According to his website, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System consist of more than 300,000 mirrors directing the sun's energy toward three towers generating 377 MW of electricity, clean solar power, enough to power 140,000 California homes, U.S. This brief video provides some quick facts and images from this iconic infrastructure project.
Not everyone thinks the solar plant represents a brighter future. Environmentalists warn that the construction threatens the desert ecosystem, while the heated plumes of air from the towers could singe migrating birds. Other opponents argued that plants like Ivanpah could be constructed, for example, on land previously stressed by agriculture. Or that it's sprawling over the home of the desert tortoise, a threatened species, and "marring" a relatively untouched landscape.
