Solar the Right Way...

In a blog post titled "Every Rooftop Matters," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune explains the important role rooftop solar will play in cutting down harmful greenhouse gas emissions.  The Club's efforts to promote distributed generation are a welcome development given the troubling plans by some energy companies to bulldoze hundreds of square miles of pristine desert for remote projects.  Two of the massive projects have already begun construction, displacing hundreds of threatened desert tortoises and destroying Native American sacred sites.

This photo by Basin and Range Watch shows destroyed Desert Ironwood trees where construction crews have already begun work on the Blythe Solar power project, with protesters in the background. The bulldozers have already destroyed some sites sacred to Native Americans, clearing pristine desert for what will eventually be an 11 square mile industrial area.

In separate news, Google announced its investment of 280 million dollars in SolarCity, a rooftop solar business.  The investment could create 7,000-9,000 solar roofs. The announcement comes on the heels of Google's less appealing investments in the destructive Ivanpah Solar energy project (pictured below) and the Alta Wind Energy Center, a wind project that could result in at least 3,000 bird collisions each year.

In this photo by Erin Whitfield, BrightSource Energy has already bladed the Ivanpah Valley for its solar power project. The picture only shows clearing for one phase of the project--just about a third of the total proposed destruction for the 5.6 square mile site.