EconomyUSA: Energy: Massive solar in desert opposed by ultra-Enviros

Woudn't you know, but a 3,600-acre desert wilderness of Federal land in northern California is about to be "planted" with 346 thousands of billboard-size solar panels, and it's being viewed by alarmed species-chauvinists who are bitterly opposed to destruction of the habitat of a "rare turtle" ("desert tortoise," no Latin species name is given) in the Ivanpah Valley.  No more soup for the Piutes of the neiborhood, but they're long gone anyway.

The other rascal of the piece is Bright-Source Energy, Inc, out of Oakland, regarded by other Enviros as equivalent to the "robber barons" of Nineteenth Century industrializing eastern states of the USA.  So we're told by Tiffany Hsu, reporting in Los Angeles T+mes (Oct23,2k100:

[It's] just another "Big Solar" corporation chasing down profits on the public dime.

"It's the old centralized robber-baron monopoly model," said Sheila Bowers, an activist with the advocacy group Solar Done Right. "This is the worst way to go about getting clean energy — it's slow, it's remote, it's devastating to the environment, and taxpayers are footing most of the bill."

Construction of the facility, perched on the eastern edge of San Bernardino County, is expected to be completed in 2013.Chevron Corp., BP, Morgan Stanley and Google Inc. are all among the investors.  The billion 37 million Fed loan guarantee is justified by the project's advocates becawz "without the government support, the solar thermal industry might struggle against cheaper technologies such as photovoltaics."

-- EconoMix