The country’s largest area designated for solar energy, Desert Center shows how sprawls of PV panels impact communities.
I fail to see the “struggle”. It’s not like this stuff spews soot into the area or something. It’s innocuous.
Residents worry about the project’s dust, the potential spread of Valley Fever from fungal spores that could be stirred up and their properties losing value. The project’s water assessment found it could result in a deficit of 300 acre feet of groundwater—typically enough for 600 California homes—meaning more water would be coming out of the local aquifer than goes in.
They’re not trying to stop it but they want negative impacts mitigated. This seems reasonable.
Smells like bullshit excuses. The same article talks about “They want a buffer zone to protect their viewscape and other proposed developments in the area, like new housing and a gas station.” So they don’t have a problem with other construction kicking up dust or using water — just the solar farm construction.
Thank you for a reading the article and responding with substance from it that considers what it says instead of being dismissive. These projects are far from perfect.
solar panels in a desert seems relative low impact infrastructure
Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices to stave off previously unknown levels of human misery.
The alternative is communities (like Louisiana’s “cancer alley”) impacted in way worse way.
Was reading an article about creation of a large public beach. It only sat 2ft above sea level and often washed over in high tide. The developers bulldozed sand from the sea side to bring it up to 12ft. But they had big troubles with wind blowing the sand inland. It almost scuttled the whole project.
So they planted hardy native grass that grew roots toward the water. It mitigated the dust problem.
Wonder if a similar thing can be done with native desert vegetation to solve this problem.
