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This is Not Disturbed Land

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Recent press articles suggest the energy industry continues its efforts to define the ecological viability of desert habitat in a way that gives it wide latitude to build in some of the most remote corners of the American southwest.   First, the Bechtel corporation told SCPR reporter Caitlin Esch that it should be allowed to bulldoze over 3.4 square miles of desert to build its Soda Mountain Solar project next to the Mojave National Preserve because “[t]here are distribution lines, phone lines, petroleum pipelines, a cell phone tower, a mine, off-highway vehicle recreation area, it’s also permitted for high speed rail."  Apparently some phone lines, buried pipelines, and a cell phone tower in a valley means the rest of the intact habitat is not worth saving.  In other words, Bechtel should be allowed to disturb as much as 2,800 football fields worth of land because some telephone lines already exist in the valley.   The project will also pump over 62.5 million gallons during c

BrightSource Makes Weak Case for Palen Solar Project

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BrightSource Energy filed a relatively weak argument for why the California Energy Commission (CEC) should reconsider its opinion of the Palen Solar project in the Colorado Desert region of southern California.  A Presiding Member Proposed Decision in December recommended that the full Commission reject the project primarily because of the impacts on wildlife, but BrightSource requested more time so that it could make a stronger case that its project would not be a problem for wildlife. The data submitted by BrightSource suggests its design is likely more harmful to birds than other types of technology, and that if the Palen project is built it would add significantly to the cumulative impact on birds in the Chuckwalla Valley region and pose new dangers.    The data submitted by BrightSource compares bird mortality at its Ivanpah Solar project - located further north near Las Vegas - to the Genesis and Desert Sunlight Solar projects in the Chuckwalla Valley area.  In the few months t

Can Ivanpah Be Saved?

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The Department of Interior issued a Record of Decision this week approving two more massive solar projects in the Ivanpah Valley.  With this approval, First Solar could begin construction of the Silver State South and Stateline Solar projects as soon as this spring, even though the Fish and Wildlife Service has expressed concern that the projects could destroy a key habitat linkage for the imperiled desert tortoise.  Conservation groups have asked Interior and First Solar to consider alternative locations for the project, and Defenders of Wildlife in November warned that it may challenge Interior's review of the projects under the Endangered Species Act. This photo was taken from Metamorphic Hill, looking over the desert habitat that will be destroyed to build the Stateline Solar project.  Further in the distance beyond the dry lake bed, First Solar would bulldoze another swath of intact desert to build the Silver State South Solar project. There is no good reason why the

Desert Conservation Languishes As Industrial Uses Expand

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As the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues to facilitate the march of industry into relatively remote corners of America's desert wildlands, efforts to set aside these natural treasures are slow going as Congress has been jammed up by partisan squabbling, and the President has been shy about using his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate monuments.   Waiting for conservation by executive or legislative action may seem worthwhile when you consider that those protections will be more permanent, but what seems to be most lacking in our deserts is proactive conservation through the land management process administered by the BLM; other than islands of critical habitat designated for some endangered species, land use management plans seem to do little to prevent industrial-scale development on land considered to hold important wildlife, scenic and recreation values. New Mexico Gets a Monument, and May Get A Second This Year Despite the President's overall reluc

Destructive Ivanpah Solar Project To Finally Start Operations

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Government officials and executives are expected to flip the switch on the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System on February 13, over three years after BrightSource Energy and its lead investor, NRG, began bulldozing pristine desert to build the project.   During the 3+ years it took these companies to replace over 5.6 square miles of intact ecosystem to build 377 megawatts of solar capacity, Californians have added at least twice as much solar capacity with panels installed on rooftops or over parking lots , and even more capacity has been added with utility-scale projects built on already-disturbed lands. Years of public relations efforts by NRG and BrightSource have not changed the fact that the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the eastern Mojave Desert arguably represents one of the most destructive renewable energy projects permitted on public lands by the Obama administration.  The Ivanpah Solar project is to the Mojave what oil drilling would be to the Arctic N

Will Utility Companies Charge You For Being Efficient?

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Will utility companies charge me extra because I cut my energy usage through efficiency improvements at home?  Utility companies across the country are proposing new fees for people who find a way to reduce their dependence on a dirty and destructive energy grid by operating rooftop solar systems.  The core of the utility companies' argument is that these homes and businesses with rooftop solar cut the amount of energy they need from the grid, and thus they reduce the amount they pay for the operation and maintenance of transmission lines and substations that bring them energy from far away places.  There seems to be two major problems with utility company logic.  First, what will stop them from charging me for reducing my use of the grid through energy efficiency improvements?  How do they distinguish between people who install rooftop solar panels, and people who replace appliances and light bulbs to cut electricity usage?  And second, what choice do I have when the utility co

Keystone XL Clears Environmental Hurdle, but Outcome Far From Certain

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The Department of State today issued the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would deliver up to 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Canada to Nebraska, linking to an existing pipeline that would then make the oil accessible to ports in the Gulf of Mexico.  An initial read of the EIS suggests State is laying the groundwork for the Obama administration to approve the pipeline because the document assesses that the pipeline would not have a significant impact on the climate.  Although we have seen this plenty of times before - an EIS downplays the impacts of a project and signals impending approval - the outcome is far from certain in the case of the Keystone XL pipeline. An illustration from the EIS that looks like it belongs in a children's book shows the process for ripping up the miles of prairie and badlands to lay the Keystone XL pipeline. The President claimed in his June 2013 climate speech that he would evaluate wheth