We’d been reporting over the last year or so about the California-Jerusalem company BrightSource and its plan to create a number of solar energy power plants in California’s Mojave Desert region. Early in the year it signed an historic contract with PG&E, as the power giant works to conform to California law and produce 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2010.
We’re not sure if they’re going to make it: some intense friction between environmentalists and the renewable energy developers has led to the Mojave solar project being dropped, reports the New York Times.
According to the Times, BrightSource Energy Inc. had been planning its 5,130-acre solar power farm in a remote part of the Mojave Desert. But it was going to be built on land previously intended for conservation. The company, based in Oakland, California and Jerusalem, Israel, said that it would look for another site.
Blocking the project was The Wildlands Conservancy, a California-based enviro group, as well as Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, who suggested the area become a national monument.
Donated by Wildlands to the Interior Department, the land was to be protected under assurances made by the Clinton administration. But by 2005 and the new Energy Policy Act, the Bush administration said the land could be used for solar energy projects.
“We salute BrightSource for their responsible behavior,” said David Myers, executive director of Wildlands to the New York Times. “A major conflict between the environment and renewable energy is over.”
If the plan went ahead, the BrightSource power plant would have been installed “at the heart of a signature valley” an area replete with bighorn sheep and other natural wildlife.
BrightSource did not comment.
BrightSource has high profile investors like Google and is advised by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
This latest turn of events, is yet another example of how the goals and priorities of clean technology industrialists need better alignment with environmentalists. It may also be one of how politicians use any controversy to strengthen their political campaigns.
Similar issues are at stake right now in Scotland as environmentalists fight over wind farms being installed in peat bogs. Not far from where I was born and raised in Canada, wind farms on the Thousand Islands, Wolfe Island, have transformed the traquil, and awe-inspiring landscape. Renewable energy is important for us to pursue, but not to the detriment of the very thing we are trying to protect. Something for us to think about.
::NY Times
More on BrightSource on Green Prophet:
California’s PG&E Signs Historic Solar Energy Contract With BrightSource Energy, for Solar Power
BrightSource Solar Energy Teams up with Bectel to build large California solar energy facility
BP Solar and SolarEdge Partner to Develop Power Harvesting System
[…] Rose, CEO of a large US sustainable urban development consultancy, Arnold Goldman founder of Brightsource Energy and Yosef Abramowitz of the Arava Power Company all combine strong ethical vision with a rigorous […]
[…] which in the past had its mega solar energy projects in California even shelved at one point due to environmental and other issues, seemed to be improving its energy image, […]
[…] which in the past had its mega solar energy projects in California even shelved at one point due to environmental and other issues, seemed to be improving its energy image, […]
[…] Controversy loomed over coyote land, but now BrightSource with a US Gov guarantee will create largest solar energy project in the world, in Ivanpah CA. […]
[…] which recently staged a demonstration of its solar energy technology at a test plant facility in Israel’s Negev Dessert has already been frustrated in building solar energy plants in desert areas of California regions of […]
Lets hope they can still find a suitable place for this solar plant.
It would be a terrible thing if we had to fire up some of the power plants sitting in Arizona and other places, Using Coal or Natural gas instead of solar, to keep California supplied with power.
maybe another nuke plant at the border??? nobody wants that
But yes i Know the law requires they produce green energy but they just pass fines on to us the consumer anyway, big deal
Personally i am installing solar at my rural farm, where i grow trees, It is now much more affordable
Arizona Desert Landscaping
[…] energy management deals seem to have legs. The whole biofuel bubble is long burst. One of the most noteworthy solar facilities in the Mojave Desert has run afoul of NIMBY – the green movement shooting itself in the foot by […]
[…] recent news that environmentalists lobbied to have a solar energy project cancelled in California due to fears it would ruin protected land in the Mojave Desert, BrightSource, the company in […]
[…] Rose, CEO of a large US sustainable urban development consultancy, Arnold Goldman founder of Brightsource Energy and Yosef Abramowitz of the Arava Power Company all combine strong ethical vision with a rigorous […]
[…] BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved | Green … Tags: Alternative Energy Solar Wind 0 Top […]
BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved | Green … http://tinyurl.com/nkb2sb
BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved | Green …: Similar issues are at stake right now in.. http://tinyurl.com/nkb2sb
Business papers don’t usually support the concerns of environmentalists, unless it’s good for business. Best to bury heads in the sand and let them go away. The problem is that environmentalists are now winning victories, showing that it might be wiser to work hand in hand with them from the beginning.
BrightSource, as I’ve read, has a number of projects cooking around the world. The Mojave Desert is one of them.
BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved – We’d been reporting over the last year or so abo… http://ow.ly/15Q4Rs
http://bit.ly/10NrOO BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved | Green … http://bit.ly/y6yxJ
BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved – Green Prophet (blog) http://bit.ly/j03yA
Interesting this should show up when the local Globes financial news gave the project such good write ups, including the recent article on how Brightsource had teamed up with Bectel to do this project.
But as Will Rogers used to say: “all I know is what I read in the papers”.
Green it! : BrightSource Solar Energy Project In Mojave Desert Shelved http://bit.ly/pFbrA