The wrong sites for solar

[XemaSab]

In the name of greening America, the Obama administration is about to open up as much as 21.5 million acres of mostly undisturbed, fragile desert land for potential industrial-scale solar energy development. That means huge swaths of public land in the West could be developed, degraded and effectively privatized.

(snip)

What's fueling the demand for land? Battling climate change and a dismal economy with green jobs, the Obama administration is offering generous subsidies for Big Solar development. These subsidies include cash grants of up to 30% of the cost of a project and loan guarantees in the billions, and they accrue to familiar corporate interests: oil companies, utilities and Wall Street firms. For example, $1.37 billion is going to Bright Source — whose investors include BP, Chevron and Morgan Stanley — for three proposed plants in the Mojave Desert. BLM tops it off by offering lease rates based on artificially low land values.

Claims of reducing greenhouse gases undergird the project approvals. Yet research shows that carbon storage rates in the Mojave rival or exceed those of some forest and grassland ecosystems, so the harm of carbon released during construction could offset the promised benefits of the utility-scale solar developments.

On top of that, the estimated operational life of each project runs from 30 to 50 years, but environmental impacts to the land will be felt for centuries. Although to some they appear devoid of life, the deserts and their fragile soils are biologically rich, providing habitat for rare and protected plants and animals like the desert tortoise, the fringe-toed lizard and the Joshua tree. Even BLM concedes in its draft analysis that desert ecosystems could take up to 3,000 years to fully recover from the soil and vegetation disturbances associated with the industrial sites.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rosenberg-solar-20110518,0,1010788.story

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[XemaSab]

2. I'm not sure what you're saying

:shrug:

[kristopher]

3. I think it is pretty clear.

You make a mockery of environmental values.

[XemaSab]

4. Because I don't think we should turn the desert over to corporate interests?

:shrug:

[Confusious]

10. If I may?

It's because you had the gall to point out a downside of solar, and the temerity to post this and get in the way of the utopian renewable future. In comparison to our utopian renewable future, whats a huge swath desert? Whats Yellowstone park? I'll tell you: potential land to place solar cells on.

Fanaticism leads to turning the brain OFF, if you get my meaning.

[XemaSab]

13. .

:thumbsup:

[RedEarth]

5. Nor am I....

you merely posted an opinion piece from the LA Times.

[bananas]

9. A lot of people don't grasp the scale of what's needed to address global warming

Some people want to leave the deserts alone - that's impossible, we're already changing them through global warming.

http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/10/the-full-global-warming-solution-how-the-world-can-stabilize-at-350-to-450-ppm/

The full global warming solution: How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm
January 10, 2011

In this post I will lay out ‘the solution’ to global warming.

This post is an update of a 2008 analysis I revised in 2009. A report by the International Energy Agency came to almost exactly the same conclusion as I did, and has relatively similar wedges, so I view that as a vindication of this overall analysis.

<snip>

[Nihil]

14. No necessarily "alone" just not the first choice.

> Some people want to leave the deserts alone

There is a world of difference between "leave the deserts alone"
and "don't build on them first".

If there were no alternative sites then you would have a good point.
There are thousands (millions?) of alternative sites at present so
all the OP is saying is "use the others before destroying the desert".

:shrug:


Similarly:
> A lot of people don't grasp the scale of what's needed to address global warming

A lot of people don't grasp that "destroying the village to save it"
still isn't a viable strategy ...

[phantom power]

6. In what way is pointing out that solar installs impact desert ecosystems "mockery?"

[Confusious]

12. You're against our utopian renewable future too.

A TRUE supporter of renewables NEVER QUESTIONS!

:sarcasm:

[ljm2002]

7. I sure wish they would put the $$ into decentralized systems...

...I think those make more sense in the long run. But all of our current thinking, whether in corporations or government, tends towards centralized command and control systems.

Even on the Internet, they try and enforce a broadcast type model. I see the war on peer-to-peer as not as much about copyright, but more about control of communication channels.

[hunter]

8. You'd think they could find some old strip mines or something.

Or maybe we could put these solar plants along highways and railways.

Hell, build them over Las Vegas. They could use the shade.

Installing solar power plants on undisturbed desert is obscene, just another big "Fuck You" to the Mother Earth.

[Confusious]

11. You're against our utopian renewable future.

A TRUE supporter of renewables never QUESTIONS!

:sarcasm: