The timing no doubt was coincidence, but while Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was celebrating the country's largest solar project in California, two U.S. senators were introducing legislation to protect desert landscapes in the state.
The irony wasn't lost on the National Parks Conservation Association, which has questioned the location of the solar farm.
“There is a lot of celebrating today in the California desert. Senator Feinstein released the California Desert Conservation and Recreation Act and Sally Jewell flipped the on-switch at Desert Sunlight Solar plant. The confluence of these events highlights the important work that remains to be done in the California desert," said David Lamfrom, NPCA's California Desert associate director. "That includes permanently protecting some of the most beautiful and vibrant lands in America and the continued need to do a better job of siting renewable energy away from species-rich lands. Considering how important our national parks and protected lands are to our desert economy, finding this balance now is fundamental.”
Earlier Monday, the Interior secretary and the director of the Bureau of Land Management Neil Kornze joined California state and industry leaders to “flip the switch” on the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. Now operating at full capacity, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is providing 550 megawatts of electricity to the grid, enough energy to power 160,000 average homes. The facility is estimated to displace 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year – the equivalent to taking 60,000 cars off the road.
“Solar projects like Desert Sunlight are helping to create American jobs, develop domestic renewable energy and cut carbon pollution,” said Secretary Jewell. “I applaud the project proponents for their vision and entrepreneurial spirit to build this solar project and commend Governor Brown for implementing policies that take action on climate change and help move our nation toward a renewable energy future.”
Desert Sunlight is the sixth solar project approved on public lands that is now operational. Together with wind, solar and geothermal, the renewable energy projects built on public lands since 2009 are producing over 2,200 megawatts of power, or enough to power almost 700,000 average homes. An additional 2,500 megawatts is currently under construction, including eight solar projects in California and Nevada.
Desert Sunlight is located on about 4,100 acres managed by the BLM in Riverside County, about 70 miles east of Palm Springs and six miles north of the rural community of Desert Center. The facility uses more than eight million First Solar photovoltaic modules to generate power with no air emissions, no waste production and no water use. The thin film technology has the smallest carbon footprint of any photovoltaic technology. The renewable energy is sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison under long-term contracts.
As part of the Interior Department’s commitment to responsible development of renewable energy, the Desert Sunlight project underwent extensive environmental review and mitigation. The BLM worked in close coordination with Desert Sunlight, the National Park Service and other stakeholders to significantly reduce the proposed project’s total footprint down from the proposed 19,000 acres. The BLM is requiring that Desert Sunlight provide funding for acquisition and enhancement of more than 7,500 acres of suitable habitat for desert tortoise and other sensitive wildlife species to help mitigate the project’s potential impacts.
Also on Monday, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both California Democrats, introduced legislation that would expand by 75,000 acres the Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks.
“This piece of legislation is the final chapter in a long effort to preserve one of the most magnificent landscapes in the United States,” Sen. Feinstein said. “We must ensure that critical parts of the California desert—with its mountain vistas, bighorn sheep, mule deer, desert tortoises, Joshua trees, Native American petroglyphs and much more—will be protected for all time.”
Comments
Population growth may be an issue but there is nothing impossible about higher standards of living and prosperity for all. Thats a key difference between the left and right. The left wants to divide the pie, the right wants to grow it. Everyones' share won't be equal by everyones' share will be larger.
Wow! I didn't mean to start a battle, but that is what professors do. We ask everyone to THINK. Then think. Think of how complicit all of us are in the SYSTEM as it exists. We don't escape the system just by feel-good projects or by laying the blame on someone else. And we certainly won't escape it by laying waste to our public lands. Yes, a 50 acre wind farm is less of an eyesore than a 50-acre coal-fired plant. Only there are no 50-acre wind farms. They are all 10,000 acres plus. The one the judge just stopped near Searchlight, Nevada, plans to consume 18,000 acres. Duke Energy was the one proposing that.
Aren't the Koch brothers owners and/or investors in Duke Energy? They most certainly are in General Electric. And what about your pension fund? Or your IRA? Do you think you can esape the SYSTEM? Do you think you are not rubbing shoulders with the Koch brothers already? Or at least Warren Buffett? Believe me, most of us are in bed with them. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." We own what they own--the problem of too much growth. Only they know how to profit from it, and that includes "word magic" that makes us forget how much WE own.
That's the whole point of word magic--to make you stop thinking. Choose a word or phrase that sounds benign. Meanwhile, do you think your "team," whatever it is, is not trying to do the same? Don't blame the Koch brothers. Try Hillary Clinton, allegedly the next president of the United States. Do you think she will refuse a contribution from the Big Boys? If you believe that, you forgot that series of articles in the New York Times about Tyson's Foods when Bill ran for president. Why is Tyson's Foods in Arkansas? Well, read the New York Times.
We're all in it. We're all part of it. And none of us is going to escape, UNLESS we start THINKING rather than bubbling over with word magic ourselves. I avoid labels like the plague. I don't care who is Democrat or who is Republican. In my writing, I only report what people DO. A Republican started the National Park Service, and a Mormon Republican at that. Good people are on both sides of the isle, and lots of stinkers, too. How did we start tossing out the labels? Because the labelers don't want us to THINK. They want us to shortuct the issues--and the problems. Make it sound benign and the people will believe us. Just say that our Big Stink is "green."
Yes, there are good people pursuing these issues and technologies. But I don't see them on our public lands. I see another Big Stink sold as progress. Well, if a 40-story turbine is progress for a pidding three megawatts of power--and I need 100 of those monsters to make the progress work--I'll pass for now, thank you. Did you know that the base of every one of those towers is a concrete block the size of a house? How much CO2 did making the concrete generate? Ah, but the Wizard of Oz isn't telling you that. Don't look behind the green curtain. After all, it is green!
I'm ready for what is really green--controlling our population. Oops! Can't go there! Can't say that! Why indeed? Who is saying the loudest that population is no longer the problem? Might that be your "team," perhaps? How much more pleasant it is to say there is a "Green Revolution" that will feed all of the hungry for centuries to come. So, if all us would just put solar panels on our rooftops, paradise would be here. It sounds wonderful, and I do want to believe it. I really, really do. It's just that my mother taught me never to look behind the curtain. The solution was above my shoulders all along.
I guess EC is right. Believe what you would like to believe and you will have a happier life. We all end up in the same place regardless.
Must be pretty depressing to not believe you can improve your standing in life. I can guarantee, you won't improve your standing if you don't believe - or rely on someone else to provide for you.
Much truth here Roger, but it is challenging to participate in the discussions, informative also. It is interesting to read the debates over neo-liberal economic policies, that is by deregulating all business activities and eliminating the "evil" governmental oversight, not to mention the privatization of all public assets, a "true" free market will prevail and all will prosper, an economic utopia so to speak. Depending on were you sit in the economic pecking order, there are many who are finding that this is not the case. I think Alfred Runte has a point, population increase and all the demands it creates, is an issue, how to address it remains to be seen. The Sierra Club has an interesting position on population, "every child a wanted child", that would be a great start, but try to say even that, and see how far you get in the debate over the reproductive health choices of women. Thanks Roger, it can be discouraging at times.
Some interesting comments here on solar panels in cloudy areas or on cloudy days. Less efficient, but the annual light is more important than the occasional cloudy day.
Now you are engaging in Lee's tactics. Who is advocating "deregulating all business activities"? Who is call for the "elmination of government oversight"? Who is calling for "the privatization of all public assets"? Noone I know.
Unless it is that cloudy day.
Solar starts out as a more expensive way to generate electricity. Add to that the need for a back-up system (BTW Lee that's what your "premium" is paying for) and the cost skyrockets.