Evaluation of General Sources

As the story erupts about Ivanpah Solar Power Plant's supposed killing of birds that fly over, it is important to find out what information coming out is going to be false, and what information ends up being true. Digging through the sources will hopefully reveal this information.

Dietrich, Craig "Ivanpah Solar Power Facility" 10/27/13 via flickr. Public Domain License

"Ivanpah Solar Power Tower is Burning Birds"

• URL: Since this article is presented on a .org domain, this usually implies an organization, and in this case is the professional society for electrical engineers, IEEE. 

• Author: The author of this article is Morgan Peck, a freelance writer from NYC that writes technology articles for IEEE Spectrum, Scientific American, and various other publications. She has been writing for several years and publishes in a broad range of technological subjects from engineering to cryptocurrency.

• Last Updated: When the article first begins, there is a link to an updated article from November 2nd, 2015, showing that the controversy has been followed up until very recently with more accurate information coming out as time passes.

• Purpose: The main purpose of the article seems to be to inform the public about what is happening at Ivanpah, but it is written in a somewhat editorialized fashion. However, its information stays in line with other articles published at the same time.

• Graphics: The graphics in this article are used to show the reader what Ivanpah solar plant looks like, along with providing a look at one of the bird carcasses found on site to show how the solar flux affects something that flies through it.

• Position on Subject: Since the article seems to be somewhat critical of Ivanpah, it seems that parties other than the plant's owners would be the ones to profit.

• Links: This article links to various different sources including different news publications, the Ivanpah website, and even various reports from government agencies about the crisis.

"How Ivanpah is Reducing Glint and Glare From Heliostats"

• URL: The article is posted on a .com website, however CPS Today is a site strictly dedicated to publishing information about commercial solar power and how it is affecting different regions around the world.

• Author: Susan Kraemer pens the article, an author who deals extensively with renewable energy, writing for CSP Today, ClearTechnica, and Scientific American among others.

• Last Updated: This article was last updated on September 4th, 2014, which is one of the earliest articles about the crisis. While I hoped it would have been updated more recently, there are still many articles to use for this purpose.

• Purpose: While reading this article, it was apparent that the main purpose was to inform readers about the scientific facts backing the Ivanpah plant, rather than to form an opinion on the controversy itself.

• Graphics: The graphics in this article are used to show the reader what Ivanpah solar plant looks like, along with providing a look at one of the bird carcasses found on site to show how the solar flux affects something that flies through it.

• Position on Subject: It seems like the article is relatively non-biased, and focuses on the purely scientific aspect of the controversy, rather the media circus that soon surrounded it.

• Links: Unfortunately, the article does not link to any outside sources, however it does go into great detail about the points trying to be made, though it would be nice to see exactly where their information comes from.