Solar energy

Environmentalists are not the only ones clamoring for a more practical national energy policy. The dramatic effects of climate change are the driver behind nearly every renewable energy action. Fortunately, solar power development is big business in sunny California, stoked by low solar panel prices and the motivation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change. Some scientists, however, are concerned that the placement of new large-scale solar power plants in the Mojave Desert may harm the biological variety there.

Climate goals for solar enthusiasts

The study, by the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University, shows the environmental footprint of solar power development could grow to more than 27,500 square miles — roughly the land area of South Carolina — if the U.S. were to embrace a more ambitious climate goal. When thousands of solar panels are built in undeveloped natural areas, the panels crowd out wildlife and damage their habitat.

“Solar takes out a lot of territories, right? It obliterates everything,” University of California-Santa Cruz ecologist Barry Sinervo, who is unaffiliated with the study, said. “There is as much plant biodiversity in the Mojave as there is in a redwood forest. The key part of this is, do we want to tile out the last largest wilderness area that we have, which is the Western desert?”

The Carnegie study found that of the 161 planned or operating utility-scale solar energy developments in California, more than half have been or will be built on natural dwarf and scrublands totaling about 145 square miles of land, roughly the land area of the city of Bakersfield, California. About 28 percent have been built on agricultural land and 15 percent have been built in developed areas.

Areas that have already been produced and have little wildlife habitat would be better suited for solar development from an ecological viewpoint, said study lead author Rebecca Hernandez, a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley, and a former ecologist at the Carnegie Institution.

Hernandez said she was surprised to find that nearly a third of solar development is occurring on former cropland, perhaps because farmers are shifting from growing crops to using their land to generate electricity. California’s devastating drought may be responsible for farmers’ shift to solar, something one of the study’s co-authors is researching in more depth.

“We see that ‘big solar’ is competing for space with natural areas,” she said. “We were surprised to find that solar energy development is a potential driver of the loss of California’s natural ecosystems and reductions in the integrity of our state and national park system.”

Finding ways to resolve conflicts between renewable energy development and ecosystem security may be critical if the U.S. is to rely on more solar power to displace fossil energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Assuming that 500 gigawatts of solar power may be required to meet a future climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, Hernandez’s team found that a region of California roughly equivalent to the land area of South Carolina may be needed to accommodate all the new solar power plant development.

Solar power is here to stay, and the sooner you explore how much you can save, the sooner you can enjoy the benefits of residential solar power.  Please visit our solar blog to find out more about the benefits of going solar.  \ Before making the commitment to solar, be sure to do your research to learn how solar panels can save you money. For more information, please see our blog. There has never been a better time to go solar!

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