Author: mattwvd

The Ivanpah Solar Power Complex: moving too fast for turtle lovers?

Continuous sunshine? Check. Near existing power lines? Check. Sited on the habitat of an endangered tortoise? D’oh!

BrightSource Energy wants to put its 440 megawatt Ivanpah Solar Power Complex in a 6 square mile area of the Mojave Desert owned by the federal government. Unfortunately for the company, the area is also home to threatened desert tortoise, according to this Associated Press story.

It’s yet another instance of the “green on green” disputes that have already derailed another BrightSource project in the Mojave Desert. Will they also prevent states from meeting renewable energy standards?

On one hand, the Ivanpah project will power 150,000 homes using 400,000 mirrors and three solar thermal plants that will also provide about 1,000 construction jobs.

On the other, the area is critical several species of flora and fauna, including the tortoise.

The dispute is being watched closely by companies who have put in more than 150 applications for large-scale solar on 1.8 million acres of federal land in the Rocky Mountain West and West, according to the A.P.

The Sierra Club, among others, wants BrightSource to find another site, though project opponents say they’re generally supportive of renewable energy.

In another unappetizing scenario, federal and state biologists proposed that the company pay approximately $25 million to catch and relocate the tortoises.

BrightSource President John Woolard has protested in government filings that the company was being forced to jump through too many hoops.

“Overburdening this fledgling industry will cause it to be stillborn, ending that promise before it has truly begun.”

Of course, BrightSource is not some mom and pop operation.

The company has some big-name investors, including Google and VantagePoint Venture Partners along with BP and Chevron, and promising concentrated solar power technology (if only they could use it…)

Its Luz Power Tower 550 energy system uses thousands of mirrors, or heliostats, to reflect sunlight onto a boiler on top of a 459-foot metal tower. The steam is then piped from the boiler to a turbine and generates electricity and, finally, air cooled, to minimize water usage.

As we’ve noted before, green energy is not only pro-environment, it’s big business.

Eventually, something’s got to give in these disputes with the conservation lobby… unfortunately for the tortoise (and all the other creatures out there), green energy is moving too fast to be held up for much longer.

The ranks of lobbyists from cleantech, green energy and investment firms have swelled in recent years but are still heavily outgunned by manufacturing and power company lobbyists, according to a report from The Center for Public Integrity.

The report, which catalogs the new players who are looking to influence “the most important environmental treaty of our time,” counts roughly 60 lobbyists from venture and investment firms in addition to 170 alternative energy and 160 environmental lobbyists.

But those numbers are a drop in the ocean of the 2,780 climate lobbyists working for all interest groups in Washington – a 400 percent increase over the numbers six years ago when Congress first considered emissions curbs, according to The Center for Public Integrity.

The numbers now include food manufacturers, such as the Campbell Soup Company and Kellogg Company, who are looking to extract emissions allowances in the process.

Meanhile, the investment and venture lobby is loooking for higher prices on carbon in the short term and predictability for the burgeoning green energy industry, themes we’ve heard before.

Will Coleman, a partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., notes that investors are looking for a climate change bill that will open up the market for new technologies.

Coleman says,

My biggest concern is that if we are less aggressive in carbon targets and carbon pricing, we may incur more costs in the future, because we’ll drive less investment into the space.

The report also notes that the natural gas lobby has been upping its profile as a relatively clean fossil fuel that can be a bridge fuel for a low carbon economy.

We have noted in the past the efforts by Exxon and BP to rebrand the fuel as the most realistic and cost-effective solution for America’s energy needs. The Center for Public Integrity report finds that the rest of the industry has upped the pressure on senators after having “missed out” on influencing the Waxman-Markey bill.

In the spirit of meta-blogging, we offer this morning a list of some of the lists on green energy Web sites that we read. Some of the lists are forward looking – i.e. here’s what’s going to happen in 2010 – and some look back at the biggest stories of 2009 or, in a silly but traffic-getting conceit, the whole decade.

The lists follow after the jump.

Climate Progres: The “Citizen Kane” award for non-excellence in climate journalism

Blogger Joseph Romm is always on the offensive, which makes his blog an interesting read. But he sometimes gets so wrapped up in his campaigns that they cease to make sense. You will see in this list, for example, that Rush Limbaugh ranks as a less non-excellent (don’t want to mess with the double negative lest we get accused of altering the meaning) climate journalist then the former New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin. Really, Joe?

Grist: The top green stories of the 00’s

Far and away the most readable of general-interest green Web sites, Grist provides an entertaining roundup of broad trends in the green movement. Like most best-of-the-decade lists, however, the Gristies cite mostly recent trends. The list can broadly be divided into a before-Obama period and after-Obama period. It also leans heavily on private activist movements, like sustainable food and the expansion of the environmentalist coalition, while dismissing political matters as a “yadda, yadda, yadda” gabfest that doesn’t go anywhere. Oddly undemocratic.

Cleantech Group: Top 10 cleantech promises to watch for in 2010

It’s wonk time. Cleantech Group likes to predict the future, hence its post on why Copenhagen doesn’t matter before the conference had even started. But the writers at the industry research company generally post well-informed, if esoteric, thoughts and predictions on the industry. This list runs down what greentech companies are promising for the year ahead – a valuable overview for investors.

Earth2Tech: Lotsa lists

List overload! We’ve got lists on the year in climate lobbying (which is actually pretty interesting) nine plug-in cars hitting the road in 2010, four green building trends to watch in 2010, five tips and tools to green your holiday travel and etc. There are limits to this list thing, people.

FT Energy Source: Top 10 questions for 2010 – Climate change and cleantech edition

Interesting questions – no elaboration = terrible list. Try harder.

A sad New Year's for cap and trade?

Cap and trade has no chance in 2010, Senate Democrats are saying.

At this point in our democracy’s media evolution, it seems almost churlish to point this out, but here goes: 2009 isn’t even over yet, so it feels a bit premature to rule things out for next year.

But Politico has quoted Sens. Mary Landrieu, (D-La.), and Evan Bayh, (D-Ind.), as saying that a climate change bill will not pass next year. Democratic senators already have too much on their plates with health care and the economy and they’re desperate not to further alienate voters.

Kent Conrad, D-(N.D.), put it most succinctly:

Climate change in an election year has very poor prospects. I’ve told that to the leadership.

We have two thoughts on this:

Lisa Lerer’s story seems to conflate climate bill with cap and trade at some points in her story, but at other times, she separates the two concepts.

But not all climate bills have cap and trade provisions and the concept is so malleable that its easy to slightly alter its form and call it something else (see the “public option” debate in health care).

For example, Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-Wash.), and Susan Collins, (R-Maine), have put forward a cap and dividend bill that would return revenue from emissions auctions directly to consumers.

And the tri-partisan group of Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.), Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn.), and John Kerry, (D-Mass.), have offered the vague outlines of a climate change bill.

Which leads us to our second point,

There’s reason to think that the views of “moderate” Democrats won’t carry the day in this debate, as they did in health care. Graham has said he can attract Republican votes for a measure and some of the aforementioned collaborations suggest that there’s a reasonable chance of that happening.

Of course, it is possible that a climate bill will have to wait until 2011. But not because Mary Landrieu says so.

Photo Credit: Adam.J.W.C./Wikimedia Commons