BrightSource’s CEO John Wooland attested to the difficulty in finding suitable desert land for solar power plants, noting that the Ivanpah Valley, as noted in a previous Green Prophet article, as the only site that his company would be able to build on inside of California.
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club, whose ecological projects include preventing oil well drilling in Alaska’s North Slope (advocated by US Senator and former Republican Party Presidential Candidate John McCain), the battle lines concerning the Mojave are being drawn in a “green vs green” confrontation. As noted by David Meyers, director of Wildlands Conservancy, a group trying to create a desert site to be known as the Mojave Trails National Monument:
Al Gore called these lands some of the most scenic and pristine desert areas of the world. You couldn’t put a project in a worse area from a landscape connectivity point of view… It’s a philosophic non-sequitur that you can destroy hundreds of thousands of acres to save the Earth from global warming.”
Meyer’s message is apparently being heard as he has convinced U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D.Calf) to be on his side. But some political powerbrokers in both Washington and California have other ideas, however, including California Governor Arthur Schwarzenegger (The Governator):
“If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put it.”
Image via flicker spookythekatt
More articles on BrightSource and California solar energy:
Bright Source Expands on Coyote Land in Nevada
California PG&E to Invest $1.5 Billion in Bright Source Alt Energy Plants
California’s “Governator” in Israel to Sign Clean Tech Energy Coop Deal
Author: Maurice Picow
Maurice Picow grew up in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., where he received a B.S. Degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, Maurice embarked on a career as a real estate broker before making the decision to move to Israel. After arriving in Israel, he came involved in the insurance agency business and later in the moving and international relocation fields. Maurice became interested in writing news and commentary articles in the late 1990’s, and now writes feature articles for the The Jerusalem Post as well as being a regular contributor to Green Prophet. He has also written a non-fiction study on Islam, a two volume adventure novel, and is completing a romance novel about a forbidden love affair. Writing topics of particular interest for Green Prophet are those dealing with global warming and climate change, as well as clean technology - particularly electric cars.
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