Your tax dollars in action: Killing birds and bats by the thousands

Some self-styled environmentalists love to boast about their efforts to save rare animals from the ravages of grazing cattle, oil and gas exploration, mining and off-road recreation, not to mention the planet itself from global warming. They are willing to spend any amount of your money to make it happen.

So, please pay no attention to the stories out today about wind turbines near Ely killing bats or the thermal solar plants just across the border in Invanpah scorching birds in flight.

The 66 turbines at the Spring Valley wind farm killed 566 bats in 2013, according to today’s Las Vegas newspaper. To mitigate this slaughter, the wind farm operators have agreed to raise the turbines’ “cut-in” wind speed from 7 mph to 11 mph. The bats apparently don’t fly as often in higher speed winds.

That will mean the turbines will operate even less often, even though in 2013 they operated only 18.8 percent of the time, one of the lowest ratios in the country, according to Wind Action. But fear not for the owners. They are paid 9.8 cents per kWh by NV Energy, about three times the cost of natural gas-fired electricity. The state has a renewable power portfolio standard that requires NV Energy to obtain 25 percent of its power from renewables by 2025. And the wind company gets a 2.2-cent per kWh production tax credit from federal taxes. Ratepayers and taxpayers make it profitable to kill bats.

Meanwhile, The Associated Press has picked up on a story reported by The Wall Street Journal in February.

Bright Source solar mirrors at Ivanpah power plant.

It is reported that federal wildlife officials went to the BrightSource Energy thermal solar plant in Ivanpah this past year and observed birds being scorched by focused rays of the sun — at temperatures approaching 1,000 degrees — an average of one every two minutes. Some of the birds streamed to the ground, leaving a contrail of smoke.

Bright Source estimated it kills 1,000 birds a year, but the Center for Biological Diversity estimates the number is closer to 28,000.

Ivanpah received a $1.6 billion loan, guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Your tax dollars cooking birds.

Bright Source wants to build more solar thermal plants but some have suggested they use photovoltaic panels instead.

Well, it turns out water fowl sometimes think those are water and try to land. Some are killed on impact. Others can’t take flight unless they are in water.

Never mind the number of species killed on the ground when thousands of acres are leveled for panels, mirrors and wind turbines.

As for saving the planet, there has been no warming of the globe in 17 years.

Sen. Harry Reid opposed Yucca Mountain, though nuclear hasn’t killed many animals. He opposed coal, also fairly safe, but he is all for solar and wind projects paving over the desert.

Sometimes an environmentalist can’t win.