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Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

latimes.com

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Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#11

Post by kjkjadksj »

wkat4242 wrote: post #3
llamajams wrote: post #2

I get the impression that some people think there is a silver bullet that we are not using because the big bad corporations are keeping us down. But...there's isn't one, and there are no free lunches, you always have to break the egg to make the the omelette.

Yes, in the end continuing with fossil fuel will result in much more wildlife destruction though. I think it's always important to consider the alternative which in this case is really bad.

For now, sure. But consider the earth as a system and not a place where humans live for their one lifetime. Burning more fuel means converting long buried organic material into material that exists on the surface. The fact there are issues with this is that the processes to deal with this great excess haven’t yet organically evolved on their own, but given time taking advantage of the excess carbon in the atmosphere and a more energetic earth from greenhouse effect should see things like rapid evolution of microbial photosynthetic life, even extending to favor rapid evolution of macroscopic photosynthetic life as well.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#13

Post by kjkjadksj »

jstarfish wrote: post #8
wkat4242 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in the end continuing with fossil fuel will result in much more wildlife destruction though. I think it's always important to consider the alternative which in this case is really bad.

Oil spills, fracking and nuclear drama seem far more ruinous than shading an otherwise-inhospitable biome on track to get even hotter. Or putting up fans, or building dams. Your point goes overlooked too often! We're destroying all ecosystems under the status quo.

We are distrupting ecosystems but you cant destroy ecosystems. The most urbanized or polluted place on earth is still an ecosystem. It takes time for an abundance of species to emerge that can take advantage of this ecosystem, but it will emerge. Consider the rock dove, evolved to roost in the very specific environment of a rock cliff. Today, however, ecosystems have changed, cities are more or less giant artificial rock cliffs, and pigeon populations are massive in cities as a result.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#14

Post by talldatethrow »

Arnt wrote: post #12

I don't get this. The Mojave desert 81,000km² according to some random page on the net. How can 20,000 panels make a dent in that? Are they building in some crucial sectors? I imagine they're building in the zones that have steady sunshine all day.

Environmentalists do this all the time.

My town has a large popular off highway vehicle park open for at least 50 years. It's probably less than 0.1% of the surrounding area that basically gets zero use.

They now want to close down this off-road park, to preserve the land for future use. They're finding rare special lizards there. A rare butterfly. Who knows. People are starting to think they import these things and then "find" them and use it as an excuse to close the place down.

Thousands of people have enjoyed this off-road park on their dirt bikes for decades. But now leftists want to preserve it for future generations, damn the current ones. As if the other 99.9% of dirt hills around the off-road park aren't enough.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#15

Post by transcriptase »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #13
jstarfish wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil spills, fracking and nuclear drama seem far more ruinous than shading an otherwise-inhospitable biome on track to get even hotter. Or putting up fans, or building dams. Your point goes overlooked too often! We're destroying all ecosystems under the status quo.

We are distrupting ecosystems but you cant destroy ecosystems. The most urbanized or polluted place on earth is still an ecosystem. It takes time for an abundance of species to emerge that can take advantage of this ecosystem, but it will emerge. Consider the rock dove, evolved to roost in the very specific environment of a rock cliff. Today, however, ecosystems have changed, cities are more or less giant artificial…

Or consider the fact that most of North America was under a thick sheet of ice only 10,000 years ago.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#16

Post by Arnt »

talldatethrow wrote: post #14
Arnt wrote: post #12

I don't get this. The Mojave desert 81,000km² according to some random page on the net. How can 20,000 panels make a dent in that? Are they building in some crucial sectors? I imagine they're building in the zones that have steady sunshine all day.

Environmentalists do this all the time. My town has a large popular off highway vehicle park open for at least 50 years. It's probably less than 0.1% of the surrounding area that basically gets zero use. They now want to close down this off-road park, to preserve the land for future use. They're finding rare special lizards there. A rare butterfly. Who knows. People are starting to think they import these things and…

That trick requires a very rare butterfly or something, which is another way of saying that it doesn't work while there are still 99.9% unaffected areas. It only works when most habitats have been ruined already, thereby making the species very rare.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#17

Post by mdekkers »

chongli wrote: post #5
llamajams wrote: post #2

I get the impression that some people think there is a silver bullet that we are not using because the big bad corporations are keeping us down. But...there's isn't one, and there are no free lunches, you always have to break the egg to make the the omelette.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. We can’t have solar because it shades the desert. We can’t have wind power because it makes noise and strikes birds. We can’t have hydro power because it creates a floodplain. We can’t have nuclear power because burying the waste under a mountain is bad. Now, I recognize that it’s not all the same person or group making all of these arguments. Still, it’s pretty frustrating becau…

That’s how the big oil industry operates, trying to make all the alternatives even less appealing.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#19

Post by ZeroGravitas »

This is completely manufacturerd outrage. Someone must be pushing this angle as there's been multiple stories on the same subject recently.

When those came up a glance at Google maps revealed green golf courses in the desert next to these solar farms that were of equal size, and vast expanses of empty desert surrounding them.

I'm generally in favor of rooftop solar as it has lots of benefits from being distributed and minimizing transmission. Deserts aren't actually that great for solar PV, but this is still astroturfed FUD.

Re: Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

#20

Post by chongli »

mdekkers wrote: post #17
chongli wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. We can’t have solar because it shades the desert. We can’t have wind power because it makes noise and strikes birds. We can’t have hydro power because it creates a floodplain. We can’t have nuclear power because burying the waste under a mountain is bad. Now, I recognize that it’s not all the same person or group making all of these arguments. Still, it’s pretty frustrating becau…

That’s how the big oil industry operates, trying to make all the alternatives even less appealing.

I’m not so sure about that. Maybe, but they also operate much more directly, by buying up tons of renewable energy technology patents and sitting on them.
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