Can We Transition to Renewable Energy Without Destroying More Desert?

Earlier this week I wrote about the renewable energy industry's complaints that desert conservation was slowing the deployment of utility-scale solar and wind projects. The newspaper article that gave these industry complaints a soapbox described renewable energy development on public lands as "slowed to a crawl." New projects proposals may have slowed down for economic reasons that were buried in the article, but public and private lands in our deserts have been significantly transformed over the past few years.
Industry lobbyists want us to assume that we cannot reach our goal of 100% renewable energy without destroying intact desert wildlands. Over the past few years we learned why this cannot be allowed, and why it is not true: 1.) Building large-scale wind and solar on wildlands comes at a great ecological cost. 2.) Renewable energy technology is flexible, and we can find places to capture energy from the wind and sun without destroying wildlands.
Renewable En…
Industry lobbyists want us to assume that we cannot reach our goal of 100% renewable energy without destroying intact desert wildlands. Over the past few years we learned why this cannot be allowed, and why it is not true: 1.) Building large-scale wind and solar on wildlands comes at a great ecological cost. 2.) Renewable energy technology is flexible, and we can find places to capture energy from the wind and sun without destroying wildlands.
Renewable En…