Do Greens Have A None-Of-The-Above Energy Policy?

[Dave]

So ya give them what they want and now its not what they want... go figure. Apparently they don't want it in their back yard either so they will probably want to force the wind farms to go back into the back yards of the people that didn't want them to begin with. Craziness!

Two environmental groups in April filed suit to block an energy project they said would seriously harm the local ecosystem.

It wasn't a coal plant, or an oil refinery, or a nuclear reactor. It was a wind farm — the very sort of "clean" energy environmentalists champion as an alternative to dirty traditional supplies.

But the Portland Audubon Society and Oregon Natural Desert Association say a wind farm on Oregon's Steens Mountain, along with needed access roads and transmission lines, would threaten eagles, sage grouse and bighorn sheep and call it the "antithesis" of "responsible renewable energy development."

Also in April, an appeals court took up a lawsuit seeking to stop a 399-megawatt, 3,200-acre solar power plant in Panoche Valley, 130 miles southeast of San Francisco. Environmentalists say it will harm the endangered blunt-nosed lizard and kangaroo rat.

"No one disputes the necessity for solar energy," the green groups' attorney told the court, but "it is improper on this site."

Environmentalists are openly hostile to oil, coal and nuclear energy. And while some had backed natural gas as a "bridge fuel," opposition has soared as a U.S. supply glut makes gas far cheaper.

But national and local environmental groups are fighting to block or delay many solar plants, wind farms, hydropower and biomass plants and other forms of "clean" energy, along with new transmission lines needed to bring that energy to customers.

The effect, observers say, is to slow green energy growth. Even if renewable production rose at three times the overall energy output pace, it would still make up just 16% of domestic supplies by 2035, from 10% now, according to the Energy Department.

Greens Vs. Green Energy

Solar plants can disrupt fragile desert ecosystems, wind turbines can slaughter endangered birds and bats, biomass plants can emit pollution and threaten forests, hydroelectric dams can disrupt fish habitats, and the transmission lines that renewables need pose various local issues. And all tend to require huge amounts of land.

"We are starting to see that all renewable energy projects, no matter how well-planned, are being questioned," Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Energy Group, said after his company settled a fight with greens over a Nevada wind farm.

An extensive U.S. Chamber of Commerce report — "Project No Project" — found 140 renewable projects that had been delayed or killed, many after fierce opposition from environmental groups.

An analysis in the journal Policy Review found that every one of the nearly two dozen solar, wind and geothermal projects under development review in the desert Southwest faces "varying degrees of opposition from environmental groups."

Earlier this year the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Defenders of Wildlife filed suit to stop the 4,600-acre Calico solar plant northeast of Los Angles, calling it one of the most ecologically damaging renewable energy projects in the state.

"Calico will irreversibly harm the sensitive Pisgah Valley and the desert tortoise," said the Defenders of Wildlife's Kim Delfino.

Environmentalists also succeeded in blocking GreenHunter Energy's 500-megawatt wind project for a remote part of Montana near the Canada border. GreenHunter Chairman Gary Evans told the AP at the time that "if you have opposition (to a wind farm) in Valley County, I don't know how you could build one."

Environmentalists filed suit against a 100-turbine wind farm in Kern County, Calif., saying it threatens endangered condors, golden eagles and other birds. And they've fought wind farms in western Maryland, West Virginia, Southern California, Vermont and elsewhere.

In addition, big environmental groups tried to stop a three-year EPA exemption to biomass plants from its greenhouse gas emission rules to encourage what EPA head Lisa Jackson called "renewable, homegrown power sources."

Kevin Bundy, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Hill that "the EPA has no authority to just waive the Clean Air Act for the benefit of politically favored industries."

Environmentalists also have battled hydropower dams.

"Hydroelectric power is still by far the nation's leading source of renewable energy," noted Steve Stein in Policy Review , but if environmental groups "won all their dam removal battles, this would no longer be so."

Transmission lines to bring remote wind and solar power to customers also make greens see red. The U.S. Chamber report found more than 10 such projects under fire.

The 85-mile Green Path North Transmission Line was supposed to carry "green" power to L.A. The city's Department of Water and Power killed the plan in 2010, citing environmental opposition.

Striking A Balance?

Big environmental groups argue that they are fully supportive of clean energy, and are just trying to balance advancing it with protecting local ecology. They note that they've supported or reached deals with developers of five of the seven major California solar projects approved by the Interior Department since 2009.

Helen O'Shea of the NRDC notes that the recent Interior Department report identifying 17 public tracts of lands as most promising for solar plants with minimal environmental impact is "a huge milestone" that will provide more guidance to what had been an ad-hoc process, one that had created "not an insignificant amount of conflict." She adds that many of the problems developers face can be avoided by "talking early and often to stakeholders."

But Southern Utah University's Ryan Yonk, co-author of "Green vs. Green: The Political, Legal, and Administrative Pitfalls... says frequent litigation and legal threats are nevertheless slowing renewable development.

"Environmental groups still haven't recognized that in a world of scarcity you have to have tradeoffs," he said.

http://news.investors.com/article/621692/201208091842/environmental...