World's largest solar project prompts environmental debate

[XemaSab]

Panoche Valley is known mostly for cattle and barbed wire, a treeless landscape in eastern San Benito County that turns green every spring but for much of the year looks like rural Nevada.

A posse of lawmen gunned down the famous Gold Rush bandit Joaquin Murrieta, an inspiration for the fictional character Zorro, near here in 1853. Nothing that exciting has happened since.

But now the remote valley 25 miles south of Hollister is finding itself at the center of a new showdown. A Silicon Valley company is proposing to build here what would be the world's largest solar farm — 1.2 million solar panels spread across an area roughly the size of 3,500 football fields.

"This is renewable energy. It doesn't cause pollution, it doesn't use coal or foreign oil, and it emits no greenhouse gases," said Mike Peterson, CEO of Solargen Energy, the Cupertino company behind the $1.8 billion project.

http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_14050919?IADID&nclick_check=1

[tabatha]

1. To save the environment, they have to destroy the environment?

They should rather put solar near urban areas closer to the point of use.

[MineralMan]

2. Have you ever seen the Panoche Valley?

I have. Go look at it in Google Maps satellite view.

http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1C1CHNG_enUS339US339&sourceid=chrome&q=panoche%20valley,%20ca&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

[berni_mccoy]

3. Urban regions aren't always appropriate... the spot they are going for has

a near optimal amount of solar exposure for the entire day. That can't be said for all urban areas.

Furthermore, if the global good that results from this plant outweighs the local impact, than it should be done.

[MineralMan]

4. It's not an ecological paradise. It's pure desert.

Areas near large populated areas are always more ecologically sensitive than this place. Add to that the almost 365 day sunshine, and it's ideal for solar development. The stuff has to go somewhere. I can't imagine a place more well-suited for a large solar development. The impact on the environment will be minimal, and it might actually be beneficial for the very few people who live anywhere near there.

You can't have solar without space to put it and plenty of full sun days. The concerns are ridiculous, compared to the potential benefits.

[malakai2]

5. Since when does ecological paradise categorically exclude deserts?

?

[MineralMan]

6. They don't. This facility will have all the panels three feet

above the ground. They ain't paving everything. It will, at worst, provide some rare shade. Every critter in the area will head for it to cool off. And, if you put them all together, you could ship them all somewhere in a 2' cube box. Believe me.

As I said, if you haven't been to the Panoche Valley, I recommend a visit there before you make a judgment. I love the place, but most people would leave as quickly as possible. I've walked through the area for hours without seeing a living thing. Not even a plant. Now, on the rare occasion that it rains, some plants grow, bloom, then wilt in about a week. It's very pretty there while the flowers are blooming. The rest of the time? Not so much. There are a number of sites where you can collect mineral specimens, which is why I was there.

The impact there will be less than almost any other place I can think of. This thing will cover a very small percentage of the land in that valley. A very small percentage.

You either want solar or you do not. If you do not, then you do not want it anywhere. If you do want it, then the Panoche Valley is an excellent location. The benefits far outweigh the very minimal environmental impact it will have.

[Panoche farmer]

15. learn the facts

Perhaps some facts surrounding this project and Panoche Valley in general will help clear up the misconceptions you believe.

Solargen's proposed industrial solar factory conflicts with the San Benito Zoning Ordinance and the Willaimson Act, which most of the land on the valley floor that Solargen has under option on the valley floor is in contract under. This is primarily a land use issue and the environmental impact is a small part of it.

Panoche Valley is zoned for agriculture. The valley floor consists of Class 1 soil and is rated Prime Agricultural Land under federal criteria set forth in the Williamson Act. Panoche also has a water table that has risen yearly since unsustainable ag practices of the past ceased in the valley, (back in the 60's). It is a short-grass prairie habitat that is very rare in California and is largely limited to here and Carizzo Plain National Monument. The grassland forage in Panoche is some of the best in the state, producing weight gain and marbling that can be difficult to achieve in pasture-based operations.

The majority of farmers and ranchers in Panoche are graziers making a living turning grass into meat, eggs and milk. My husband and I produce beyond organic pastured eggs and we sell to 3 Stone Hearth and Cafe Fanny in Berkeley, and through seasonal farmer's markets in the San Francisco bay area. We're part of a growing community of Panoche Valley family farmers and ranchers striving to use traditional/sustainable management practices that are compatible with wildlife/wildlife habitats and use no chemical/synthetic inputs. We work together to promote our area as an eco and agri tourism destination and most of us sell our products direct to consumer.

Managed grazing of cattle, horses, chickens and sheep has replaced the traditional herds of ruminants that historically roamed Panoche. The rainy season lasts from Oct/Nov through March/April and produces enough forage to lasts until the next rain cycle when managed properly. In nature, herds stay on the move and don't move back into an area until it's replenished through rest & rain. Managed grazing of the Panoche Valley floor that mimics what happens in nature creates the ideal environment for the indigenous species, endangered and otherwise, that require a low-forage habitat.

Solargen will scrape the earth underneath the panel placement site to create a level surface. They say they'll reseed but we don't know with what and the proposal states no water will be used for irrigation. The proposed project site encompasses 4,717 acres or roughly over 1/3 of the valley floor, and will be surrounded with chain link fence. There will be over 3.5 million panels placed in such close proximity that large areas of land will not receive light or rainfall. Rainfall is critical for plant growth in the absence of irrigation. Without vegetation the topsoil is exposed to wind and subject to erosion. Panoche exeriences regular high winds and the Panoche Elementary School and most of the farming and ranching business's are downwind of Solargen's proposed site. This will negatively impact the community, future agricultural land use on the site, and surrounding ag land use.

I want solar - in the right place. Germany is the world's leader in solar energy production and most of it is produced on rooftops. Germany experiences cloud cover a good portion of the time. The fact is, thin film photovoltaic panels can harvest the suns energy even on a cloudy day. You do not need direct sunlight and you do not need to decimate prime ag land and valuable open space in order to produce solar energy. Another thing which has helped Germany in renewable energy production is Smart Grid technology. It's starting to be used in places like Austin, TX and Denver, CO but it needs to be used on a large scale before we can efficiently use renewable energy which is intermittent by nature. The current, outdated system of energy conversion/tranmission causes over a 25% loss of power. Combine that with the fact that Solargen is not using the best solar technology, (they're using stationary panels instead of tracking panels that collect up to 30% more energy) but instead the cheapest and you get a project that is obsolete before it even has a chance to take off.

And finally, do you want the future of land use decided by venture capitalist with no depth in this field and are only following the latest government subsidies? The Solargen executives are also involved in ethanol production, one of the most heavily subsidized forms of energy production. They were initially involved in oil drilling, (where they suffered fines by violating SEC rules and lying to investors) and have a history of following government money. There will be no increase in job, (the solar plant will have 10 employees after initial construction is complete - far less then the amount currently employed in Panoche, no increase in tax revenue for San Benito, (the state and federal subsidies take care of that) and no price breaks on power for local consumers. The only people that stand to gain from this are the handful of landowners that want to sell, local politicians who hope to receive a feather in their caps for promoting Schwarzenegger and Obama's energy policies, and Solargen execs who's company is projected to make billions in profits.

Folks talk about reducing American dependence on foreign oil but what about our dependence on foreign food? And I have a real issue with our tax money funding American subsidies that support foreign corporations. Solargen has entered into contract with a company in Singapore to purchase solar panels. Why aren't they providing much needed American jobs and revenue and purchasing domestically, other then it will affect their bottom line?

There are many questions to be considered in this debate. In the name of fairness, please do everyone a favor and do your homework before spouting off about something you know nothing about.

[Panoche farmer]

16. apologies for errors

I too should have done my homework and edited the above entry before posting. My apologies for the mispelling and grammatical errors.

[kristopher]

17. Well, that is one set of "facts"

I'm curious; what affect do you think an increase of 5 - 9 degrees F will have on the Panoche Valley and the rest of California? What about the marine ecosystems that are acidifying as we discuss this?

You are a selfish ass.

[depakid]

18. It IS a set of facts- and represents a competing land use

that it behooves people to consider in the siting of any such facility.

[kristopher]

22. It is nimbyism at its worst attempting to cloak itself in faux environmentalism

It is the current line in the sand from which the Rethuglicans are arguing:

Energy 'Sprawl' and the Green Economy
We're about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.

By LAMAR ALEXANDER

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He's also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind. This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia—not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

Is the federal government showing any concern about this massive intrusion into the natural landscape? Not at all. I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment.

The House of Representatives has passed climate legislation that started out as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. It has morphed into an engine for raising revenues by selling carbon dioxide emission allowances and promoting "renewable" energy.

The bill requires electric utilities to get 20% of their power mostly from wind and solar by 2020. These renewable energy sources are receiving huge subsidies—all to supposedly create jobs and hurry us down the road to an America running on wind and sunshine described in President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address.

Yet all this assumes renewable energy is a free lunch—a benign, "sustainable" way of running the country with minimal impact on the environment. That assumption experienced a rude awakening on Aug. 26, when The Nature Conservancy published a paper titled "Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America." The report by this venerable environmental organization posed a simple question: How much land is required for the different energy sources that power the country? The answers deserve far greater public attention. ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574404762971139026.html

Distortions of the Energy Sprawl Report
he Lessons I’ve Learned From ‘Energy Sprawl’

Written by Rob McDonald
Scientists want their research to inspire serious discussion of critical issues. So I’ve been encouraged by all the discussion in the press about the recent PLoS One paper I wrote with colleagues entitled “Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America.”

Still, it’s unsettling sometimes to see the rhetorical uses others have found for this research, often far from its original context in a scientific journal.

The most recent example of this was Senator Lamar Alexander’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, which discussed the potential problems from energy sprawl and proposed his particular solution. Rather than respond directly to Senator Alexander or others talking about energy sprawl, I think I’ll simply tell you what I have learned personally from the energy sprawl paper and the media response to it.

First, climate change is the big threat to America’s wildlife (and to our communities). Severe climate change has the potential to imperil many more species than energy sprawl.

Moreover, we show in our paper that most of the energy sprawl from now to 2030 will happen regardless of whether or not there is a comprehensive climate bill. By far the largest amount of energy sprawl will come from biofuel production, driven by the renewable fuel standard and other laws already in place.

I’ve learned that when I talk about energy sprawl I need to keep reminding folks of this simple reality: energy sprawl concerns should not be an excuse for inaction on climate change, although land-use impacts should be one of things thought about while crafting climate change legislation.

Another lesson I have learned is that while nuanced argument is normal in a scientific publication, it tends to get simplified in the public debate. For instance, the energy sprawl report should not be taken as an endorsement of nuclear power by The Nature Conservancy.

On this one metric, nuclear power does have a small spatial footprint, as do several other technologies such as geothermal. But there are lots of other metrics policymakers must think about when they are comparing technologies, such as cost effectiveness, job creation, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy independence. With nuclear power, there are significant issues related to water use and the safe isolation of waste for millennia. Since our report didn’t consider all those different types of impacts, it shouldn’t be taken as a comment on the overall wisdom of increased nuclear power. That would take another and more thorough, report...
Scientists want their research to inspire serious discussion of critical issues. So I’ve been encouraged by all the discussion in the press about the recent PLoS One paper I wrote with colleagues entitled “Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America.”

Still, it’s unsettling sometimes to see the rhetorical uses others have found for this research, often far from its original context in a scientific journal.

The most recent example of this was Senator Lamar Alexander’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, which discussed the potential problems from energy sprawl and proposed his particular solution. Rather than respond directly to Senator Alexander or others talking about energy sprawl, I think I’ll simply tell you what I have learned personally from the energy sprawl paper and the media response to it.

First, climate change is the big threat to America’s wildlife (and to our communities). Severe climate change has the potential to imperil many more species than energy sprawl.

Moreover, we show in our paper that most of the energy sprawl from now to 2030 will happen regardless of whether or not there is a comprehensive climate bill. By far the largest amount of energy sprawl will come from biofuel production, driven by the renewable fuel standard and other laws already in place.

I’ve learned that when I talk about energy sprawl I need to keep reminding folks of this simple reality: energy sprawl concerns should not be an excuse for inaction on climate change, although land-use impacts should be one of things thought about while crafting climate change legislation.

Another lesson I have learned is that while nuanced argument is normal in a scientific publication, it tends to get simplified in the public debate. For instance, the energy sprawl report should not be taken as an endorsement of nuclear power by The Nature Conservancy.

On this one metric, nuclear power does have a small spatial footprint, as do several other technologies such as geothermal. But there are lots of other metrics policymakers must think about when they are comparing technologies, such as cost effectiveness, job creation, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy independence. With nuclear power, there are significant issues related to water use and the safe isolation of waste for millennia. Since our report didn’t consider all those different types of impacts, it shouldn’t be taken as a comment on the overall wisdom of increased nuclear power. That would take another and more thorough, report...

http://blog.nature.org/2009/09/energy-sprawl-rob-mcdonald-nature-conservancy/

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[TxRider]

20. I not there, then where?

[XemaSab]

21. Brilliant post!

Welcome to the DU e/e forum! :D

PS When are the environmental documents coming out? The impacts sound UNMITIGABLE.

PPS Kristopher is a blight on the forum. Ignore it.

[tinrobot]

9. Does it exclude developed ranch land?

Because that's what will be used for the site. Not like it's untouched by humans.

[XemaSab]

23. Define "developed"

If you exclude rangeland from the open space in California that should be subject to protection, then you're excluding a significant percent of the open space in the state, particularly critically rare grassland habitat.

On edit: here's a picture:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=panoche&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Panoche,+San+Benito,+California&ll=36.596899,-120.833514&spn=0.166485,0.33886&t=h&z=12&layer=c&cbll=36.642321,-120.876476&panoid=PjvJ2AcZ7EjeeAdUIGI3_Q&cbp=12,58.99,,0,5

This looks about as undeveloped as it gets in California.

[kristopher]

25. You mean well worked ranchland that USED to be farmed by the natives for sugar?

Critical habitat?

Riiiiiiight.

[XemaSab]

26. So what endangered species are found out there?

Since you're the expert?

[kristopher]

27. Maintianing your 100% opposition to renewable development eh?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=223976&mesg_id=224076

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=223976&mesg_id=224093

[XemaSab]

28. There's nothing renewable about bulldozing open space

Why are you such a fan of destroying open space you've never been to and can't even articulate the least thing about?

[NYC_SKP]

10. Of equal importance, or greater, is that it's near major transmission infrastructure. n/t

[OnlinePoker]

7. These are ranches, not pristine wilderness

If there was any natural wilderness included, you might have an argument, but from what I see, these are five cattle ranches that have probably had any semblance of natural order destroyed years ago. It never ceases to amaze me that every time a plan comes to have energy that's not polluting, it gets environmentalists opposing it. Where do you think the power should come from?

[bhikkhu]

29. Not to be for or against, but ranches can be a part of the environment

...or in another sense, its wrong to think of ourselves and our activities as being on one side, and the environment being on the other.

The land I live in is beautiful, healthy, and well populated by a wide variety of species. And it is a mix of open desert, farms and ranches - mostly relatively small operations, 100 years old or less. Certainly the land was different before, but for as long as they have been here they have become elements of the local ecosystem which much of the wildlife we have has adapted to and depend on. I think anyone in a semi-rural area with their eyes open would tell you the same.

[OnlinePoker]

31. And why do you think nature won't adapt again? N/T

[bhikkhu]

32. That wasn't the point. n/t

[NNadir]

8. I went to a wonderful lecture this year by a fellow from the Nature Conservancy on the subject of

land use.

He wasn't all that happy about the plethora of "world's largest" solar plants - and we've had more than 8 years of 'em here now - because he said they're 1) ineffective against climate change, 2) toxic, 3) land use nighmares.

More and more and more when I go to these kinds of lectures you find that I am, in fact, on the same planet as many of the speakers.

We had a nice chat after his talk and the Q&A session, during which we agreed strongly on nuclear power and the fact that cars suck.

[kristopher]

11. Interesting

An anonymous invocation of "a fellow" from the Nature Conservancy as if you were relating their policies.

What are their policies regarding energy and climate change?

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/features/art21064.html

That leads you to this site http://www.us-cap.org/ as one they say details the path they see we should follow in addressing AGW. Now it is really important to point out that you always attempt to demonize Amory Lovins for helping Walmart reduce their trucking fleet's energy demand, but look at the cast of characters at the group you now point to. I like the Nature Conservancy and mostly agree with what they do, but your hypocrisy is just too great to ignore.

USCAP is an expanding alliance of major businesses and leading climate and environmental groups that have come together to call on the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

After a year of dialogue and collaboration, the group produced a set of principles and recommendations to guide the formulation of a regulated economy-wide, market-driven approach to climate protection.

New members of this unique alliance include AES, Alstom, Boston Scientific Corporation, Chrysler, ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, The Nature Conservancy, NRG Energy, PepsiCo, Rio Tinto, Shell, and Siemens Corporation.

Founding members of USCAP include a number of major corporations: Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group, General Electric, PG&E Corporation and PNM Resources — and four non-governmental organizations including: Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and World Resources Institute.

The group believes that swift legislative action on the USCAP solutions-based proposal, entitled A Call for Action, would encourage innovation, enhance America’s energy security, foster economic growth, improve our balance of trade and provide critically needed U.S. leadership on this vital global challenge.

“We, the members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, pledge to work with the President, the Congress, and all other stakeholders to enact an environmentally effective, economically sustainable, and fair climate change program consistent with our principles at the earliest practicable date.”
http://www.us-cap.org/about-us/

[bananas]

12. The Nature Conservancy blog complains about "distortions" by nuclear shills

There are links and boldfacing in the original blog entry,
the window title is "Distortions of the Energy Sprawl Report":

http://blog.nature.org/2009/09/energy-sprawl-rob-mcdonald-nature-conservancy/

Distortions of the Energy Sprawl Report
The Lessons I’ve Learned From ‘Energy Sprawl’
Written by Rob McDonald
Published on September 17th, 2009

Scientists want their research to inspire serious discussion of critical issues. So I’ve been encouraged by all the discussion in the press about the recent PLoS One paper I wrote with colleagues entitled “Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America.”

Still, it’s unsettling sometimes to see the rhetorical uses others have found for this research, often far from its original context in a scientific journal.

The most recent example of this was Senator Lamar Alexander’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, which discussed the potential problems from energy sprawl and proposed his particular solution. Rather than respond directly to Senator Alexander or others talking about energy sprawl, I think I’ll simply tell you what I have learned personally from the energy sprawl paper and the media response to it.

First, climate change is the big threat to America’s wildlife (and to our communities). Severe climate change has the potential to imperil many more species than energy sprawl.

Moreover, we show in our paper that most of the energy sprawl from now to 2030 will happen regardless of whether or not there is a comprehensive climate bill. By far the largest amount of energy sprawl will come from biofuel production, driven by the renewable fuel standard and other laws already in place.

I’ve learned that when I talk about energy sprawl I need to keep reminding folks of this simple reality: energy sprawl concerns should not be an excuse for inaction on climate change, although land-use impacts should be one of things thought about while crafting climate change legislation.

Another lesson I have learned is that while nuanced argument is normal in a scientific publication, it tends to get simplified in the public debate. For instance, the energy sprawl report should not be taken as an endorsement of nuclear power by The Nature Conservancy.

On this one metric, nuclear power does have a small spatial footprint, as do several other technologies such as geothermal. But there are lots of other metrics policymakers must think about when they are comparing technologies, such as cost effectiveness, job creation, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy independence. With nuclear power, there are significant issues related to water use and the safe isolation of waste for millennia. Since our report didn’t consider all those different types of impacts, it shouldn’t be taken as a comment on the overall wisdom of increased nuclear power. That would take another and more thorough, report.

Similarly, the energy sprawl paper does not mean that The Nature Conservancy is somehow against renewable energy generation. We believe strongly that increased renewable energy production will have to be one of the ways America begins to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The energy sprawl report simply shows that renewable energy production has the potential to take a significant amount of space, particularly biofuel production.

However, many negative environmental impacts can be avoided through the proper siting of new energy development, an approach The Nature Conservancy calls Energy By Design: Avoid development when you can, minimize impacts when you can’t, and compensate for those impacts that cannot be avoided.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s recent efforts to permit some renewable energy development in appropriate places after thorough environmental review are an example of this philosophy in action, and show that energy sprawl is a challenge that can be overcome through proper management.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that I need to keep stressing energy efficiency. Energy efficiency could be the key way to combat energy sprawl. Saving energy saves land by avoiding future energy development that would have otherwise occurred. If implemented on a large scale, this could have a big impact. For instance, the recent report by McKinsey & Company found that more than 1,000 terawatt-hours of electricity could be conserved each year using existing technology, which would result in between 2.4 million and 8.4 million acres of avoided energy development.

So I say to everyone writing or blogging about energy sprawl: If you are concerned about energy sprawl, then fight for energy efficiency!

[NNadir]

13. There is a difference between reading blogs and going to scientific lectures.

It's another point to which, apparently, anti-nukes are oblivious.

How's the fight against Feinstein's desert going? Well?

[kristopher]

14. Is that supposed to actually mean something?

You posted another of your dishonest screeds (post #8) where you tried to create a false impression on behalf of the Nature Conservancy. You were specifically rebutted by a blog entry from of the authors of the policy paper underpinning one aspect of the Nature Conservancy's thinking on energy sources. The author wrote the blog entry AS A RESPONSE TO DISHONEST REPRESENTATIONS of the Nature Conservancy's position by people just like you.

If you actually had valid and persuasive arguments for nuclear power, you would be using them. As it is, however, nuclear power can't be justified honestly so you MUST resort to dishonest tactics.

[NNadir]

19. Um, not to you. I said "I" went to a lecture at a SCIENTIFIC conference in which

in which a speaker from the Nature Conservancy compared land use for various forms of energy.

I couldn't care less, by the way, if you believe me or not. In fact I wouldn't be caught dead believing any of the crapola coming out of anti-nukes on this website.

Without resorting to a "Al Gore says..." example of the weak minded logical fallacy of http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html">Appeal to Authority, I claim that there is at least one representative Nature Conservancy who has noted the land use difference between nuclear power and the dark (at least under the panels) fantasy about rototilling the entire southwestern desert because, it's, um, "useless."

Finally, it doesn't matter what bourgeois organizations believe about anything. If everyone in the Nature Conservancy believed that the entire Mohave desert should be rototilled to provide as much energy as the 40 year old Oyster Creek Nuclear Station provides in a few acres of land, that wouldn't make rototilling the desert right.

Conversely, if everyone in the Sierra decides that we should dam the Grand Canyon because hydro is "renewale," that wouldn't make damming the Grand Canyon right.

I am personally a conservationist. I'm not here talking about my swell fantasies about motor fuels for my bourgeois lifestyle, fuck all the people in Bangladesh, fuck all the people who have to dig up that electronic waste from the solar cells, 30 years from now when they're all electronic garbage.

I don't join organizations, other than the American Chemical Society, one of the oldest scientific organiations in the United States, and the Democratic Party.

Even so, my positions on my points here or elsewhere are not determined by the official policy of either organization.

I am, on the contrary, talking about pieces of equipment that have extraordinarily high energy density and thus have minimal impact. When I started here, it wasn't very popular.

Recently however, on a site run by dangerous anti-nukes for dangerous anti-nukes, we had this poll taken:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/23/225632/42

Not just three years ago, you wouldn't have seen that kind of thing. I guess the wolf is really at the door, and people are worried about their long term access to plastic.

Personally, I'm not into it for the plastic. I'm in it for the air and for the sea and for the land.

Personally, when I hear something about to be proposed by a so called "environmental organization" I expect to hear mindless drivel, like the stuff that junkie lawyer at the NRDC shot off about his objections to the wind farms at Nantucket and his endorsement of the dangerous natural gas terminals off Malibu, or like the stuff I hear here, year after year after year after year after year about how solar will save us.

I was, to say the least, startled by the talk. It wasn't what I expected frankly, since I'm used to hearing from so many people whose environmentalism consists of driving once a year to get a Sierra Club calendar at the mall and joining protests to stop the environmental degradation of having illegal immigrants come into this country.

Those people, as I make clear often enough, disgust me.

Solar energy doesn't work on scale. It's a niche form of energy, suitable for running road signs at construction sites devoted to the unsustainable car CULTure. Solar has a huge mass/energy density problem, which makes it environmentally, economically and morally unsustainable. It's why after all this blabbing, solar energy in this entire country doesn't produce as much energy as the South Texas Nuclear Station, or for that matter, Diablo Canyon and San Onofre. Intellecutually - if you can call the solar blather "intellectual" in any way - solar energy is proposed mostly by people who haven't read or grasped the meaning of Roosevelt's famous Sorbonne speech, which basically noted that things that sound great are not anywhere equivalent to those things that have been accomplished.

Not one of the old farts here with their life long solar fantasies, and their F150's cruising over the "family" land their families "own," will give a rat's ass about the heavy metal levels in Chinese children outside of semiconductor plants, never mind the heavy metal levels in Mohave tortoises. They are all short term bourgeois thinkers with no respect for or investment in the future of humanity.

[kristopher]

24. Right...

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[kristopher]

33. A good read on deliberate distortion of the environmental consequences of energy choices

[hunter]

30. We've been down this road before...

Arco's big solar plant, after: