Showerthought: are solar panels in the desert actually hurting the desert ecosystem or is that just NIMBY talk?

I saw a documentary last week about a solar farm in the Mojave that killed off a bunch of tortoises, and now I'm torn between wanting clean energy and feeling like we're paving over nature to get it, so which side are you leaning toward when the green solution creates a new problem?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewperry29d ago

Honestly, that tortoise thing stuck with me too. I read somewhere that one solar plant in the desert killed like 6,000 birds in a year just from the heat reflecting off the panels. It's a bummer because I want clean energy but not if it means turning the desert into a giant oven.

matthewperry28d ago

Man, that's the thing that gets me too. I heard on a podcast that those reflective panels can get hot enough to literally cook birds mid-flight if they fly over them. It's insane. And the tortoises? They dig burrows that the construction crews just bulldoze over. I'm not saying we shouldn't build solar, but we're acting like the desert is just empty land. It's not. It's full of stuff that's been living there for thousands of years. Nobody talks about putting panels on all the parking lots and rooftops first. That seems like the obvious move before we go scorching the Mojave.

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