Solar Thermal Installations in the Desert are Bad but Offshore Drilling is Acceptable?

 A recent article by National Public Radio (NPR) highlights  how politics, environmentalism and clean energy are not always on the same page. Solar Thermal and PV companies have been investigating how to utilize the Mojave desert’s vast solar resources for years and many have projects in the works to build generating facilities. These plans have all been put on hold recently, over concern for the environment of these desert areas. In support of  local environmentalists, California’s Senior Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced a bill to establish the Mojave Trails National Monument which would put a halt to  these plans for good.

John White is the director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a nonprofit that promotes renewable energy. He’s concerned that much of the Mojave is already off-limits for solar power.

“There’s 4.5 million acres [set aside] for the desert tortoise, there’s 3.5 million acres for the military reservations, there’s 1.5 million acres for state-protected species, and the monument will take another million acres off the table,” White says.

The Mojave is a big place. And White says there should be room for everybody, “But not if everybody sort of takes what’s theirs and leaves solar for last,” he says. “Right now we have more [land] available for off-road vehicle parks than we do for solar, and that’s crazy.”

Consider for a moment the type of new energy construction and related projects that the nation is allowing:

•  Increased drilling offshore in previously off limit areas. ( This doesn’t look like such a good idea with the news of 46,000 barrels of oil leaking into the ocean from the submerged oil rig wreck last week).
•  Open pit mining for coal, removing the tops of moutains and filling in low areas and streams.
•  Coal fly ash storage.
•  Shale and tar sands projects for the removal of oil with unconventional technologies. (OK so the tar sands are in Alberta Canada but most of the oil produced is sold to the US).
• Nuclear energy production without a plan or facility to store the spent ( but radioactive for 10′s of thousands of years) material.
• Increased production of corn for the ethanol industry.

I think that you need to look at the whole picture and decide what type of energy future we want to have. It seems that we are very quick to block the progress of clean energy projects such as solar PV and thermal and very reluctant to slow the progress of existing fossil fuels and unconventional removal techniques that are increasingly devastating to the environment.

 Read NPR’s “Renewable energy debate heats up in the Mojave”

Short URL: http://www.solarthermalmagazine.com/?p=1225

Posted by admin on Apr 27 2010. Filed under Articles, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry