More Silliness from California

We are starting to see the first set of important solar PV systems in CA get through the gauntlet of old-fashioned permitting. The SunPower 250 MW system is being asked to reduce by about 40% in order to be less impactful on the kangaroo rat. The implication is the upcoming First Solar system nearby will have something similar imposed.

Here’s a different headline from RenewablesBiz Daily:

Beleaguered couple backs tougher EPA fly ash rules

Karen and Stephen Fox have had a rough year or so, by most measures. He was diagnosed in March 2009 with larynx cancer and has struggled through treatments… They couldn’t refinance or find a buyer for their home to help pay the bills because, they said, it’s involved in the $1 billion neighborhood lawsuits over toxic fly ash used to build a nearby golf course.

Now let me see – coal ash can be dumped under golf courses near people’s houses, but PV systems endanger the kangaroo rat (and wind systems look funny off Cape Cod). And the coal industry and its regulators at EPA can claim they didn’t know. And the PV system must be studied for every possible sin of the father, even though it was designed as a relief from those sins.

From CleanTechnica:

While 11 Gigawatts of clean energy languished in “environmental reviews”, between 2000 and 2008, 20 Gigawatts of dirty power plants in California were promptly approved and installed.

Why is it every new PV system has to be more rigorously checked for every fantasy, when the old ways are doing things that would put PV on death row?

Well, we already answered that question. But it’s still sad and silly.

Ken Zweibel