CONFLICT OF NEW ENERGY, ENVIRO INTERESTS

Environmentalists in a Clash of Goals
Felicity Barringer, march 23, 2009 (NY Times)

SUMMARY
Environmentalists are split on whether undeveloped Western lands should be opened up to New Energy. Some are helping developers identify sites for wind, solar and geothermal projects. Others are resisting.

The Obama Interior Department is streamlining the project permitting process and pushing legislation that will fast track the building of a massive new transmission system.

Secretary of the Interior Salazar is working out a compromise plan.

The conflict is between the impact of global climate change on the entire earth and the impact of individual New Energy projects on precious places.

Perhaps the first such contemporary fight, now nearing resolution, was over the Cape Wind offshore installation near Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound.

The Great American Desert must make way for some great sun. (click to enlarge)

A current focus of the fight is the Mojave Desert in California where solar power plant builders want to build and environmentalists are trying to preserve the desert.

The original such fight was over the dam built in Hetch Hetchy Valley near Yosemite National Park. The most notorious might be the fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge between environmentalists and oil drillers.

Presently, environmentalists in the Wildlands Conservancy and Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) want to put 960 square miles of federal land perfect for solar power plant development in California’s Mojave Desert from Joshua Tree National Park to the National Park Service’s Mojave Preserve (including the Sleeping Beauty Mountains) off limits. Senator Feinstein has proposed the land be made a national monument to protect it.

The matter is urgent in California where a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requires the state’s utilities to obtain 20% of their power from New Energy sources by 2020.

Decisions do not come easy and feelings are raw but participants say they are learning how and where to draw the lines.

The current point of contention is Green Path North, a new Mojave desert transmission system traversing National Parks, Wilderness Preserves and the Twenty Nine Palms Marine Corps reservation.

The Great Plains must make way for a great wind. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
The false choice between secure environment and New Energy is typified by the findings of environmental impact study (EIS) on Cape Wind. While interested parties claimed the installation would be extremely destructive, the EIS found minimal harm would be done.

Also typical of the false choice is the way a Sierra Club member dismisses a Mojave Desert solar power plant as despoiling desert for heating city swimming pools. Cities need power. No amount of Luddite denial will change that. The power must and will come either from New Energy or dirty energy that will ruin not just 1 desert but all deserts.

The legendary West must make way for a geothermal west. (click to enlarge)

The debate goes back to the root dichotomy: Conservation or preservation?

Deeply committed veterans of the environmental movement have chosen to conserve earth at the expense of preserving every wild thing.

Environmentalists are pushing for greater emphasis on efficiencies, rooftop solar, distributed generation and other measures that need less from the landscape. New Energy advocates are making some headway in gaining concessions to generate on a larger scale.

Wind threatens avian habitat, too, but not like mountaintop removal coal mining. Narrow concerns sometimes must give way to bigger responsibiliites. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- David Myers, head, the Wildlands Conservancy: “How can you say you’re going to blade off hundreds of thousands of acres of earth to preserve the Earth?”
- Terry Frewin, representative, the Sierra Club: “Deserts don’t need to be sacrificed so that people in L.A. can keep heating their swimming pools…”
- Carl Zichella, New Energy authority, the Sierra Club: “It’s not enough to say no to things anymore…We have to say yes to the right thing.”

click to enlarge

- Johanna Wald, lawyer/veteran ecowarrior, the Natural Resources Defense Council: “We have to accept our responsibility that something that we have been advocating for decades is about to happen…My job is to make sure that it happens in an environmentally responsible way.”
- Senator Feinstein (D-Calif): “I’m a strong supporter of renewable energy and clean technology, but it is critical that these projects are built on suitable lands…”
- Jim Harvey, Association for a Responsible Energy Policy: “We’re environmentalists…These people, who are supposed to be sitting next to us, are sitting across from us.”
- Pam Eaton, deputy vice president, the Wilderness Society: “We are learning and understanding the trade-offs between things, and they are hard…You’ve got the short-term impact of a project versus a long-term problem, which is climate change…”
- Carl Pope, executive director, the Sierra Club: “What you have to do is show that you’ve done the best job you can.”