Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Ivanpah

Back in February, Connie and I flew from Denver to John Wayne Airport in Orange County to visit our kids. Shortly after we crossed the Colorado River into California, we saw flashes of light out our window on the north side of the plane. Knowing solar energy as we do from our work, we quickly identified it as reflections from the mirrors and power tower at BightSource's Ivanpah solar plant. You can read more about the plant here.

It was quite an amazing sight, and there was some talk from other passengers who didn't know what it was and thought it must be a UFO or something.

I cannot take credit for this picture. I did not have my camera to hand and found this picture later in an article written by a person who had the same experience we did. I can say this looks almost exactly like what we saw out our window.

If you find yourself flying in this corridor in the future, look for it.

H/T Power Line

2 comments:

Karen Carroll said...

This has found to be a bird-scorching debacle. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304703804579379230641329484

Reid Farmer said...

Yes.

Many believe this is the only plant of this type that will ever be built in the US.