of a cleaner world… a paradox of renewable, cheap energy, which also scars the surface of our planet and threatens local species.
If you zoom out on the map provided, you can see how much empty land surrounds its footprint… zoom in, and you see how mind boggling huge the site is. I happen to believe that we should develop more renewable energy solutions like this one, but do we really need to power all those lights in nearby Las Vegas 24 hours per day?
