Ceal's Comments

djdyar. You just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of readers get to the first point they think they can refute and then comment without REALLY reading the article! Apologies accepted. Truth be known, I spend a great deal of time fighting dirty energy (how can I not living in Colorado?). Being an ecologist (MSci/not the "tree hugger" kind) I couldn't fall for narrow "carbonentalist" solutions that assume we can continue to hack our remaining intact ecosystems to pieces and expect to "save" the planet. It's simply repeating the same old energy thinking that got us into this place to begin with. I stand by my original thesis, that by reducing our energy waste by 60% (the low hanging fruit that nearly everyone ignores) we can generate the energy we need from the sun, wind, water, geothermal, biofuels, combined heat & power and various methods of storage, right where we need it and let the deserts, and all the wonderful creatures that dwell in them, alone. Another point that seems to get missed, is that deserts are among the most species-rich ecosystems in the US and among the most threatened by climate change. None of us are happy that the mainstream "environmentalists" sold out to big energy industrialist (solar and natural gas), but they need to be called on their wasteful and confusing incrementalism. We need to be clear that its the grassrooters on the front lines (like those fighting Shell that sandcanyongal points out) that are making a real difference.

I appreciate all of your comments and would like to reiterate to v-bruce-stenswick-62270, Karl-Friedrich Lenz and Anonymous that my point is that there is plenty of evidence (UCLA/NYC studies, Germany, etc.) to show that we DON'T have to destroy the desert to deal effectively with climate change (energy use is only part of the solution), nor should we. Distributed, point of use solar is faster, cheaper, more efficient and secure than desert-destroying industrial solar and there is more than enough space in the urban environment that is already serving human needs. We would do better to leave Big Solar in the dust.

Also see my response to Johanna Wald:

Ground-truth: Do We Need to Destroy Our Deserts To Fight Climate Change?

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/02/ground-truthing-do-we-need-industrial-solar-to-fight-climate-change

This explains a lot, especially in light of the close (very close) ties between Gang Green and the Large-solar industry Association:

"The ties between Gang Green and big corporations seems to be growing, not diminishing. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, for instance, teams Big Green groups like the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council with the likes of Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Shell, the notorious mining firm Rio Tinto and many other mega-corporations. Perhaps the exposé on the Sierra Club will lead to a cleanup, but for now, the gangrene in Gang Green is Big Green corporate donations"

Gang Green's gangrene
Why should big enviro groups take corporate cash?
by George Ochenski

http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/gang-greens-gangrene/Content?oid=1536243

@JoyHughes

This is more of a "macro" picture of the SLV, but of course solar gardens are part of the plan, including the AgEnergy proposal, but only if Xcel expands on the 3 MW/yr. limit.

@Jumping up and down claiming that anonymous big corporations are somehow preventing them from purchasing solar power isn't credible.

There are 3 major constraints to developing local solar in the US, all of which corporations have substantial influence over:

1) utility rules that limit the purchase of locally owned and generated renewables. In the real world, this limit is largely determined by Investor Owned Utilities;

2) strong opposition from utility, mortgage and banking corporations to progressive policies like feed-in tariffs (FIT) and Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) that help interested investors overcome the #1 constraint to local RE;

3) access to financing

Needless I say, in the US, Wall Street, and its revolving door representatives, make the rules. As for how much American's spend on big screen TV's (or beer, or just about any other consumer item for that matter) comparing apples to oranges is beside the point.

The more relevant comparison is the cost of energy. If it's a better deal to invest in solar PV over the long-run, but you can't get financing, or other things that artificially raise the cost (like utility imposed connection fees), these are real economic barriers.

These barriers have been overcome in countries like Germany, who has seen exploding solar PV markets since adoption of a robust FIT, as per the comment by steve-poppitz-157135.

Mr. Bladen may be interested in feed-in tariffs - the proven policy tool that has incentivized a virtual explosion of on-site renewables in much of the world. Monopoly Energy has successfully opposed FIT's in most of the US.

See: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/02/the-green-jobs-policy-colorado-needs

and: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/09/monopoly-energy-or-energy-democracy

FIT's put distributed generation where it belongs, in our VAST urban environment at the point of use and above the meter where all investors are treated equally. And it costs taxpayers, well. Nothing. And ratepayers pay about the cost of a loaf of bread/mo.

@MacAfrican. Thanks for pointing out the double return - PV pays for itself through energy cost savings AND increased home values. Both are important in these hard times.

I promise not to tell.... but I'm going to read that policy brief. I'm wondering if we can establish a CCA in rural Colorado. Even though we "own" our Rural Electric Cooperative, TriState seems to want to act like an IOU.

@JayM, hooray for you and your Country for getting down to the practical business of making renewable energy a reality. Germany has clearly forged the way and (as Hermann Scheer pointed out) monopoly old energy IOU interests have too much power in the US and are obstructing real progress.

Arguing for its own sake will get us nowhere. Janine makes many good and valid points that deserve serious consideration. She has obviously looked deeply into the issues.

By driving up the cost and controversy of renewable energy, and diverting scarce financial resources, Big Solar is holding us back considerably:

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-05-focus

http://energyselfreliantstates.org/content/centralized-v-decentralized-clean-energy-we-may-have-choose

CSP is a 19th century technology that is not competitive w/solar PV (and we have storage alternatives):

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/03/busting-4-myths-about-solar-pv-vs-concentrating-solar-power

And last, the vast urban-suburban and otherwise developed environment offers more than enough "solestate" to generate the clean, and green energy we need:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/04/the-solar-golden-mean?cmpid=rss

There is no need to destroy our valuable (albeit unappreciated) deserts and push struggling species over the edge.

Wow, JayM, that is incredible data - thank you! And thank you Ms. Blaeloch for your courage in questioning the short-sited path DOI/Salazar is taking us down with regard to public lands and renewable energy development. Entrenched near-monopoly energy/utility interests are lobbying hard to force solar energy into the "old energy" model and Salazar and corporate enviros have fallen right into step. THIS is the biggest obstacle to making the rapid, cost-effective RE gains we need to head off climate change. But technology and markets are working in our favor. Even David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, a majority holder in the troubled BrightSource/Ivanpah Solar Electric Generation Station recently admitted to Forbes, "We think over the next three to five years the solar business will migrate heavily from a utility-sized solar business to a more distributed solar model driven by consumer demand not by government largesse".

"And there are advantages to Big Solar. The most obvious is that a large number of households can be positively affected at the same time."

People who support Big Solar are either invested or naive. For those in the later category, if you take the time to get educated, you'll discover that BS is neither cost-effective, or efficient when the cost of new transmission (billions) and line losses (up to 15%) from transporting electricity hundreds of miles to the point of use is factored in. BS industry and its advocates ALWAYS ignore these two inflating factors in their calculations. The cost of solar PV is now significantly lower than Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Check out this new report: COMMUNITY POWER/http://www.scribd.com/doc/43476651/Community-Power-by-Al-Weinrub-10-14-10

If you factor in the enormous environmental losses, cost of and losses from long-distance transmission plus this outlandish subsidy of $3,316,327/MW this is a VERY bad deal for the American people. Once again, Wall Street has its way.