El Phoenix Sun

Parabolic trough system in the desert

As the popularity of solar and other clean renewable energy sources grows, environmental groups are playing a major role in shaping how the nation makes the transition to the new energy economy. One of the most visible examples of this renewed role for environmentalists is found in the the roll-out of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) on public lands primarily in the Southwest.

That’s not to say that all environmental groups agree on all points. Todd Woody, who blogs for the NYT’s Green Inc., recently covered one contentious issue in the Mojave Desert. Over at High Country News, Judith Lewis wrote a fascinating article in May about a schism between environmentalists over “Big Solar” in the Mojave.

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Environmentalists concerned about potential damage to desert ecosystems, electric utilities wanting to expand into the growing solar energy market, and anyone else for that matter, have been given until September 14 to tell the government their concerns about a plan to open some 670,000 acres of federal land to development for large-scale solar power facilities. The change adds 45 days to the original public comment period.

In announcing the change, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, explained:

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Solarone Power Plant

It’s partly the florid language that makes me and some other Westerners uneasy.

“Arizona, the New Frontier! Armed with an abundance of sunlight, Arizona is the land of sunshine and opportunity.”

That palaver could have been lifted from a 19th Century swindler’s sheet, written to separate greenhorns from their golden coins. But, in fact, I just cut-and-pasted it from the Bureau of Land Management’s current website. The BLM controls vast areas of the West, (68% of Nevada, 40% of Utah, 17% of Arizona) and is pitching the opportunities for “solar development companies, or ‘prospectors‘” in the old New Frontier of the American Southwest.

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