The local governments should be able to shut down and evict these installations if they decide they don't approve of the environmental impacts?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11275600

isn't that project on Native American land?

Instead of building these, we could all move to Canada as the U.S. becomes a desert wasteland.

has been set aside for solar.

If it was that much forest, or tundra, or grassland being lost, then would you have a problem with it?

You ooh and aah over changes in arctic sea ice,
but you seem to think the desert is just staying the same.
It's not.

We've already got the drought in the Southwest. Now these projects are breaking up the cryptobiotic soils.

Maybe these projects are a good second step, but right now this smacks more of corporatism than environmentalism.

If CO2 levels continue to rise there will be nothing left alive in the current deserts because they will become dust bowls where nothing can survive, nor the thousands of square miles of expanded dust bowl in America's southwest.

Let's play with some numbers:

If 6 square miles of desert is enough to power 140,000 homes during peak hours, then each square mile can power about 23,300 homes. (Annoyingly, the article doesn't say whether "peak hours" means peak generation for the plant, or peak use for the state. But whatever.)

If there are 12,392,852 households in California, then it will take about 532 square miles of land to power all the homes in the state. (Let's ignore businesses and charging cars for right now.)

These are the 20 largest cities in California by land area:

The city of LA has an area of 469 square miles.
The city of San Diego has an area of 325 square miles.
San Jose has an area of 177 square miles.
Bakersfield has an area of 142 square miles.
The city of Fresno has an area of 112 square miles.
Palmdale has an area of 106 square miles.
The city of Sacramento has an area of 98 square miles.
Lancaster has an area of 94 square miles.
Palm Springs has an area of 94 square miles.
Riverside has an area of 81 square miles.
Fremont has an area of 77 square miles.
Apple Valley, Victorville, and Hesperia both have areas of 73 square miles.
Irvine has an area of 66 square miles.
Stockton has an area of 62 square miles.
Redding has an area of 60 square miles.
Oakland has an area of 56 square miles.
Thousand Oaks has a land area of 55 square miles.
Santa Clarita has a land area of 53 square miles.

These 20 cities have a total land area of 2,346 square miles.

Even if only 1/10th of the land area in these cities is suitable for solar, that's almost half of what we need.

In addition to the land available in cities, there are about 312 square miles on the west side of the San Joaquin valley that are no longer suitable for growing crops. This area is very sunny, and it would be perfect for solar farms.

In summary, I think we should exhaust all our other options before we develop wild areas. The only reason these wild areas are first on the chopping block is that land is cheap there and investors can make a quick buck.

That is the kind of myopic thinking that drives me mad. Can I bring my bulldozer and crew to your house and bulldoze that as well while we're at it? We'll put up a few solar panels whose total output might be enough to save 1 turtle. Surely if you care so much about not disturbing these precious desert creatures you should be first to volunteer YOUR home to the wrecking crew. It's funny how I've never heard you make such a pledge/suggestion.

Edit to add: All it would take is 1/10,000th of the desert to power the entire nation. Hyperbolic accusations do nothing to further your cause.

Really, the only option is bulldozing homes or destroying wild spaces.

But solar panels mounted over parking lots, roads, highways, and freeways sounds good to me.

City rooftops represent such a tiny fraction of the energy used in each of those buildings that wasting it with solar panels is not the right answer. Reducing the building's energy use by installing a green roof, however, would do much more to minimize the number of solar farms we will need.

There's too little water to grow plants without irrigation, and often too much wind to keep soil in one place.

San Francisco's cool and damp enough to make it work, but putting extra weight on roofs in a city with older housing stock and dodgy soils in a fault zone would cause more problems than it solved, or at least require expensive modification. But it's also the least solar-friendly site mentioned, and the least prone to heat islands for the same reason.

Nice.

These close-up views may be tested as acceptable sites for solar power plants but they represent but a pin prick compared to the scale of solar thermal plus solar PV that we need in order to power America. I doubt they'll exceed the benefits to having solar power plants out in the sunniest parts of the desert: humans generally don't want to inhabit the areas that are best for solar power generation, we like a milder climate and we like to drink water (very little of which is out in the middle of the Mojave or most of the other sites proposed as GigaWatt-sized solar power stations.

City % Sunshine
Yuma, Arizona 90
Redding California 88
Phoenix, Arizona 85
Tucson, Arizona 85
Las Vegas, Nevada 85
El Paso, Texas 84
Fresno, California 79
Reno, Nevada 79
Flagstaff, Arizona 78
Sacramento, California 78
Pueblo, Colorado 76
Key West, Florida 76
Albuquerque, New Mexico 76

Also, what's the transmission loss between Barstow and Oakland?

as you wish to do.

Honestly, your argument is so ludicrous on its face that I have to chuckle every time you attempt to defend it. Bringing the wrecking crew to raze Phoenix just so your little postage stamp of desert doesn't get its view changed? Deal with it.

And how much solar energy will those industrial parts be generating on the 15th day of overcast with another 60 days of overcast projected?

Most of those abandoned industrial sites are in the Blue States which don't get good year round sunshine. Seriously, why would you build a railroad over quicksand when you could relocate it to run over solid stable granite? The perfect places to get the energy from the sun just happen to be the desert areas of California, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and a huge area of Utah. Why put solar where it will give you 50% of its benefit when you can get 93% of its benefit by locating it where it will generate the most power? PS, 93% takes into account transmission losses from HVAC lines and does not factor in the decreased transmission losses of HVDC transmission lines.

Edit to add: Sorry Arizona, didn't mean to leave you out: you are a vital part of our solar future.

Not all square miles have the same solar potential.


However, your point is valid. A lot can be done in cities.

If Redding is 3% less efficient, but 3% is lost on the way up here, then is that a wash? I really don't know.

...into urban areas. I think we're seeing a World War II style siege approach to energy policy rather than something more creative.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/01/10/207320/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

By Joe Romm on Jan 10, 2011 at 4:32 pm

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>

This is what the entire planet must achieve:
1 wedge of albedo change through white roofs and pavement (aka “soft geoengineering) “” see “Geoengineering, adaptation and mitigation, Part 2: White roofs are the trillion-dollar solution“
1 wedge of vehicle efficiency “” all cars 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
1 of wind for power “” one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines
1 of wind for vehicles -another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
3 of concentrated solar thermal (aka solar baseload)- ~5000 GW peak.
3 of efficiency “” one each for buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 15 to 20 million GW-hrs. A key strategy for reducing direct fossil fuel use for heating buildings (while also reducing air conditioning energy) is geothermal heat pumps.
1 of solar photovoltaics “” 2000 GW peak
1 wedge of nuclear power – 700 GW
2 of forestry “” End all tropical deforestation. Plant new trees over an area the size of the continental U.S.
1 wedge of WWII-style conservation, post-2030 [this could well include dietary changes]

Here are additional wedges that require some major advances in applied research to be practical and scalable, but are considered plausible by serious analysts, especially post-2030:
1 of geothermal plus ocean-based renewables (i.e. tidal, wave, and/or ocean thermal)
1 of coal with biomass cofiring plus carbon capture and storage “” 400 GW of coal plus 200 GW biomass with CCS
1/2 to 1 wedge of cellulosic biofuels for long-distance transport and what little aviation remains in 2050 “” using 8% of the world’s cropland [or less land if yields significantly increase or algae-to-biofuels proves commercial at large scale].
1 of soils and/or biochar- Apply improved agricultural practices to all existing croplands and/or “charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass.” Both are controversial today, but may prove scalable strategies.

That should do the trick. And yes, the scale is staggering.

<snip>

The interstate freeway system is such on such a scale that it may have seemed daunting. But we started with a well thought out plan and corrected our mistakes along the way until we completed it.

The wedges described in your quote may seem like too much work but that is why we need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, stop giving tax breaks to companies who move factories to countries with the weakest environmental laws, stop thinking small and get to work. It's doable.

Thank you for posting this.

Large scale generation like this is as essential as increasing the efficiency requirements of new electronics sold today.

We have the area for VERY large-scale generation, all without raping virgin land.

I'm for an all of the above approach, and I agree that it can be done without "raping virgin land."

If we can build it on land already used for something, by all means.

You can not save the Earth by destroying part of it.
The problem is too many people for the Earth to reasonable support. This construction project is nothing more than diddling with he symptoms once again.

I hope they go bankrupt quick before too many more get built.

...the "people are evil and should all kill themselves" misanthropists that call themselves "enviromentalists" turn against it. Why? Because they don't really WANT renewable energy, they want people to have no energy at all.

It's a fucking desert, jeez.

The deserts are huge, there is plenty of space for solar without disturbing the flora and fauna much.

... by mining, failed developments, highway and power line right-of-ways...

Heck, shrink a few desert cities. There's not enough water for them anyways.

Put these plants there.

It was depressing as hell to be out there and see ATV areas that were nothing but a few lone creosote bushes. Meanwhile, a healthy ecosystem is being bulldozed for these plants.

You definitely missed this:

The desert southwest is the best place to put solar power stations, it receives more sunshine than anywhere else in the nation. That is why the President has called for more massive solar projects in the desert regions of California, Nevada, New Mexico and for massive solar projects in Colorado and Utah. It makes sense to put solar power plants where they will get the most solar.

Learn about global warming effects on the desert southwest (see post #14). These desert areas are going to be dust bowls where nothing can survive, certainly not the current species that are barely eking out an existence as it is.

Save tiny little swaths of desert but doom the entire planet, including millions of species of ocean life. That sounds like folly to me.

If you give them more shade, many of them die. If you give them more water, many of them die.

They are as perfectly adapted to their ecosystem as grasses are to the great plains.

Such an event is happening as we speak. Can these species survive a century of dust bowl conditions? I think not. PS, global climate change also means more flooding as well as more severe and longer droughts. What will a decade of deluge followed by a decade of dust bowl drought do to those species?

Your post makes it seem that you believe the desert species will be okay if we just leave them alone. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They need these massive solar power plants just as much as we do, likewise the wind turbines everywhere it makes sense to put them and if anybody wants to buy solar for their roof then let them do so as well. We need all of the zero carbon energy sources we can get or even we are doomed as a species due to global climate change... and the delicate ecosystem of the desert will be one of its first victims.

I think most species are more resilient than we give them credit for.

that cactus and turtles can survive 300 years without a drop of water.

Perhaps what you mean is that there was a 300 year drought, everything died there, but after the drought ended life began to spread back into the affected area. That I would believe.

PS, global climate change will bring more severe droughts than have ever been seen, followed by monsoon rains in the desert that last a decade, followed by more decades of devastating drought. It's foolish to think that a delicate ecosystem will survive the hell that fossil fuels has unleashed.

and I didn't say it was in the desert. There are trees alive today that survived this drought.

http://www.pcas.org/Vol35N23/3523Boxt.pdf

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

1. The end of the ice age was a major climatic shift.

2. All the species at the time were massively affected by this shift.

3. Many species went extinct.

4. All the species alive today are descendants of animals, plants, and other species that were alive then.

5. All the species alive today have ancestors that survived a previous climate catastrophe.

6. There must be something in species we see today that seem to be confined to one habitat that enables them to withstand changes to their habitat.


Some species will go extinct due to climate change, but we've already driven a boatload of species to extinction through outright destruction of their habitat. Clearing a functioning ecosystem and building stuff on top of it constitutes outright destruction.

Global climate change is not going to take 10,000 years as did the onset of the last ice age. It won't take 1,000 years. It won't wait even 100 more years... IT'S HAPPENING NOW, and we are only at the bottom, the start of a hellish bell curve that will only get worse over our grandchildren's lifetimes (I guessed that you and I are of the same generation). That is not enough time for species to adapt (there may be a few exceptions to that rule, please don't bore me with exceptions as I won't respond).

Your statement "Clearing a functioning ecosystem and building stuff on top of it constitutes outright destruction" shows your ignorance of the vastness of the current deserts in the American South West. PS, global climate change is going to expand those deserts greatly. We'll have plenty of desert by the time this man-made royal cluster-f**k called fossil fuels is done with its damage to the environment. The President recently called for massive solar power plants in the deserts of California, Nevada, New Mexico and in the appropriate areas of Colorado and Utah. Since we only need 532 square miles of desert and those states constitute (as a SWAG) somewhere over 50,000 square miles the amount of "disturbed" desert is less than a percent. PS, the solar power plants will not be lined up in a row blocking the passage of wildlife (as an oil or natural gas pipeline would), nor will they be within physical contact with one another. They will be veritable dots on a map of those deserts. And the companies are taking great pains to relocate the species affected by the solar plant... have you ever heard of a coal power plant doing the same?

For a list of the (many) deserts in America, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_deserts

The onset of the last ice age was VERY rapid, like on the order of decades.

I am fully aware of how much desert we have and you don't have to be patronizing about it.

We only need 532 square miles for CALIFORNIA. The other states can deal with their own selves.

this is done to save people.

never forget that.

The earth will still be here long after we are gone.

We should build nuclear plants instead, because uranium mining has no environmental impacts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_Uranium_Mine


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossing

Seriously, a solar farm will not “destroy” the land. The land is still there under the solar farm.

Open pit uranium mining on the other hand…


Let’s put our thinking caps on for a moment…

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/newsreleases/nuclear-industry-opposes-administrations-mining-ban-in-southwestern-united-states

In case you missed it, Ivanpah are hooking up to the KRGT pipeline so they can keep the juice flowing - And fracking in Wyoming (where the pipeline is fed) is not without it's problems.

Or is fracking now OK if you paint it green?

Although, to be honest, I believe the fracking issue per se to be a distraction from the real problem.

The way I look at it, the primary concern is the production of “Unconventional” Natural Gas, which (according to Hansen et al.) is one of the things we should be avoiding.

From a personal standpoint, I recently drove through the rolling hills of Central PA, and was upset by the drilling I saw there. (I’d much rather have seen more wind turbines, thank you.)

Thank you for posting some sanity to counter the obvious lack from some posters.

and not trash any more open space in the name of progress.

let's build these giant facilities on top of old mines.

When built, it included a bowling alley. (Think about it…)

However, I wouldn’t worry too much about a solar farm. Some include the ability to actively follow the Sun (how much subsidence would it take to ruin that?)

Others are flexible, like this one:

http://domesticfuel.com/2011/09/15/ny-landfill-solar-project-completed/

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]NY Landfill Solar Project Completed[/font]

Posted by Joanna Schroeder – September 15th, 2011

[font size=3]Here is unique use of solar. Carlisle Energy Services (CES) has completed its Sepctro PowerCap Exposed Geomembrane Solar Cover system in Madison County, New York. This technology will “cover” the landfill for up to 30 years. The eight-acre demonstration system feature’s the GeoTPO Geomembrane with a south-facing 40kWp DC integrated solar photovoltaic array powered by Uni-Solar. The system is expected to offset almost all of the power requirements of the Madison County ARC Recycling Facility located on site.



The Madison County landfill is the first in the country to apply this technology in a closure project and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority provided a grant in an effort to showcase the technology to other landfill owners.

“Carlisle Energy Services is proud to have helped Madison County develop a sustainable landfill closure system that generates clean solar energy,” said Carlisle’s Director of Landfill Solutions Arthur Mohr Jr. “This project demonstrates the merits of our GeoTPO Geomembrane as a viable long-term closure system for landfill owners.”

…

“The photovoltaic landfill cover will play an integral role in Madison County’s growing renewable energy initiative, and we are proud to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of Carlisle’s unique landfill closure system,” added James Zecca, Madison County Solid Waste Department Director.[/font][/font]

I know it's probably $$$$$$$$$$, but it's a great use of the land area.

I wonder if the sheets could also be used for methane capture or some other integrated system?

Yes (check out the first project.)

... but was picturing the ""40 storey solar tower" of a concentrating plant
standing there, vertical mass on a small surface area above a questionably
braced network of shafts & levels ...

(I *do* like the approach of putting flexible/semi-flexible PV arrays over
the top of the membrane to capture methane from a landfill. That is truly
the best way to address a combination of problems.)

…you could use parabolic troughs, rather than a tower.
http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/

Although, towers built on soft earth can stand quite a while!

rather than subterranean workings.

Water percolating through the mining wastes could be collected at the bottom, pumped out, treated, and refined using a portion of the energy collected by solar power plants on top, yielding a further supply of whatever metals had been mined. Or else the mining wastes could be simply sealed up forever.

Once again in these threads I'm appalled by the people who see the desert as "useless" land, something to be exploited.

From Calvin & Hobbes: