Obama-era 'clean energy' solar power plant still uses fossil fuels – and kills thousands of birds annually
This is part 2 of a series on California's troubled Ivanpah Solar Power Plant in the Mojave Desert.
SAN BERNADINO, Calif. – More than a decade after it opened, an Obama-era taxpayer-backed "clean energy" solar plant in California still burns fossil fuels and kills thousands of birds each year.
The Ivanpah Solar Power Plant, a massive facility in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada border, uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight into three towering structures, generating intense heat to produce electricity.
But those same beams have proven deadly.
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Federal researchers and monitoring reports have documented thousands of birds being killed after flying through the plant’s concentrated solar rays — a phenomenon known as "solar flux."
The plant also relies on natural gas to start up each day – producing tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide annually – an amount comparable to the energy use of thousands of homes, raising questions about how "clean" the facility really is.
Standing near the site, its footprint is unmistakable. The towers glow intensely as beams of reflected sunlight converge at their tops, creating an almost surreal scene against the desert landscape.
Once promoted as a symbol of the future of renewable energy, Ivanpah is now drawing scrutiny over whether its environmental costs outweigh its benefits, with critics saying the project raises broader concerns about how "clean energy" is evaluated.
"If oil and gas spills a drop, literally a drop, the entire operation is shut down. And to an extent that’s a good thing," Daniel Turner, founder of the energy advocacy group Power The Future, told Fox News Digital.
"But you label something ‘green’ or ‘clean’ and all regulations are waived."
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Despite the documented wildlife impacts, the plant continues to operate — with California regulators declining efforts to shut it down and instead arguing it is still needed to support the power grid. Officials under both the Trump and Biden administrations have supported shutting the facility down, citing the high cost of its electricity compared to newer alternatives.
The project was built with more than $1.6 billion in federally backed loans and additional taxpayer-funded incentives, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars still outstanding — even as environmental concerns continue to mount. In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury provided a $539 million grant to help build the facility, covering about 30% of construction costs.
Bird deaths and wildlife impacts
The facility spans more than 4,000 acres of the Mojave Desert and uses roughly 350,000 mirrors — mounted on more than 170,000 heliostats — to reflect sunlight toward three central towers.
That same concentrated light has had unintended consequences.
Researchers say insects are drawn to the bright towers, which in turn attract birds. Some then fly through the plant’s concentrated solar beams — known as solar flux — where they can be injured or killed.
Researchers dubbed the phenomenon "streamers," with video released by the U.S. Geological Survey showing birds trailing smoke as their feathers burn.
A 2016 federal study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found evidence of birds suffering feather damage and trauma consistent with exposure to intense heat near the towers.
Monitoring reports filed with California regulators and reviewed by Fox News Digital continue to document bird and bat deaths at the site, with hundreds of birds found dead each year.
Environmental reviews conducted before construction anticipated some level of wildlife impact, including bird deaths linked to mirror collisions and concentrated solar beams, according to California Energy Commission documents.
"Bird mortality is still a significant concern at concentrated solar plants like Ivanpah," Lewis Grove, director of wind and energy policy at the American Bird Conservancy, told Fox News Digital.
"Public estimates are that thousands of birds are killed every year by this single facility," he said, adding that the trade-off is "generally not worth it for birds."
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He noted that newer photovoltaic solar systems have significantly lower impacts on wildlife, underscoring how the industry has shifted away from the technology used at Ivanpah.
"The Ivanpah plant was a financial boondoggle and environmental disaster," Julia Dowell of the Sierra Club said in a previous Fox News Digital report. She added the project "killed thousands of birds and tortoises" and showed that "not all renewable technologies are created equal."
Habitat impact
Beyond bird deaths, the project has reshaped the surrounding desert.
The site was once considered a high-quality habitat, according to federal environmental reviews conducted before construction. Development cleared large areas of land, displacing tortoises and other wildlife and raised concerns about long-term survival.
Early monitoring reports showed dozens of protected desert tortoises went unaccounted for during initial operations — including animals held in controlled enclosures — according to California Energy Commission documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Critics have also questioned whether efforts to relocate tortoises away from the site have been effective.
Burning fossil fuels
The plant’s environmental footprint extends beyond wildlife.
Ivanpah relies on natural gas to start up operations each day — a requirement that has raised questions about how "clean" the facility really is.
While the original design assumed limited gas use, actual operations often require several hours of gas-burning to bring the system online. The plant also lacks large-scale energy storage, meaning it cannot generate electricity at night — a limitation newer solar projects increasingly address.
Project documents show the facility was originally approved to use significantly less natural gas than it ultimately required, with operators later seeking approval to increase usage by roughly 60% to maintain reliable operations, according to California Energy Commission filings reviewed by Fox News Digital.
The plant has burned natural gas to support daily startup and operations, producing roughly 25,000 to 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually — roughly equivalent to the emissions from several thousand U.S. homes.
That level of emissions is enough to place the plant under California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires major polluters to pay for their emissions — effectively placing the "solar" facility alongside traditional fossil fuel plants when it comes to emissions.
While Ivanpah produces fewer emissions than a conventional natural gas plant, its carbon footprint remains significantly higher than that of modern solar farms, which generate electricity without burning fossil fuels.
NRG Energy, which operates the facility, said in a previous statement that it remains committed to providing renewable electricity but declined to provide additional comment regarding environmental issues.
The California Energy Commission told Fox News Digital the project remains in compliance with its environmental requirements, with wildlife impacts addressed through ongoing monitoring and coordination with federal and state agencies.
More than a decade after it opened, Ivanpah now stands as a symbol of the trade-offs in the push for clean energy — where efforts to reduce emissions can also bring real-world environmental costs.
For now, the plant continues to operate because regulators say the power it provides is still needed — even as questions remain about its cost, environmental impact and whether it still makes sense to keep it running.
Those questions extend beyond the plant itself, raising broader concerns about how projects like Ivanpah were approved — an issue Fox News Digital will examine in the next part of this series.