Solar vs. Environmentalists - Environmentalists Win

image by Brightsource Energy

BrightSource Energy, Inc. of California announced yesterday that it has dropped plans to build a solar power plant in Broadwell Dry Lake, part of Sleeping Beauty Valley in the eastern Mohave Desert. The company faced strong opposition from environmentalists, including a feud between Robert Kennedy Jr. and David Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy, over the use of 600,000 acres of land donated to the Department of Interior for conservation.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has proposed turning the land into a national monument.  She said of the decision “"I commend BrightSource Energy for this action.  It's clear that conservation and renewable energy development are not mutually exclusive goals -- there is room enough in the California desert for both."

Broadwell Dry Lake near Ludlow, California is the home of an important herd of bighorn sheep and is considered a biological wonder to scientists studying animals and plants that are able to adapt to Mohave’s desert conditions.

According to David Myers, "This creates an open playing field for the monument to be built.  It also could herald a sea change in the solar energy industry in that people will better understand that that there are good and bad places to build."