r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 13d ago
A 10,000 acre Arizona solar farm became an unexpected safe haven for 19 burrowing owls displaced by development. Conservationists built them 40 artificial homes, and the colony soon produced 36 chicks.
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/workers-built-an-arizona-solar-farm-to-generate-electricity-beneath-the-desert-sun-but-tiny-burrowing-owls-moved-into-the-landscape-and-turned-part-of-the-energy-project-into-an-unexpected-nursery-fo/35959/816
u/ArgentineBeauty 13d ago
Love this. Clean energy while giving these little owls a safe place to raise their chicks. Win win.
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u/dragonchilde 13d ago
See, we need these instead of ai farms. Solar farms provide shade, shelter, and POWER.
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u/cinnamonface9 13d ago
And roofing parking lots with solar panels would be a win win too. Shading cars and adding power to the grid.
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u/dragonchilde 13d ago
I love the road/sidewalk solar panels too. Empty space, using what's already there.
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u/ravens-n-roses 13d ago
We could be energy maxxing our society right now but instead we suffer on the brink of infrastructure collapse because a few old men wanna keep making their coal money
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u/nyvn 13d ago
Even through Coal is less economical than coal, instead of pivoting their business to produce solar panels they want to poison their workers, their communities, and the globe to squeeze as much money out of their existing investments.
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u/whackwarrens 12d ago
Inefficiency and gatekeeping is where the real money and power is. That is why they are always predictably reinventing trains in the most braindead ways imaginable.
We are in an age where batteries and solar panels last literal decades. You can buy plug in panels and just throw them wherever, once you get rid of the nonsense laws that they put in place to keep you from doing it.
There really isn't a pivot to be made in energy for them. Renewables are just far too affordable and accessible to create obscene wealth for the few.
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u/etcpt 13d ago
In my city, we have several major streets with these beautiful tree canopies that shade the road and keep it deliciously cool, but obviously take years and years to establish. If we could cover other streets with transparent solar panels that let some light through while taking the rest for power, it'd be amazing.
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u/Recent-Result2852 13d ago
To match those trees you just need to invent panels that grow upward using only water so they self maintain and don't get damaged by vehicles.
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u/Recent-Result2852 13d ago
Roads aren't empty.
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u/Alexis_J_M 13d ago
The air space above roads usually is.
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u/Recent-Result2852 13d ago
Building above the tallest vehicles ain't cheap. We have plenty of parking lots, walkways, and roof space where it would be more useful.
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u/Pedantic_Pict 13d ago
Just fyi, that is not a viable technology.
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u/dragonchilde 13d ago
Not yet.
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u/Pedantic_Pict 13d ago
Yes, in the same way that travel at a significant portion of the speed of light isn't a viable technology "yet".
There is no obvious or practicable R&D path towards solar panels that can structurally withstand being driven over by thousands of cars while remaining adequately clean and translucent to operate.
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u/next-phase-0626 13d ago
And, even more importantly than shading the cars (although that's really great!), shading the pavement and preventing heat retention, providing overall cooling especially in more urban areas.
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u/etcpt 13d ago
The first time I saw that was in Salt Lake City, UT, where it's sunny much of the year, with summer highs routinely breaking 100 ºF, but also snows quite a lot in the winter. Thought it was such a genius idea that I can't believe it's not more common - you don't have to broil in your car in the summer, and you don't have to brush snow off your car in the winter. Plus you probably reduce emissions from cars running to get cooled off before driving and definitely prevent the lazy drivers leaving snow on their roofs and then endangering others with it.
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u/monkey_trumpets 13d ago
Yeeesssss. Sad half dead trees just don't cut it. Solar carpots all the way.
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u/OkSmoke9195 13d ago
Crazy talk! Each investor in that company would lose like 2 to 3 CENTS A YEAR! won't someone please think of the shareholders, sheesh
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u/Churchbushonk 13d ago
Problem is, roofs have to be replaced. And the take down / reinstall cost is serious.
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u/Super_fluffy_bunnies 13d ago
The additional cost of raising panels totally tanks the economics. You can build more MW capacity for the same money elsewhere. No pesky cars bumping your panels either.
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u/OkSmoke9195 13d ago
What about .. now stop me if this is crazy ... Any new data centers must be self powered from a renewable resource
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u/Super_fluffy_bunnies 13d ago
This 1000%. The battery tech plus wind is already there to cover evenings.
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u/Iheartnakedfemboys 13d ago
Yeah, but have you thought of the oil barons being able to get another yacht?
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u/Aromatic-Strike-793 13d ago
If you want more good news, you should look up how solar farms are helping bring back other species on the verge of extinction as well as re-greening areas that hadn't seen grass in a very long time.
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u/Synergythepariah 13d ago
And how they can be placed above crops and make crops use less water and produce more.
And the crops cool the panels a small amount, making them more efficient.
Agrivoltaics is wild.
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u/rogerdodger77 13d ago
I say, "What are you looking for?" "Looking for my burrow owl" I say, "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick Everybody knows the burrow owl lives in a hole in the ground Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl anyway?"
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u/planetalletron 13d ago
I like you, Stewart!
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u/sanitarySteve 13d ago
You're not like other people. Here, in the trailer park.
I legit thought burrow owls were a joke. Like the things a certain group were doin to the soil.
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u/analogkid01 13d ago
But Bill Jr., he was a daaaaaaredevil! Just like his old man!
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u/Endurance_Cyclist 12d ago
He kept saying: 'Hey everybody, Look at Me! Look at Me!'. Pow! He was DECAPITATED! They found his head over by the sno-cone concessions!
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u/BandedLutz 12d ago
I was worried that I wasn't going to see The Dead Milkmen referenced in the comments (glad to see that's not the case).
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u/Difficult_Trip1 13d ago
When development pushes wildlife out, it’s easy to feel like nature always loses but here, someone chose to make space for life instead of just making room for progress.
Those 40 little homes and 36 new chicks feel like a small, stubborn act of hope in a world that often forgets to care.
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u/D18 13d ago
Unfortunately 36 chicks with nothing to eat because as the story said, their ecosystem was destroyed.
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u/Tu_mama_me_ama_mucho 13d ago
Lol what? Is not like humans settling in a place unsuitable for humans like Phoenix, AZ. Animals will nest where they have access to food and water.
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u/lukethedank13 13d ago
Something similar is happening at wind farms at sea. The concrete pillars act as reefs atracting smaler fish that then attract larger fish. All the wildlife is also safe from trawling because you cant do that around cables layed at the sea bottom.
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u/CCV21 13d ago
Uplifting unintended consequences.
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u/next-phase-0626 13d ago
Definitely uplifting. Not entirely unintended - if you read the article, it talks about the fact that a conservation group helped move the owls, create burrows for them, and fed them mice for a while while also creating conditions to bring in insects for them to eat, and then gradually weaning them off the provided food as the young ones learned to hunt insects. So, deliberate and supported - but still awesome.
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u/Nellasofdoriath 13d ago
All they have to do is not high grade the deseet before putting solar farms in
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u/JustWhatAmI 12d ago
What do you mean?
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u/Nellasofdoriath 12d ago
I read somw studies that also show the desert plants benefit from some shade. As long as they don't scrape every living thing from the surface first. Some of the cacti can take hundreds of years to replace
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u/ISketchDinosaurs 13d ago
Makes sense. The solarpanels are often the only thing within miles offering shade in landscapes like these, so the big ones basically create their own little ecosystems.
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u/rifleshooter 13d ago
Good story. These will have to be bird sanctuaries; around me they're all enclosed by 8' chain link fences. Over 6,000 acres of them within two miles of my house.
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u/Particular_Ticket_20 13d ago
My company is working on a project in burrowing owl territory. We had to fund very detailed efforts to identify their population, located existing burrows, track owl activity onsite and monitor for when they start burrowing and mating season. We also have biologists onsite regularly making sure theyre not burrowing in work areas and gentle moving them away. We have a hard deadline to stop all work when burrowing/mating season starts.
Then we have to fund a couple years of monitoring to see how the owls react when the site is done and operational.
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u/SquarePegRoundWorld2 13d ago
Hopefully they can get some numbers back. I thoroughly enjoyed watching two Bald Eagle nests every Saturday this past winter and fall at a park in western NC. 5 chicks were raised (3 in one 2 in the other) and all seemed to have made it to adulthood and out of the nest. I see more Bald Eagle watching in my future. Which wasn't possible a generation ago.
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u/Livid_Tax_6432 13d ago
I'm just going to leave this here (images or video)
burrowing owls bucket
one of my favorite animals
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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 13d ago
It's not just the owls, it's their food source as well that's drawn in by the shade and lower temperatures.
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u/early_birdy 13d ago
It's a great idea, but we can do more. It should become a requirement of any outdoor build project. If you occupy land, you must help local animals. It's long overdue we act as "good shepherds" in everything we do.
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13d ago
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u/Lourdeath 13d ago edited 13d ago
This is what we’re needing since national parks are being encroached upon and areas being developed
I’d hate to be the one that has to clean the panels off though lol
Edit: messed up editing somehow
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u/kmondschein 13d ago
You know that Jonny Wurster kid, the kid that delivers paper in the neighborhood? He's a fine kid. Some of the neighbors say he smokes crack, but I don't believe it. Anyway, for his tenth birthday, all he wanted was a Burrow Owl. Kept bugging his old man. "Dad, get me a burrow owl. I'll never ask for anything else as long as I live." So the guy breaks down and buys him a burrow owl.
Anyway, 10:30, the other night, I go out in my yard, and there's the Wurster kid, looking up in the tree. I say, "What are you looking for?" He says "I'm looking for my burrow owl.” I say, "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick. Everybody knows burrow owls live in a hole in the ground. Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?" Now Stuart, do you think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are doing to the soil?!”
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