Category: Solar

  • “Drill baby drill” isn’t an energy policy, it’s more cultural resentment

    “Energy independence” has been the Republican energy policy since 1974- Americans have a bad case of Alzheimer’s when it come to knowledge or remembrance of energy policy.  Politicians usually give them a couple shots of rhetorical whiskey to make their memory even worse.  This is my effort to help folks remember. Gasoline prices spiked in the United States for the first…

  • Developing the Carrizo Plain

    Another Solar Development, Another Lost Landscape ? Chris Clarke gives a remarkable account of another landscape that has found its way into the cross-hairs of Solar Developers and Big Green, and of the locals’ abiding love for the land: Solar Energy Development in the Carrizo Plain Draws Lawsuits – KCET – The Back Forty It’s…

  • Are solar companies learning it’s smart to get along with conservationists?

    Some current cooperation with the Sierra Club suggests so- Solar  companies need to do offsets to reduce harms, and hopefully at times they can improve wildlife habitat. Here is a recent hopeful story.  Solar companies learn to play nice with environmentalists. By Ucilia Wang. Gigaom.

  • Solar energy exec tells Congress: BLM, Fish & Wildlife a hindrance

    Centralized corporate solar energy is green? not a chance! Story on testimony by Frank de Rosa, First Solar executive. Arizona Daily Star. This guy sounds just like an oil company executive with his complaints that they can’t just bulldoze wildlife and vegetation on our public lands. We need to kill this kind of solar energy…

  • Why Big Solar is a Colossally Bad Idea

    Ten reasons why decentralized solar is much better- And this is article does not even mention the negative effects of big solar on wildlife. Meanwhile, however, GE and others secure largest thermal solar project. Clean Technica

  • Renewable Energy Industry CEO looks to the future

    Suggests government policy/subsidies – not free market – give wildlife conflicting, utility-scale projects an edge over distributed generation NRG Energy CEO David Crane, lead investor in the controversial Ivanpah Solar Thermal Energy Project, discusses why giant utility-scale renewable energy projects are economically viable and what the future might look like for renewables with a reduction…

  • Ivanpah solar project would disturb thousands of desert tortoises

    The Ivanpah solar thermal project consists of 5.4 square miles of high quality habitat for the Endangered Species Act protected desert tortoise, a fact that developers (and some investors) underestimated resulting in the temporary suspension of activities on phases 2 and 3 of the project site due to construction activities exceeding the incidental take limit…

  • BLM halts some construction at Ivanpah Power Plant

    Threshold Number of ESA Protected Desert Tortoise Killed In Construction of Solar Thermal Plant We just received notice that the BLM has suspended construction of some of the the Ivanpah Solar Thermal Power Plant due to the project reaching its upper limit number of tortoise killed for the Biological Opinion and incidental take limits established…

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