A solar-powered generating plant in California emits enough CO₂ (46,000 ton per year) that it will be required to participate in the state’s cap and trade program. Investors.com reports that the plant which uses mirrors to focus sunlight on boilers atop three towers uses natural gas.

First, it burns natural gas to pre-heat the water at the top of the three towers before the sun comes up. Then, …  it “has auxiliary gas boilers that kick in whenever cloud cover blocks the sun.”
Ivanpah also has a nasty habit of cooking birds that happen to fly too close to the towers — 3,500 of them in its first year …
Somehow these bird deaths don’t seem to upset environmentalists very much.

Read the whole thing.