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Freeze On US Solar Plant Applications Lifted

Posted by timothy on from the it-would-have-melted-eventually dept.

necro81 writes "Barely a month ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a freeze on applications for solar power plants on federally managed land, pending a two-year comprehensive environmental review. After much hue and cry from the public, industry, and other parts of government, BLM has today announced that it will lift the freeze, but continue to study the possible environmental effects. To date, no solar project has yet been approved on BLM land."

10 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Frozen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because Big Oil doesn't like Big Sun.

    1. Re:Frozen? by y86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But what exactly about them shows a "lack of compassion"? Because they'd ban animal testing? That's not a choice I'd agree with, but it has legitimate moral arguments.

      How about assaulting people over their choice of clothing? Controlling something through fear... oh yeah, it's a terrorist organization. Wow... compassion what?

    2. Re:Frozen? by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I hope you realize that you are reasoning emotionally, not analytically.

      The target of your polemic are (a) hippies with (b) money who (c) care about rare birds and (d) don't care about poor people. Just because somebody demonstrating caring about rare birds doesn't mean he doesn't demonstrate caring about people in other circumstances. That's an assumption you are making for polemical purposes, so that you can brand anybody who disagrees with you on an issue as a hypocrite.

      Also, the implication is that anybody who has anything to say should just STFU if you think there's an issue that's more important. It's a BS position, because there's always a more important issue you can scrounge up. If you want to have any credibility arguing this position, you'd better show that you've dedicated your life to assisting the poor.

      You can't be a serious thinker about issues and be a single issue person. The world doesn't work that way. Sometimes it's time to stand up for the environment, and sometimes it's time to stand up for the downtrodden. And quite often doing one is doing the other.

      If you knew anything about environmentalism other than what you've learned from right wing bullshitters, you'd know that environmental problems fall disproportionately on the poor. Who breaths the most pollution? The poor. Who suffers the most from climate change or short sighted, locally focused water management? The poor.

      The middle class don't do so great either, under the rape the environment philosophy.

      But if you're wealthy, you get the lion's share of the economic benefits of that philosophy. Using that money, can simply move away from problems. Move to the outer suburbs, and buy a vacation home in Vail. If you despoil your native country, you can always go to Costa Rica to stay at a marvelous eco-friendly resort.

      It's not that I have anything against the wealthy in general. I've known quite a few of them, and a lot of them are forward looking, socially responsible problem solvers. But this argument that environmentalists ignore the poor is just ignorant. It's worse than ignorant. It's willfully ignorant.

      You don't give a shit about the poor, you're just exploiting them to make a rhetorical point. No person sincerely interested in the poor takes the attitude that nobody can have any other priorities but the poor.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. No Solar Projects Approved by Alcimedes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder if the BLM has approved any oil wells on BLM land......

    1. Re:No Solar Projects Approved by tthomas48 · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the BLM web page:

      http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/energy/oil_and_gas.html

      It wasn't too hard to find. Being on the main blm web page and all. To answer the question, the BLM does have quite an investment in selling leases for exploiting natural resources. Although, it doesn't explain why they wouldn't be interested in selling leases to exploit sunlight. Of course, we might find out that this was a directive from someone higher up in the administration.

  3. Germany has them by mschuyler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While we whine about 'environmental considerations' of grabbing free energy from the sun, other countries are actually doing something about it. I was just in Germany where solar cell farms have been built in many places along the autobahns. Further, there are huge windmills everywhere (turning VERY slowly--Any bird which hits one of these is not paying attention. In France they've gone whole-hog nuke for electricity. There isn't a project alive that we can't make take ten times longer and make ten times the cost over our 'concerns.'

    --
    How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
  4. Re:Don't review it! by StaticEngine · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not sure if you're aware, but hippie chicks are a pain in the ass. They don't shave their body hair, they're overly concerned with what direction they're facing when making out so they can "harness the natural energy of Gaia", and they think all technology pollutes their auras.

    What you want is to score with a hot female electrical engineer, because there's usually a hellion lurking beneath the rose-rimmed glasses and the tight labcoat.

  5. Re:Solar plants are dangerous! by greenguy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't believe you left out the biggest problem of all: what to do with all that solar waste.

    I know I sure as heck don't want a bunch of depleted sunlight in my backyard!

    --
    What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
  6. Re:Don't review it! by Thelasko · · Score: 5, Funny

    The hot female EE you speak of is a mythical creature, like bigfoot, or a unicorn.

    Oh, they exist, I've seen them with my own eyes. They've just been hunted to the edge of extinction.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  7. Re:ok by gclef · · Score: 5, Informative

    Solar cells are still made from industrial chemical processes, so they're not necessarily very land-fill friendly (obviously, this depends on the chemical makeup of the cell)....and yes, the cells will wear out and require replacement.

    Also, as a joker pointed out earlier, since they don't work at night, you need batteries...our battery technology is also fairly heavy on the heavy metals right now. These also wear out, often faster than the cells do.

    In the case that the BLM are talking about, there are a number of interesting possibilities:
        * How to bees/other insects react to light reflected back off large banks of cells? Does it mess with their navigation?
        * Do any of the plans to get cables out to the banks of cells mess with the wildlife they're trying to protect?
        * Do the cells have any (potentially) toxic runoff when hit with heavy rains/hail/etc?
        * will any residual heat from the cells mess with the local flora/fauna? (if it's an area that's normally snow-covered in winter, what happens if the heat from the cells keeps it snow-free? Does that mess with any of the local plants cycles?)