Lawsuits over environmental and cultural impacts threaten to derail thermal solar power industry

The future of the thermal solar power industry is in flux after a string of lawsuits seeking to block construction of five of the projects in the Southern California desert. The litigation "underscores the growing risks of building large-scale renewable energy plants in environmentally delicate areas," Todd Woody reports for The New York Times. In January Solar Millennium canceled its license application for a 250-megawatt solar station, citing regulators’ concerns over the project’s impact on the Mohave ground squirrel. (BrightSource rendering of proposed Ivanpah plant)

At peak output the five projects, which are backed by top state officials and the Obama administration, would power more than two million homes. "But conservation, labor and American Indian groups are challenging the projects on environmental grounds," Woody writes. "The lawsuits, coupled with a broad plunge in prices for energy from competing power sources, threaten the ability of developers to secure expiring federal loan guarantees and private financing to establish the projects." Only one developer has obtained a loan guarantee and begun construction.

Solar thermal plants use huge arrays of mirrors to heat liquids to create steam that drives electricity-generating turbines. After President George W. Bush opened public lands for renewable energy development, developers began staking claims on Mojave Desert land for solar energy production, but many of the planned projects would be built in areas that are also home to fragile landscapes and species. "There’s no good reason to go into these pristine wilderness areas and build huge solar farms, and less reason for the taxpayers to be subsidizing it," Cory J. Briggs, a lawyer representing an American Indian group that has sued the Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management, told Woody. "The impacts to Native American culture and the environment are extraordinary." (Read more)