NEW ENERGY FINDING ITS PLACE

Green Civil War: Projects vs. Preservation
January 12, 2009 (NY Times)

"Environmentalists are more openly at odds over two goals: the preservation of wide open spaces vs. the use of public lands for renewable energy projects."

"The boosters of renewable energy development won a victory…when the Bureau of Land Management announced that 31 proposed projects have been put on the fast track for approval…But there are battlegrounds like the Mojave Desert in California , where several solar and wind farm proposals were stalled by legislation introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein to protect a million acres that had earlier been set aside for preservation…And after conservationists protested a German solar developer’s water-intensive project in the Amargosa Valley in Nevada, the company substituted a far more expensive design requiring less water."

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"In some undeveloped places — like Indian reservations — the megaprojects are seen as attractive: tribes benefit economically, and a wind farm, no matter how much land it requires, might be seen as preferable to a coal plant. But on public lands, how does the federal government balance protection of natural resources with the Obama administration’s goal of promoting renewable energy?"

[Randy Udall, energy analyst:] "Are there conflicts between large-scale renewable energy development and land preservation? Sure — but let’s keep things in perspective…You can’t develop carbon-free power sources without affecting the land…When it comes to energy, Americans are spoiled. We insist on consuming our body weight in petroleum each week, but god forbid we see an oil well. Over the last half century, our energy appetites have been supersized. Today, a typical American consumes as much energy as a 66,000 pound primate would, as much energy each day as is found in a lightning bolt...There are 300 million of us in the oil tribe, so it’s not surprising that Western watersheds are dammed for hydropower and Appalachian mountaintops are scalped for coal…"

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[Daniel Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy, University of California, Berkeley, and founding director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory:] "Recent attention to two “conflicts” over renewable energy projects in desert areas — ostensibly between environmentalists seeking conservation of desert areas and other environmentalists seeking the development of clean energy resources (solar and wind power) — is both avoidable, and largely unnecessary…Aggressive conservation is not enough. We need a new energy grid…The reason for this “conflict” is that we have suddenly discovered the need and the opportunity for large increases in low-carbon energy are both not as simple as tiling rooftops with solar, and putting wind energy farms in out-of-sight, out-of-mind locations…Indeed, the need for water for energy projects (already a significant problem and environmental impact of coal, oil, gas and nuclear power plants today), and the impacts on biodiversity, our “viewscape” (for both new energy projects and for power lines), pose challenges that require thought and planning to minimize or to avoid…"

[Click thru to read these statements in their complete form as well as the opinions of Vclav Smil, David Roberts, Ileene Anderson, and Winona LaDuke]