Solar Power Is Booming. But It’s Putting Desert Wilderness At Risk.
Huff PostLOADING ERROR LOADING The Mojave Desert, straddling California and Nevada, has been called the Saudi Arabia of solar power. “Renewable energy is the future, we need it, that’s obvious,” said Steven Grodsky, an assistant research ecologist at the University of California, Davis and co-author of the paper. There’s this ideology that deserts need to be developed to make them useful to society.” Ideally, she said, less pristine locations should be developed first: “Let’s build solar in the places that are already adversely impacted, that we’ve already screwed up, that have low environmental value.” This could mean everything from putting solar panels on the roofs of homes, parking garages and large commercial buildings to constructing a utility-scale floating solar project in a giant reservoir. “It’s something we can do.” Environmental concern obviously didn’t play a big part during the first wave of energy development ― the extraction of fossil fuels ― Grodsky said. “It’s almost like we have a second chance,” he said, “to implement this new wave of renewable energy development in a way that’s sustainable.”
History of this topic
A project aims to show it's possible to harvest food and green energy on the same land
NPR
KREDL proposes setting up 500 MW solar park in Aurad of Bidar district
The Hindu)
For India to reach net-zero by 2050, the country needs to allocate 2.5 percent of its land for clean energy installation
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