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Environmentalists Eclipse Solar Energy
PV2 Energy, a San Francisco-based company, plans to build a $1.8 billion 399-megawatt solar farm in Panoche Valley, 50 miles southeast of Hollister in rural San Benito County. It’s the kind of renewable energy project the state of California wants to see more of, as opposed to electricity-generating plants fueled by coal, natural gas or, heaven forbid, nuclear material. In fact, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law, SBX1-2, this past April mandating the state’s utilities to increase the electricity produced from renewable sources — like solar — to 33 percent by 2020. That’s an extremely ambitious target considering that altogether solar, wind, geothermal and biomass currently account for only 14 percent of the state’s electricity. Ironically, the biggest obstacle to achieving the new 2020 mandate is not the state’s major utilities, all of which have eagerly embraced renewable energy (and the lavish taxpayer subsidies that come with such sources of electricity). It’s the state’s environmentalists. Indeed, just this week, a San Benito Court Superior Court judge heard arguments from a lawyer representing three environmental groups — the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and an outfit calling itself Save Panoche Valley — that want to kill PV2 Energy’s planned solar farm before the first megawatt is generated. Wrong SiteIt’s not that the three groups are opposed to solar, Rose Zoia, the plantiffs’ attorney, told the court. “Solar obviously is very critical,” she said. “No one disputes the necessity for solar energy. The issue here is that it is improper on this site.” The environmentalists claim that PV2 Energy’s plans fail to adequately protect endangered species on the Panoche Valley site, including the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the San Joaquin kit fox and the giant kangaroo rat. They also claim that the solar company neglected to consider alternative sites, like a 30,000 acre stretch of land 50 miles away in Kings and Fresno counties. Both claims, which PV2 Energy addressed in its $800,000, 2,100-page Environmental Impact Report, are just obstructionist nonsense. The Panoche Valley solar farm will have a 3,200-acre footprint. Meanwhile, PV2 Energy has set aside a whopping 23,000 acres adjacent to its solar farm as permanent habitat for the aforementioned lizard, fox and rat and whatever other endangered critters need protection from its pole-mounted solar panels. As to the alternative site proposed by the environmental groups, PV2 Energy simply doesn’t own it. And acquiring the land, if it is at all possible, would take who knows how many years and how many tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Of course, none of that matters to the environmental groups opposing the Panoche Valley solar farm. They simply don’t want the project built in their back yard. We’ve seen the same kind of environmental obstructionism play out in other parts of the state. Like the federal lawsuit filed in January by the Western Watershed Project to kill the $2.2 billion, 392-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, owned by Oakland-based BrightSource Energy, in the Mohave Desert. The environmental group says that construction of Ivanpah endangers desert tortoises on the site. Brown BriefGov. Brown was so perturbed by WWP’s lawsuit that he filed a brief last month with the U.S. District Court defending Ivanpah. The solar project “is an important part of California’s overall efforts to transform its energy future,” the governor stated, adding that it “will reduce California’s dependence on fossil fuels.” It remains to be seen how the state Superior Court judge rules on the Panoche Valley solar farm and the federal District Court judge on the Ivanpah Solar Project. If the obstructionist environmental groups succeed in killing, or delaying indefinitely, the two solar projects, Gov. Brown and other advocates of renewable energy may find themselves agreeing with California’s business community that reforms need to be enacted to rein in the state’s all-to-litigious environmental groups. – Joseph Perkins
Tags: environmentalists, Jerry Brown, Joseph Perkins, Panoche Valley, PV2 Energy, solar energy Comments(3) |
June 17, 2013
Dear Mr. Perkins,
If you read the EIR and understand more about the Panoche Valley you would know that this large industrial project does not belong on agricultural rangeland that is home to cattle ranchers, organic farmers and several endangered species. These projects should be built on brownfield sites, in urban areas, on rooftops and over large parking lots. We do not need to destroy our wilderness areas to provide clean energy. The 23,000 acres of mitigation land has different terrain, soil and plants than the grassland valley floor. The species that will be affected will not simply move up into the hillsides and the number of cattle currently grazing in Panoche Valley cannot be supported by the small amount of plant life that occurs in the hills. There is more to this project than obstructionist environmentalists.
Wow. Amazingly inaccurate. Either you gleaned this neo-conservative spin from a questionable source or you failed completely at doing your homework. Or you’re on the PV2 payroll.
Save Panoche Valley members are farmers & ranchers in San Benito County. California Farm Bureau also opposes this project. This is a land use issue and a serious one at that.
You believe the working class should follow the law and subsidy hounds who jump on the latest band wagon to reap in more of our tax dollars are above it. Interesting.
This project violates the San Benito Zoning Ordinance, Dark Sky Ordinance, Noise Ordinance, General Plan and the Williamson Act. But I see that’s no matter to you.
There’s a reason you won’t see a chicken farm or dairy in the heart of San Francisco, and it’s the same good reason you don’t put an industrial energy development smack dab in the middle of prime agricultural land that happens to also be home to a suite of threatened and endangered wildlife. The two are not compatible nor is this type of mixed land use legal.
Industrial solar generation is not the solution to our renewable energy needs and is not the sole means by which Governor Brown expects to achieve 33% generation by 2020. You say nothing of distributed power, or that the current world leaders in solar energy generation are Germany and Spain. They didn’t do it by paving over their agricultural and open-space areas. They did it through distributed roof-top solar and feed-in tariffs.
To go into all of the laws this project blatantly violates would take up too much space, but I will share some of the issues opponents have with this particular developer:
- They have no experience in solar. None whatsoever. They have a history in ethanol (highly subsidized), oil drilling (also highly subsidized)and digital communications (again, highly subsidized). They filed for bankruptcy on all three after collecting their subsidies.
- They don’t have the money to develop this project on their own and instead hope to qualify for $360 million in ARRA funds (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) i.e. our tax dollars. The money will primarily be spent on 4 million solar panels they are already in contract to purchase from another start-up in China. The real kicker? The Chinese solar manufacturing start-up is owned by this developer’s major investor (also Chinese). We question why our tax dollars are being used to subsidize a Chinese business venture in the name of American Recovery & Reinvestment while our schools, sheriffs dept., county services, etc. are all experiencing lay offs. Our county & our country can’t pass a balanced budget but we’re sending hundreds of millions of dollars to China. This is your idea of a good solution?
- The person who started this venture has been heavily fined by the SEC for lying to investors. Disturbing when considering the County accepted a development agreement with no guarantees. Instead they’re trusting the developer to make a “best effort” to bring jobs and tax revenue into the county. The jobs = 50. Twenty farms & ranches and over 100 people will be out of work if this project goes through, leaving San Benito with a job deficit of roughly 50. How is this a benefit? As far as taxes, you tell me: the developer says they will get their Chinese investor to open a facility in the county so the imported panels will be received here and subsequently import taxes will be paid in this county. I don’t know about you but since we didn’t hear yea or nay from the Chinese investor, I don’t trust this will happen. Solar is exempt from all other taxes so if there’s no import tax the County is screwed.
We’re losing ag land at an astonishing rate, increasing our dependence on foreign food imports. If you’ve studied history at all you will know that every collapse of every major society has been preceded by lack of food due to an extreme dependence on outside sources. You advocate this for America? Not this farmer. I want to keep producing food and selling it to my local community. I don’t want or need foreign food that is impossible to verify how it was produced. And neither do many others.
My opinion on these matters is of no consequence though – and so is yours. It boils down to the law. It doesn’t matter how much money was spent on an Environmental Impact Report if it doesn’t comply with CEQA. You want to eliminate the laws that protect our agricultural and biological resources and open everything up to development. You say these laws are obstructions to future energy development. Hogwash.
Here’s some homework for you.
Read this lecture from Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of seventeen bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.
http://www.foet.org/lectureevents.html
Do some research into the Westlands CREZ, an area designated by the state as a Clean Renewable Energy Zone. It consists of 30,000 acres of selinium tainted fallow ag land capable of generating up to 5 GW of renewable energy – enough to meet the 33% mandate.
The Panoche Valley Solar Farm developers say they don’t want to develop the Westlands because they won’t “own the land”. More hogwash. Have a conversation with Daniel Kim of Westside Holdings. W.H. chooses not to do business with this particular developer because they are not an “experienced company with real energy development experience or large financial backing”.
http://westlandssolarpark.com/Westlands_Solar_Park/Project_Overview_and_General_Information.html
This will be a start. When you’re done with those let me know – I have more for you to study. Until you do, Joseph Perkins, you know nothing.
Kim and Maxine, if the land in question is so ecologically sensitive, then all organic farmers and ranchers should be evicted from Panoche Valley.
I love you fringe environmentalists. You enjoy making the “green” rules, as long as they don’t apply to you or your property.