DEMOCRATS PLAN SOLAR STRIP MINES

Bob Lonsberry dot com ^ | 6-30-2009 | Bob Lonsberry

[bird4four4]

I’m confused.

I can’t figure out the high-and-mighty Democrats who rule our country.

Either I’m dumb as a rock or they’re a bunch of hypocritical tyrants. Specifically, on the issue of federal land and energy development, what I can’t figure out is when is the environment sacred and when is it not?

When is federal land of such untouchable environmental value that all energy exploration is banned – no matter what – and when can those protections be swept away as if they don’t exist?

The only answer I can come up with: Whenever the Democrats want.

I’m talking about solar energy.

Today the federal government will release maps covering some thousand square miles of the American West where it is going to lease out federal land for the construction of taxpayer-subsidized solar arrays. The project, enthusiastically announced yesterday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, takes all the land out of public use and sets the government on a two-year search for the best spots to set up miles-long fields of sun-blocking panels.

Salazar said that by the end of next year, the all-powerful Democrats want to have construction on 13 giant-sized projects underway.

That’s interesting on several counts.

First because this same Salazar, as one of his first acts, shot down more than 70 oil-and-gas exploration leases on these same federal lands. His argument was that the areas in question needed further review to make sure the environment was protected. Apparently drilling test wells kills the environment.

While setting up vast solar arrays that will essentially block the sun and rain from three square miles of the wild lands isn’t.

Another interesting fact is that the Democrats’ non-governmental puppets, the leftist non-profit activists, haven’t threatened a lawsuit over these solar farms. The same groups that have kept new nuclear power plants from having been built for more than 30 years, and who manipulate the federal courts to obstruct and delay every coal, oil or gas project proposed, have gone silent.

Which, given their professed love for the environment, is odd.

Because, seriously, the impact of solar arrays on the environment – especially when compared to the amount of energy generated – is dramatically greater than the impact of an oil or gas well. In fact, an oil well – which uses about 100 square yards of surface area – produces dramatically more energy than a commercial solar array – needing at least three square miles.

Further, solar arrays in an arid environment – like the federal government’s targeted lands in the American West – will deprive everything beneath them of the two wellsprings of life – sun and rain. In an ecosystem which has evolved over eons to the brilliant sun of the arid sky, unremitting shade will destroy habitat for both plants and animals. The light and infrequent western rains will run off solar panels, instead of falling evenly across the plain, dooming thirsty plants beneath them.

This will wipe out delicate plant populations, decimating the fauna that live upon them, and disrupt the avian ecosystem of the open sky.

In short, the great American desert is getting the shaft – by the same Democratic autocrats who will allow nothing whatsoever to disrupt the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Somehow, in the universe of the Democrats, the environment of the tundra north is more valuable than the environment of the arid Southwest.

Where Democrat policy has traditionally protected nature at all costs – and continues to do so on energy forms the party opposes – this new initiative throws environment to the wind in the name of alternative energy.

Which gives us solar strip mining.

In the name of solar energy, vast stretches of the western landscape will be darkened and sterilized. Ecosystems that have sustained themselves from time immemorial will be forced into a world of deadly shade.

Far beneath the surface, high-energy oil and gas lay behind an environmental Berlin Wall. At the surface, an environmental genocide will be conducted in the name of experimental, taxpayer-subsidized, low-energy solar power.

That’s what the Democrats offer.

And they are bending every regulation and restraint to impose.

It’s like the motto says: When the Democrats are in charge, stupid things happen.

Stupid, crooked and hypocritical.

[Vaduz]

Stupid, crooked and hypocritical.I see you understand democrats now if the msm would.

[knarf]

I see your stupid, crooked and hypocritical, and raise a felonious criminal.

[spokeshave]

and all those hugh high voltage towers from the desert to the city to carry the power to consumers.

and desert sand storms that will coat the panels with sand.

[angkor]

No one expects Democrats (or really any pol) to be anything other than rank hypocrites, so the righteous indignation isn’t really necessary.

And to parapharse Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street”, environmentalists don’t so much love the environment as they hate people.

In any case, Family Security Matters published a very decent article last year which debunks most of the “green” discussions about “alternate energy.” Here’s an excerpt and link to the rest:

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.506,css.print/pub_detail.asp

July 2, 2008
Ending Our Oil Addiction: Reality Check

Raymond Kraft

I have before me a nice letter from California Sen. Barbara Boxer, in which she extols her sponsorship of S.3044, a bill to impose “windfall profits taxes” on Big Oil. She writes, “At a time when so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and having to make the impossible choice between buying food for their families and filling up their gas tank, I am deeply disturbed that some of my colleagues [Republicans] prevented this important bill from moving forward.”

“Windfall profits taxes” would, of course, do nothing to increase supply, or bring down the price of gas or the price of food, which have been driven up by the Democrats’ own policies of opposing oil production in America, and turning food into fuel, thereby driving up the cost of both. The solution Democrats and Environmentalists propose for rising fuel prices is, as we all know, “biofuels,” “sustainable fuels,” the Holy Grail of the Greens. Yesterday, I heard Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, once more call for “ending our oil addiction.” But if we look a little closer, it soon becomes apparent that the Democrats and Greens cannot possibly have worked out the logistics of ending ouroil addiction, which are mind-boggling indeed. Unless they have, of course, and are desperately clinging to a total denial of reality, just as middle America clings to its guns and God.

[TalonDJ]

and desert sand storms that will coat the panels with sand.

Which means someone will have to drive back and forth all over the place, crushing what life is left, in order to clean and maintain the array.

[rockinqsranch]

“Another interesting fact is that the Democrats’ non-governmental puppets, the leftist non-profit activists, haven’t threatened a lawsuit over these solar farms. The same groups that have kept new nuclear power plants from having been built for more than 30 years, and who manipulate the federal courts to obstruct and delay every coal, oil or gas project proposed, have gone silent.”

“Which, given their professed love for the environment, is odd.”

NOT odd actually. It’s proof by inaction of the collusion of subversive forces with agenda.

[angkor]

not to mention that both the initial construction and the ongoing presence of panels covering the landscape will have a massive and devastating impact on the ultra-sensitive desert ecosystem.

Which only goes to show the monumental and ridiculous hypocrisy of the envirowhackos.

Their self-professed concern about “the environment” is actually and transparently about “Not In My Back Yard,” and this absurd plan makes that fact indisputably clear.

[angkor]

>>>> NOT odd actually. It’s proof by inaction of the collusion of subversive forces with agenda. <<<<

I agree. Not “odd”. Expected.

I’ve known and been friends with many who support these ridiculous “alternate energy” schemes, and - God love ‘em - their profound ignorance of basic science and facts is astonishing.

The above scheme is not merely a matter of NIMBY (although it *is* partially that), but also it clearly will destroy the desert ecology over which these panels are installed.

And here’s where the envirowhacko intellectual response gets really interesting: when you mention the above *facts* to them, they will instantly delete from their brains the truth and launch into some psychological diversion and denial routine.

it’s truly amazing to watch in action, and very predictable.

[bird4four4]

Absolutely. Its the mountains and forests and oceans that need to be protected. You schlums who live in the plains or the deserts or other 'less desirable' places, who gives a damn about your environment. We'll put up wind mills and solar panels and power lines in your line of view all day long.

[P.O.E.]

This will wipe out delicate plant populations

Invasive species could flourish along the edges where the runoff is concentrated. Unintended consequences, indeed.

[NTHockey]

>>Either I’m dumb as a rock or they’re a bunch of hypocritical tyrants. <<

Neither, they are criminals and belong in jail.

[bird4four4]

Agreed, one spot Bob is wrong, life will learn to florish in the shade and around the environment created/disturbed by our development. One thing the environmentalists always forget, life always finds a way to live everywhere and anywhere.

[Uncle Chip]

Well then it is high time now for Conservatives to turn the tables, and sue in Federal Court to protect the environment against this destructive solar strip mining.

[muawiyah]

Does anybody recall how the Leftwingtard environmental extremists demanded prosecuting people who would dare to leave off the road vehicle tracks in "pristine desert landscapes that would take decades to repair"?

Didn't those pukes support all these Democrats who are going to totally destroy and sterilize those delicate "pristine desert landscapes"?

Someone should notify Sierra Club that their funny little friends, the Democrats, are really screwing up here.

[muawiyah]

Recent story in Deseret News ~ http://www.deseretnews.com/user/comments/1,5143,705303027,00.html

[Bean Counter]

What morons! Another enormous obstacle to erecting vast arrays of solar panels in the desert is simply how to keep them clean. Even a light coat of dust on a solar panel can significantly degrade it's performance. Out West, we already have water shortages, so where will the water come from to keep all of those miles of panels clean?? When you start amortizing the cost of the labor and material just to clean the arrays, you can see there is an enormous hidden cost to this fantasy of "free power" from the sun...

In the wake of 9/11, it appears we have hatched a new breed of "troofer" in this Country....Climate Change Troofers...

[rockinqsranch]

“....it’s truly amazing to watch in action, and very predictable.”

Yes, agree.

[ArrogantBustard]

their profound ignorance of basic science and facts is astonishing.

The "Solar Energy" crowd seems unable to comprehend one simple number:

1.3 kW/m²

At the TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE. Solar irradiance at the ground will always be substatially less ... even at high noon at the equator.

[ctdonath2]

It’s not that Bob is wrong, actually he is quite right: there will be a huge impact on what’s already there. Yes life will find a way - he’s pointing out that greenies seem to think solar will have zero impact, when in fact there WILL be an impact which life will have to find a way around.