Friday, April 29, 2011

Environmentalists debate big solar plans



Opponents of large scale solar power plants are arguing that "big environmental organizations have been co-opted by grants from solar developers intended to buy their acquiescence" and that these large operations will "worsen the environmental catastrophe they are trying to avert."

'Big Solar' advocates counter that opponents are marginalized, local NIMBYs.

The anti-big solar case is made in an article in the latest issue of Miller-McCune, "Are New Solar Power Projects Anti-Environmental?"

The debate is over giant centralized solar plants covering thousands of acres vs distributed power generation that lets you drop off the grid. It seems to me we need the ability to do both. There is no single magic bullet that is going to meet our energy needs within all the economic, environmental, and political constraints.

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