Solar energy and ecology

Environmentalists are not the only ones clamoring for a more sensible national energy policy. The dramatic effects of climate change are the driver behind nearly every renewable energy initiative. Fortunately, solar power development is big business in sunny California, fueled 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 diversity there.

A study shows habitat challenges with solar

The study, by the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University, shows the ecological footprint of solar power could grow to more than 27,500 square miles — roughly the land area of South Carolina — if the U.S. were to develop a more ambitious climate goal. When thousands of solar panels are built in undeveloped natural areas, the panels tend to crowd out wildlife and destroy their habitat.
“Solar takes out a lot of territory, right? It obliterates everything,” University of California-Santa Cruz ecologist Barry Sinervo, who is unaffiliated with the study, said. The Carnegie study found that of the 161 planned or operating utility-scale solar power developments in California, more than fifty percent will be built on natural shrub and scrublands totaling about 145 square miles of land, roughly the land area of the city of Bakersfield, Calif. Almost a quarter have been built on agricultural land and 15 percent have been built in developed areas.

Large-scale solar installations

Areas that have already been developed and have little wildlife habitat would be better suited for solar development from an ecological standpoint, 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 33 percent of solar development is occurring on former cropland, often because farmers are shifting from growing crops to using their land to generate electricity. California’s long-term 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 protection will be critical if the U.S. is to rely on more solar power to displace fossil fuel sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Assuming that 500 gigawatts of solar power may be needed 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 equal to the land area of South Carolina may be needed to accommodate all the new solar power plant development.

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