Tuesday 12 February 2013

What Happens When A Developer Abandons A Desert Solar Project?

What Happens When A Developer Abandons A Desert Solar Project? http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/commentary/what-happens-when-a-developer-abandons-a-desert-solar-project.html "All the large solar power projects proposed for or being built in the California desert have a life expectancy. It may be 30 years, or 50 years, but it's shorter than a human lifespan. At some point the power towers will have to be removed, the mirrors and the photovoltaic panels recycled, and if the economics and technology of 2065 don't warrant utility scale solar -- as they largely do not now -- then these sites will all be permanently altered. Perhaps we will know better by then how to revegetate a desert landscape; perhaps we will be able to plant 500-year-old yuccas and 1,200-year-old creosotes from seed.
We don't know how to do that now, and so we will struggle to heal those sites once the solar developers abandon them."

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