Taxpayer dollars continue to go to an unreliable source of energy that often has negative environmental
effects. By ANDREW FOLLETT, National Review, June 12, 2024 - The 2,300-acre Aratina Solar Project west of Barstow is intended to generate 530 megawatts of electricity. But it has infuriated residents with construction dust and a likely threat to centuries-old trees and endangered desert tortoises that are the official state reptile of California and Nevada, the usual environmental safeguards so prevalent in California notwithstanding. ... “Let’s destroy the environment to save the environment. That seems to be the mentality,” local teacher Deric English told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s hard to comprehend.”
... According to the National Park Service, Joshua trees are a key part of the desert ecosystem, “providing habitat for numerous birds, mammals, insects, and lizards,” and are on average 150 years old, although many are much older than that.
... Many older solar panels take up to a decade to accomplish a net reduction in emissions, while even more modern ones placed in the — increasingly limited — climatically ideal environments for solar power typically take many years. So any net benefit from this project will take, at best, years to manifest.
... The majority of America’s recent CO2 emissions reductions come from the “decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation,” not the growth of solar power, according to the EIA. ... Solar power also creates about 300 times more toxic waste per unit of electricity generated than nuclear-power plants do, ... (link)
Rod's Comment: I accept the reality of global warming and consider myself an environmentalist. Unfortunately, the liberal activist environmentalist community hinder addressing the problem of climate change. Promotions of solar energy joins the promotion of ethanol as solutions that are not really solutions and actually are bad for the environment. Activist liberal environmentalist opposition to refining cleaner oil in favor of continuing to refine dirty oil, opposition to fracking which results in an increased natural gas supply which replaces much dirtier coal, support for the ineffective Paris Accords, and, most egregious, the opposition to nuclear energy are all environmentalist positions that perpetuate climate change and environmental degradation. Unfortunately, there are too few rational environmentalists at the table.
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