Mojave Desert Blog

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is working on the final environmental impact statements for two more solar projects in the Mojave's Ivanpah Valley, which straddles the California and Nevada border, and the documents are expected to be released this summer.  BrightSource Energy 's destructive Ivanpah Solar project is nearing completion there, but First Solar's proposed Stateline and Silver State South solar projects would destroy another eight square miles of intact desert ecosystem, with the most appalling destruction to occur at the 4.8 square mile Silver State South solar site.  I hope at least one of the projects will canceled altogether or at least substantially trimmed down.  First Solar's reputation as a steward of the environment is at stake, and the company has no reason to ignore Fish and Wildlife Service concerns; the company has successfully built large projects on already-disturbed lands with minimized environmental impacts.  These Ivanpah proje...

I was reading about NRG Energy, whose CEO has spoken enthusiastically about the potential of distributed generation, and came across a fairly impressive array of solar on rooftops and over parking lots that the company has installed. Although I disagree with the company's investment in the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System , the distributed generation project at Arizona State University is proof of the clean energy we can generate in our cities.  ASU's facilities boast over 20 megawatts of solar panels, and they plan to expand to 25 megawatts.  You can even monitor real time generation statistics at the campus' website . [click on image to expand] The orange borders highlight buildings with rooftop solar. Other buildings with rooftop solar are in the area, but the image would have less detail if I zoomed out enough to capture  them.  Good job, ASU! Back in my own hometown of Victorville, Victor Valley College recently received an award for its own so...

President Obama announced today his administration's Climate Action Plan, which includes a long overdue directive to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to complete carbon pollution standards for new and existing power plants, calls for improving vehicle fuel economy standards,  and raising the bar for energy efficiency in our homes and businesses.   All of these are urgent and smart ways to fix our destructive energy paradigm.  In a surprisingly positive shift,  the President also signaled that he may not approve the Keystone oil pipeline if it results in a net increase of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the President also outlined plans for continued utility-scale renewable energy expansion; these plans must be reconciled with his administration's unfortunately overlooked effort to protect wildlands and wildlife.   The Climate Action Plan only vaguely refers to the fairly comprehensive National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Stra...

K Road Solar this week decided to withdraw its application to bulldoze nearly six square miles of desert in the central Mojave Desert.   The company's Calico Solar project has haunted this important swath of desert habitat since 2007 when the project's previous owner first filed plans with the Bureau of Land Management.  The Calico Solar project was among the first in a wave of applications that have begun to fragment and industrialize otherwise intact habitat in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.  Citizen conservationists and national environmental groups - including the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and Natural Resources Defense Council - opposed the Calico project during environmental review and in court , but the BLM and California Energy Commission still seemed intent on permitting the project. Much of the desert in this view would have been destroyed to make way for the proposed Calico Solar project.  The Cady Mountains Wilderness Study Area can be seen...

The Bureau of Land Management this week released the draft general conformity determination for Cal Nev Pipeline company's proposed 16 inch diameter oil pipeline that will run from Colton, California through the Mojave Desert and terminate in Las Vegas, Nevada.   The determination assesses the pipeline's "direct and indirect" impacts on air quality standards during construction and operation, but ironically does not evaluate emissions from the actual use of the oil the pipeline will carry. The new pipeline would run mostly parallel to existing lines and expand the system's carrying capacity by nearly 44,000 barrels per day, bringing the total oil transmission in the Cal Nev Pipeline system to 200,000 barrels per day.  The company says that the new capacity is needed to fuel Las Vegas' tourism industry and McCarran International Airport.    The new capacity could facilitate an increase in the region's CO2 emissions by 18,920 metric tons per day, based...

You'll notice that I have a new " Take Action to Protect Bobcats " page listed on the tabs underneath the banner photo of this blog.  Residents in Joshua Tree recently became aware that bobcats were being trapped and killed across much of California's deserts for their furs, which are then sold to markets in Russia and China.  The same market forces that lead to ruthless poaching for ivory in other countries is now impacting our deserts by removing a key predator from the ecosystem.  However, in California it is legal to kill as many bobcats as you would like.  This is an outdated policy that could have serious ecological repercussions. Bobcat in the Mojave. Photo by David McChessney . The folks organizing to protect these wonderful animals have started Project Bobcat , and they are supporting the Bobcat Protection Act ( Assembly Bill 1213 ) in the California legislature.   This bill, as it currently reads, would make it unlawful to kill bobcats in the are...

The past few weeks have brought a depressing onslaught of "more of the same" from Washington, but I will start with a couple nice morsels of good news.  A new report from GTM Research provides some relief in the form of good news on distributed generation.   I'll give you a gist of the research - in the first three months of 2013, the United States added over 405 MW of solar panels to residential and commercial rooftops.   In addition, many of the utility scale projects completed over the past few months probably were built on already-disturbed lands, judging by the report's description of the general sizes and locations of the installations.   It's nice to know that somehow there is a segment of the energy market that is on a sustainable and clean path, and it makes companies that destroy pristine desert habitat look bad (ahem, like BrightSource Energy , K Road , and Next Era ).  The report also reiterates that rooftop solar is going to change the way we...