Tortoises Manhandled for Solar Splits Environmentalists

[phantom power]

It’s a 106-degree Fahrenheit day in the Mojave Desert. Heat devils dance off chocolate-hued Clark Mountain on the horizon. Air-conditioned cars zip along Interstate 15 toward Las Vegas. And inside a chain-link pen covered to keep out predators are scores of rare, threatened, sand-colored desert tortoises.

Their captivity helps show how complicated it is to combat climate change without collateral damage. The foot-long (30- centimeter) creatures are being removed from their burrows for a project to harvest solar energy in the California desert. Trucks groan down sunbaked roads, cranes pivot with 750-pound (340- kilogram) mirrors and mechanical post-pounders drive steel pylons into the packed desert floor, destroying their habitat.

...

Construction of such large-scale green-energy projects has splintered environmental groups. When concern over global warming was at a peak, national organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council threw their support behind industrial-scale wind and solar installations on public land. Now some smaller conservationist groups object to what they consider an environmentally destructive gold rush.

...

Including the Mojave project that is relocating desert tortoises, the Interior Department has accelerated construction approval for 26 large-scale solar plants on public lands since 2009, including nine that it cleared in August. The Obama administration has steered $9 billion in stimulus funds from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to 23,000 solar and large-scale wind installations, according to the Department of Energy.

Conservationist and Native American groups sued to halt five other Mojave solar projects. The organizations argue that federal and state authorities conducted inadequate environmental reviews and failed to consult with tribes on sacred sites. The Bureau of Land Management, the solar companies and the state deny the allegations.

Dozens more solar plants could arise across the American desert West. A July BLM plan allocates 285,000 public acres to 17 solar zones. An additional 19 million acres -- an area almost the size of West Virginia -- may be approved for solar projects. The goal is to produce 23,700 megawatts, enough to power 7 million homes, according to the BLM. Solar power now provides less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity, amounting to 5,700 megawatts, or enough for about 1 million households.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/tortoises-manhandled-for-solar-splits-environmentalists.html

[AverageJoe90]

1. We need more solar power. Period.

[limpyhobbler]

2. "green-energy projects has splintered environmental groups".... Sounds like corporate spin

from somebody rooting for environmental groups to be splintered. That old "divide and conquer" strategy again.

If anything, such challenges should only strengthen our commitment to work together for more solutions, like distributed energy production.

[phantom power]

3. well, to take this particular story as an example...

you have some environmentalists who think the tortoises are more important than the solar, and there's others who think the solar is more important than the tortoises. You could argue that the adjective "splintered" is too extreme. But it causes conflict among environmental groups, based on priorities.

[XemaSab]

4. You're new to E/E, aren't you?

[limpyhobbler]

5. ut oh....

I've been sporadic. Did I make a gaffe?

[XemaSab]

6. E/E has seen walls of flame 10,000 feet high

over this very issue.

[limpyhobbler]

7. Oh my.

I like turtles and solar panels. Can't they just get along? I'l try to tread a bit softly