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California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

latimes.com

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Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#191

Post by rlpb »

admax88q wrote: post #189
rlpb wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like come other commenters here, I don't think it's a journalist's job to _do_ the research. However, the journalist can quite accurately report "X claims Y but says they haven't performed any research to quantify this claim". The key is to ask the question.

> I don't think it's a journalist's job to _do_ the research. Then who's job is it?

A suitable domain expert with a vested interest or funding from someone with a vested interest.

If there isn't such a person, then the research doesn't get done. I think this is fine, because by definition nobody cares. It's possible that only poor people care and they can't provide the funding, but then their political representatives should be able to find the funding. I accept that's not perfect, but it's generally how things work unfortunately.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#192

Post by burlesona »

almost_usual wrote: post #26
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #4

In USA local authority is derived from the state, so ca legislature can wipe out the county laws with some small legislation. Ianal

Probably not a good precedent to set.

More like a desperately needed precedent.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#193

Post by bobthepanda »

blunte wrote: post #152
evgen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe just leave the desert ecosystem alone? I am not sure why people think that a desert is bare and empty, I guess most just assume that because you can't see it as easily as you can in a forest that there is nothing there, but desert ecosystems are much more fragile than most other ecosystems and do not adjust easily to random interference.

Any human activity had an impact on the earth. At some point even the most well-intentioned of us have to accept that some big benefits may come at some (ideally lesser) costs. I would ask those locals if they are ok with having no electricity other than what they can generate themselves on their own houses. Desert may be a fragile area, but what is the real impact of its disruption? Everywhere there are tradeoffs.

Phosphorous from Saharan desert sands fertilizes the Amazon.

Messing with ecosystems on a large scale will probably have serious side effects which we haven’t investigated; better to err on the side of caution.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#194

Post by jefurii »

waste_monk wrote: post #115
tempestn wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? I can see how it would be undesirable to locals, but clear cutting redwoods would release massive amounts of stored carbon, whereas solar panels in the desert would seem to do the opposite.

The desert isn't a blank sandscape. There's a whole ecosystem of desert plants and creatures, not to mention the solar panels killing migratory birds.

Are all those creatures helped by climate change? What about the environmental devastation caused by coal mining and fossil fuel burning? Just putting up a bunch of panels is a lot lighter on the ecology of the area.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#195

Post by jefurii »

remarkEon wrote: post #15

What's the useful life of modern solar panels? Will these solar farms have to be decommissioned or retrofit in the future, and will we have to deal with a bunch of toxic material disposal say 30 years from now? I guess it certainly seems like a no-brainer to build these things in deserts with consistent sunlight, but I'm just curious if there are externalities we're not thinking of yet because we haven't had to.

Are there externalities to coal and other fossil fuel extraction and consumption?

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#196

Post by trissi »

yostrovs wrote: post #181
door5 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fukushima disaster almost got to the point where they had to evacuate Tokyo . I support nuclear power, but to say that it is without risks and the public is just irrational is disingenuous.

Nobody has nor anyone will die from Fukushima. Tokyo wasn't evacuated. I didn't say nuclear is without risks, but it is safer than other methods of producing lots of electricity

This is just plain wrong.

Although only one person has died from radiation YET, over 2000 died during/from evacuation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#197

Post by obtaniumstool »

adrianN wrote: post #159
tyu1000 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These huge renewable projects do have major ecological impact, why lie about it? Due to low power generation density they take up a lot of space compared to fossil fuel/nuclear plants and that's not including the large amount of power lines that have to be run to all these new facilities. There are well known negative ecological impacts from the solar farms in this area that others have pointed out. Just because a de…

Well the alternative to more renewables is, realistically, more coal and gas. I think that covering up one or two percent of even the most valuable biomes with solar panels is no where near as destructive as climate change.

[flagged]

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#198

Post by obtaniumstool »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #145
sbov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The policy approved by the supervisors prohibits utility-oriented renewable energy projects — defined as projects that would mostly serve out-of-town utility customers, rather than local power needs — within the boundaries of Community Plans that have been adopted by more than a dozen unincorporated towns. It doesn't seem like they're opposing local renewable energy. They're opposing renewable ene…

Your comment should be somewhere on top or in the beginning of the article. It completely changes the outlook on this community and it's a shame one has to dig down this far to find this out. Argueably a very legitimate stance on the part of the community.

I suppose being an unapologetic NIMBY counts as a stance.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#199

Post by obtaniumstool »

golemotron wrote: post #55
jadell wrote: post #52

> “These vast open areas are precious for their natural, historical and recreational qualities. But they are fragile, and no amount of mitigation can counter the damage that industrial-scale renewable energy projects would cause,” Fairchild told the supervisors. “Once destroyed, these landscapes can never be brought back.” Because climate change won't destroy precious fragile landscapes? Okay, here's my deal: you get…

Solar and wind will never be enough. https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

[flagged]

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#200

Post by obtaniumstool »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #135
undersuit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Can the dust be mitigated? Maybe via replanting afterwards? Or maybe the panels need to be farther apart to encourage regrowth of plants? Is a square field of panels more destructive than a longer line of panels? Are there construction vehicles that can cause less damage to the existing plant life? If journalism can't be bothered to do research maybe the rise of AI created factuals is well deserved.

The article reports on the conflict between and claims of two parties. Doing research into claim validity has its place (investigative journalism) but not in an article that is just reporting on a conflict, in fact including such research would very likely be unethical.

You're going to have to explain how a journalist doing fact checking is unethical.
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