Solar energy firm (BrightSource) drops plan for project in Mojave Desert (Broadwell Dry Lake)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-solar18-2009sep18,0,1844073.story

Solar energy firm drops plan for project in Mojave Desert

BrightSource Energy's decision ends a battle with environmentalists over a 5,130-acre site in a proposed national monument.

By Louis Sahagun

September 18, 2009

Ending a bitter feud in the rush to develop solar farms, BrightSource Energy Inc. on Thursday said it had scrapped a controversial plan to build a renewable energy facility in the eastern Mojave Desert wilderness that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wants to transform into a national monument.

The proposal pitted companies queuing up to replace imported oil and facilitate a national clean-energy economy against environmentalists strongly opposed to the idea of creating an industrial zone within 600,000 acres of former railroad lands that had been donated to the Department of Interior for conservation.

The acrimony even triggered a nasty public squabble between Robert Kennedy Jr., a senior advisor at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which raised $160 million for Oakland-based BrightSource, and David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which raised $40 million to buy the old railroad lands to protect them from development.

"I commend BrightSource Energy for this action," Feinstein said in a statement. "It's clear that conservation and renewable energy development are not mutually exclusive goals -- there is room enough in the California desert for both."

…

[phantom power]

1. Looks like they are continuing plans to build in Ivanpah Valley

[NNadir]

2. In general, journalists writing about energy are insufferably stupid, but this one is one of the

worst.

Replace imported oil?

Does the reporter actually believe that all those electric cars they've been talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking about in California actually exist?

I would like to note though, that we could have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of "renewable" energy by placing a dam on the Western opening of the Grand Canyon, sort of like all that renewable energy we got from filling Glen Canyon with silt.

[madville]

3. i'm sure many Democrats are torn between the two sides

Many lobby for renewable energy and many also lobby for the environment. Kennedy was opposed to wid farms off MA and now Feinstein opposed a solar farm in CA. Not only does it keep their states dependent on oil, coal and nuclear power, it pushes away much needed jobs in those areas.

Many talk a good game until it's in their backyard I guess.