March 15, 2011--Briefly: Solar Energy

How can we watch in horror as nuclear energy plants in Japan melt down and threaten not only that country's future but all plans to maintain or build new facilities of this kind, while other, less polluting and dangerous alternatives languish, awaiting investment and the mobilization of our collective will.

If there is money to be made, investment will follow. But will is lacking.

Take solar energy possibilities in California, the state where not too long ago there was not enough 20th-century-vintage energy available and utility companies needed to institute rolling blackouts.

California is the Golden State not only because there was gold in its hills but because of abundant sunshine. Especially in its extensive interior deserts. So one would expect that they would be in the lead in building solar energy facilities. There should be enough public support to make them profitable and thereby attract the needed capital.

There is evidence that these necessary forces might in fact come together. That is, if environmental litigation can be overcome.

I like to believe I am ecology minded, but what we are seeing in the Southern California desert is enough to get me thinking about burning my Greenpeace membership card.

According to the linked article from the New York Times, the Solar Millennium Company withdrew its license to build five mulit-billion dollar 250-megawatt solar stations in the California desert because of environmentalists' and regulators' concerns about the impact of the project on the Mohave ground squirrel.

I do not want to see these squirrels endangered, but even less do I want to see the rest of us threatened by radiation and global warming.

Note: In Japan, at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which is the one most severely damaged, each of it's six nuclear reactors generates 439 megawatts. So the cancelled California solar array is quite a big deal.