Have We Been Fooled by Calico Solar?
This is the story of a solar power project that was approved by State and Federal Governments even though the energy company had no way of building it in the first place. The representatives of the taxpayer are now being asked to turn a blind eye, once again. Fool me once, shame on you.... Last fall the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Department of Interior approved Tessera Solar LLC's proposal to bulldoze 7 square-miles of public land for a solar power facility in the central Mojave Desert. Both Washington and Sacramento acknowledged the significant environmental damage the project would cause to the pristine desert habitat, but rushed to approve it so Tessera Solar could qualify for over a billion dollars in taxpayer-backed stimulus funding. The government approved the project on the basis that Tessera Solar would install thousands of SunCatcher dishes--an unproven and complicated piece of machinery. It turns out Tessera Solar may have misrepresented its abil