The Environmental Monolith Myth
Maybe the environmental community has a bias toward only new solar and wind generation to expand our resource fleet, that doesn't make it any easier to site a new plant. Sometimes, renewable energy developers can't even get past their climate issues allies to build green generation. But I'm not trying to be coy. Nowhere is this more evident than in California, which is struggling with the most ambitious renewable energy mandates along with strict environmental requirements. But there seems to be real progress in California, with the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System, 200 miles from Los Angeles.
Oakland-based BrightSource Energy Inc. last week submitted a revised plan to the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to avoid some endangered tortoise habitat in the Mojave Desert. As the first large-scale solar plant on BLM lands, there's precedent-setting value for however the review shakes out.
Steve DeYoung, Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety for BrightSource Energy. "Our technology has always led the industry in significantly reducing water use and minimizing impact on habitat and the land. With this proposed alternative design, we are further avoiding the habitat of rare plants and other species, and setting another great precedent for projects that follow."
BrightSource would reduce the overall plant footprint by 12 percent, eliminating areas identified during reviews as the most sensitive, and cut its generation capacity from 440 megawatts to 392 megawatts. Tortoise relocations would be reduced by 15 percent.
According to press reports, the Sierra Club would still like to see the project smaller, but at least the reduced footprint wasn't rejected out of hand. That could still happen as the review enters its final phase before state and federal officials, and the project could be shrunk even more to impair its economics, but those are questions for a later date.
And while I'll poke fun at the NIMBYs on Cape Cod, especially those who discovered "environmentalism" after having made their fortunes in shoddy natural resource extraction, I'll acknowledge there are legitimate environmental concerns to address. At least in California the discussion seems to have moved beyond the all-or-nothing outcome that is often expected in these disputes.
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