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The Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System |
Construction of such large-scale green-energy projects has splintered
environmental groups. When concern over global warming was at a peak,
national organizations such as the
Sierra Club
and the Natural Resources Defense Council threw their support behind
industrial-scale wind and solar installations on public land. Now some
smaller conservationist groups object to what they consider an
environmentally destructive gold rush. “Of course we need to do
solar, but it should go on rooftops or in appropriate places, not the
pristine desert,” says April Sall, director of the Wildlands Conservancy
in Oak Glen, California, operator of the state’s largest nonprofit
preservation system. “We need to tackle warming -- but not forget that
there are other things at stake.” The Mojave solar project embodies the clash of environmental
priorities. The $2.2 billion installation being built by closely held
BrightSource Energy (BRSE) Inc. of Oakland, California, is designed to power 140,000 homes without emitting
greenhouse gases. But it threatens the tortoises. That’s why the Western Watersheds Project conservationist group of Hailey,
Idaho, sued to stop it in a Los Angeles U.S. court. (For an interactive graphic of the project, click
here.) The 120-year-old
Sierra Club,
which calls itself “America’s largest and most influential”
environmental group, also lobbied for changes to the project’s design to
protect the tortoises. Yet the 1.4 million-member organization chose
not to try to block the plant, says Barbara Boyle, a Sierra green energy
specialist. “Ultimately, we need to jump-start renewables to combat
climate change, and large-scale solar has to play a big part in that,” Boyle says...
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