It’s been quiet here lately, in part because I’ve been working on an action to protest the upcoming destruction of Ivanpah (more on that Monday) and partly because of this:
Solar Done Right is a coalition of public land activists, solar power and electrical engineering experts, biologists and others who view with concern the rush to develop our few remaining wildlands for industrial solar energy.
We have come together to urge government, utilities, the mainstream environmental movement and the public to abandon this destructive path, and to work toward generating the power we need in the built environment.
The centerpiece of the SDR website is the collection of briefings, which make the case rather authoritatively for distributed generation — rooftop solar, mainly, but also including microwind and other technologies — and against scraping wildlands and productive agricultural land to build industrial solar.
A few of us from Solar Done Right will be heading to DC in a week to stalk the corridors of power, advocating for policies which level the playing field for rooftop solar. To update people on our progress there, we’ll be passing along news on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Check it out and spread the word.
The website looks terrific, Chris. Good work.
Terrific idea. A well organized voice is the best way to bring the facts to the public and force a political decision.
Personally I’m tired of the urbanization of wild lands. Back here in the east it is all about denuding large, large areas of mountain top for skyscraper size wind machines. No thought given whatsoever to our remaining ecologic habitats and what the loss of these will mean. The other major issue out here is super-sized biomass plants that burn wood and require large areas of deforestation to support our energy addiction.
We need regional studies that look at alternative energy, all of the options, and the setting of priorities that are really GREEN; meaning, in the true sense of the word,good for the planet not just the humans that inhabit this earth.
Thanks for your work on these desert projects.
Bill:www.wildramblings.com
I second the above comments and Bill’s right about the studies but we also
need studies that are being done to be released in a timely fashion. The DRECP
report just released in public draft for example, states convincingly that these
“farms” should be sited with “no regrets” like on disturbed land,etc. When does
it finally come out? Right when the CEC is about to announce several major decisions
including Ivanpah.
A suspicious person like myself might think that perhaps bureaucratic insiders might
have had something to do with the timing.
And of course by the time the report is available for policy makers etc, the cow is
out of the barn.
Mighty suspicious indeed.
Because the Big Greens have largely acquiesced to, or in some cases thrown their whole-hearted support toward Big Ineffective, Inefficient, Lavishly Subsidized, GHG-creating industrialized “renewable” energy, someone, someone, has to provide the counterpoint to that. Maybe policymakers will make the wrong decision, as they most often do, but it should not be for lack of information or the silence of people who know what does need to be done.
An unprecedented amount of irreplaceable land is on the chopping block, our time is short to save that land, and our available tools limited. Defeatist cynicism is a luxury of privilege that we cannot afford.