I am always really annoyed when perfectly flat space in Austria is wasted with solar panels WHEN there are huge flat roofed buildings around.
I hope they are not also chopping down trees.
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Sounds fake
Solar project to destroy thousands of Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert... So Rich People Can Continue Privileged, Unsustainable Lifestyle
Oh no, there destroying 1000! That must be a lot!
Oh wait, there's 10 million in existence.
Thanks, but I think this is a fine trade.
If people think solar destroys the environment, wait till they find out about coal and natural gas
What about all the sunny land that doesn't have Joshua trees? Why are we even trying to build power plants so far away from where the electricity is mostly needed?
Do you think there are no reasons? Would you accept this if there were, or would you just say the reasons were bad?
Build over existing infrastructure. One example is current project to cover water canals with solar. Don't need to acquire land, reduces evaporation saving water, reduces plant growth in canals lowering maintenance costs.
To me, good reasons would align with the goals of environmental protection and wealth transfer to the working class. How do Aratina-type projects do so better than a nuclear power plant (or concentrated solar or deep-well geothermal) within or nearby to a population center? If they ever do it's just incidental. The real reason for the Aratina development is that this was deal that satisfied the various capital interests involved in it (the land owner, “Avantus, a California company that is mostly owned by KKR, the global private equity firm”, and the bourgeois interests served by the county).
Cheap ground cannot be a reason then, OK?
Sure it can. Why not?
The issue with ground prices is they fail to account for stuff humans really need like clean air, clean water, biodiversity. So if you stripp all these factors in valuation and then start building while at the same time chopping down trees in need of protection. You are kinda rigging the game, or not?
That doesn't mean it's not a reason. It's just a reason you don't like.
The land is only cheap when you pretend those externalized environmental costs do not exist. They still have to be paid, usually by the public at large. I think the saying goes; socialize the cost and privatize the gains.
I knew I should not have taken the bait.
I don't care enough about the subject to actually look into this, but the title reads like astroturfing.
What headline would you have written instead?
I never liked U2 after they got all up themselves anyway.
I love the story of when they played at the Barrow lands in Glasgow, I think. I'm paraphrasing
Bono walks onto the stage and claps really slowly, at 3 second intervals.
After a bit, he says dramatically "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies"
A bloke in the audience shouts "Stop doing it then you cruel cunt"
Scots take few prisoners, in humour.
Chopping down Joshua trees is a bit absurd. I live in the mohave desert, there are PLENTY of barren areas to do it, you almost have to be looking for the ancient Joshua trees to decide to do that. And as far as I know they are protected in most places, especially the California side.
But I will say the article seems a bit ragebaity. "To power wealthy people's homes". Unless they are super isolated somehow, that power is going into the grid, just like every other means of electricity production. The dude that wrote the article will be using it to charge his laptop when it's done, just like the rest of us.
All of the electricity in a power grid is physically identical, but markets make a distinction between the sources by way of purchase agreements and various types of renewable energy credits. If it seems crazy for the locals to complain that they are losing their forest and not even getting the electricity from this new plant, it's not because they're mistaken. It's because we have a crazy system to try and use market incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production.
yep. and it's hardly like there are FORESTS of johsua trees, it's one here, another one over there, a few kms down the road another one.... the idea that they're paving over a forest....
also, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they can just build around the fuckers, they're small ass trees to start with.
Edit:
there are totally areas chock fulla Joshua Trees. I stand corrected, see links below.
But still think they can find space for this and other solar all throughout the southwest desert.
Eh. There are legit forests as alien as it may seem. This is on my drive to work: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/10/ae/a1/0e/the-joshua-tree-forest.jpg
This is a random picture off Google, there are denser areas too. But, if you go a mile or two in any direction it is pretty desolate for another 50 miles. Just go anywhere other than the splotch of forest. Pretty simple.
Wow, TIL!
But yeah, the empty areas seem ripe for this.
That looks so strange
I'd love to see that in person
It's on the drive to Grand Canyon West, if you ever plan on seeing that.
Time to add a pit stop on a vacation I'm planning for later this year
Thank you!
I'm pretty sure that picture was taken from the only access road to Grand Canyon West, so it's not even a detour. You literally can't miss it.
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish there would be some trees around.
No, not those shrivelled black things!
These people apparently found the only ones and decided to build a solar farm there.
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