Thank you for the long and detailed response. It’s much appreciated.

I live in Germany, where the distributed approach you describe has been pushed aggressively by the government. Rooftop and backyard solar panels are tolerably common — there are probably a dozen of them in my small (~1500 people) community, and a couple of large buildings have passive solar arrays as well. Unfortunately, Germany suffers from some fairly huge geographic disadvantages — it’s a densely populated country with a rainy climate located around 50 degrees from the equator. So all forms of solar together are only providing roughly 1% of the country’s electricity budget.

Where Germany really shines is in energy conservation; the country supports a First World economy but consumes energy per capita at only about half the rate of the US. Part of this is due to geography again (denser population allows more efficient transportation, cool but mild climate means they’re not running aircons as much). But most of the difference is just better energy policies.

That said, it’s impossible to reduce energy consumption below some minimum value. And while riding a bicycle to work is certainly admirable, it’s not a realistic option for most people.

Anyway: this thread has probably run its course. But thanks, once again, for the good information and useful links.

cheers,

Doug M.

http://www.sunriseenergynow.com

First, my sources. I work with many of the academic and agency people who work in the Mojave and study these giant solar projects. Most of my information comes from conversations with these people. I also read many news articles about what is happening with solar energy and I will cite a few as I go.

Land. The Mojave desert is a big place but much of the land area is mountainous or otherwise not flat. The flat areas, which are a habitat preferred by certain species such as the desert tortoise, are very popular places for building things like cities, farms, airports, etc. When you consider all of the impacts within the same habitat type it’s a much larger percentage. The above article states that the BLM is reviewing 34 projects covering 300,000 acres but these are just the “fast-track” projects. There are about 160 projects proposed for six states that would cover 1.8 million acres. When you add in the wind projects it’s an even larger area. Some of these projects are proposed for an area that is being considered for National Monument status so you know they’re not degraded wasteland. Alexander’s comment just underlines my original argument that most people don’t see any value in deserts because they don’t produce much of value to humans.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_newplants17.4242257.html
http://sunpluggers.com/news/science-report-advocates-using-disturbed-land-for-solar-plants-0840

NEPA. With that many projects, how much review do you think each project will get? These BLM offices are staffed to review a few projects a year, now that have dozens to approve before the funding deadline at the end of this year without adequate additional staff to do the work. The Dept of the Interior says on their website that each project will get a full review in the future but once the construction starts, do you think they will really stop to avoid impacts to sensitive areas? I doubt it. Many of the renewable energy companies complain that the BLM is dragging their feet on approving projects but they barely have enough staff for the cursory reviews their director has pledged.
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100104/us-confirms-plans-fast-track-solar-federal-lands-3-western-states

Water. These plants don’t use water in the pipes that run through the solar collectors, They use it to generate steam, cool the equipment, and wash off mirrors and solar panels. the steam that runs turbines can be reclaimed but it must be cooled to condense back to water and the cooling in “wet” solar plants is done by evaporating water, like a swamp cooler. “Dry” solar plants use giant cooling fins (like a car’s radiator) but they are more expensive and less efficient. Some solar projects will use reclaimed wastewater from nearby towns, but there is a limited amount of wastewater to go around.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html
http://www.alternet.org/water/140923/new_solar_power_plants_may_threaten_scarce_desert_water_resources/

I am not advocating that we not install solar projects in the desert, just that we should use caution when deciding where to put these giant projects. There are millions of acres of disturbed lands in the southwest (old farmland, mined areas, unfinished developments adjacent to cities, old oil fields) where these plants could be sited, not to mention the millions of acres of parking lots and rooftops in cities throughout the west. Just because our other methods of powering our country are destructive doesn’t mean that solar needs to be just as bad as the rest.

Lastly, the best way to reduce our carbon emissions is to use less energy in the first place. I ride my bike to work and added insulation to my house to reduce heating and cooling needs. My neighbors run their air conditioner all day while they leave doors and windows open. It’s not that hard to use less energy if you try.

I would level a million acres of desert in a heartbeat if it got us away from coal, natural gas, and oil with its attendant pollution. Now if we were talking about rainforest in the amazon, that is a whole other story…..

In the USA, transmission losses due to inescapable physical laws hover around 7%. This figure includes short distances such as a mile or two, long distances such as hundreds of miles, and power distribution within local communities. The longer the distance, the higher the loss due simply to electrical resistance.

Coal burning for power consumes about 850 million tons per year in the USA. Transmission power losses then represent about 60 million tons of coal per year. You can see that the transmission losses are significant. Keep in mind that the USA gets only about half its electrical power from coal.

The same basic transmission losses apply to all other forms of power generation, such as oil, gas, hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal. Except for the last three processes, none absolutely require siting in any particular place.

As for the Mojave or any other desert area being an ideal site for solar, the same could be said for almost all land areas in the southwestern US, as almost all this area has climate and sun similar to the Mojave. Of course, there are other considerations such as land cost, and I don’t mean to dismiss those. I do mean to stress that the ideal site for a power generation installation is as close as possible to the intended usage to mitigate transmission losses, keep additional required infrastructure costs low, make good use of what might be otherwise undesirable local real estate, and make wise use of our environmental resources.

I don’t disagree that power transmission lines are an issue. But I’d like to see some more facts.

“there is no absolute necessity to place a solar power generator at any particular spot” — the ideal spot for a solar power generator would be in a desert or other low-rainfall area with constant heavy predictable sunshine, not far from major power consumers. I have to say, at a first glance it’s hard to see someplace in the continental US that’s *better* than the Mojave.

Doug M.

There is a principle here that you have overlooked. “There’s so much desert, we need so little of it for this project.”

Restated in economic terms: “It’s not a budget-buster, it’s only a million dollars, it’s not even a rounding function.”

Every time the latter statement is used to justify a project against the realities of fiscal management, it adds another burden to the budget. After this has been done a sufficient number of times, the budget will be bloated beyond any reasonable comprehension. Likewise using the same basic argument for the use of so-called “wasteland” soon ends up with no “wasteland” left.

The argument made above about higher power transmission costs from remote locations, such as the Mojave, is definitely a factor to be taken into consideration, and should be included in the planning of any solar-power generation project. Fact is, the sun shines everywhere, there is no absolute necessity to place a solar power generator at any particular spot.

You make four really interesting points in your comment:

– those 300,000 acres… will be bulldozed in pristine Mojave Desert

– Solar power plants also use tremendous amounts of water to create the steam to turn the turbines.

– Even the “dry” solar plants suck up millions of gallons of water each year from basins that don’t have any water to spare.

– The BLM is being forced to approve these projects with minimal or no environmental review

Can you give cites for these points? I’m not asking this to be obnoxious, but because I’m sincerely curious.

On the first point, the Mojave is a big place — about 25,000 square miles. 300,000 acres is around 500 square miles. Nobody wants to see wilderness paved over with solar panels, but presumably some parts of the Mojave are more desirable / damaged / special than others. Is there something special about these sites that renders them “pristine”, or was that a bit of exaggeration?

On the second point, aren’t most turbine systems closed, recycling most of their water? Where is the water loss and demand? Again, I’m sincerely curious.

The BLM is being forced… that doesn’t sound implausible, but can you support it?

Thanks very much in advance,

Doug M.