August 1, 2012: Conservative Business Journal Claims Solar Energy Dirtier than Fossil Fuel-Derived Energy, Uses Huge Amounts of Land

The conservative Investors Business Daily (IBD) publishes an op-ed criticizing the White House’s willingness to grant permits for solar energy producers to use public lands to build their solar plants. The editorial says, “Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, who has apparently forgotten about the Obama administration’s many solar power scandals, announced the initiative in what he called a ‘proud moment,’” apparently a swipe at the administration over the Solyndra bankruptcy, and then makes the broad claim: “There were no solar projects on federal land when Barack Obama was elected four years ago. And for good reason: Solar is an inferior source of energy.” Fossil fuels are cheaper, more efficient, sun-dependent, and even cleaner, the editorial claims, writing: “Solar power needs a large—and ugly—footprint that creates its own environmental issues. Solar cells contain toxic materials and therefore create toxic waste.” The editorial concludes by lambasting the Obama administration for not opening public lands for oil and gas development. [Investors Business Daily, 8/1/2012] In 2003, the US Department of Energy concluded that most of the land needed for renewable energy sites could be supplied by abandoned industrial sites. Moreover, “with today’s commercial systems, the solar energy resource in a 100-by-100-mile area of Nevada could supply the United States with all of its electricity. If these systems were distributed to the 50 states, the land required from each state would be an area of about 17 by 17 miles. This area is available now from parking lots, rooftops, and vacant land. In fact, 90 percent of America’s current electricity needs could be supplied with solar electric systems built on the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation’s cities.” The federal government is expanding its efforts to find “disturbed and abandoned lands that are suitable for renewable energy development.… Groups concerned with minimizing the impacts of energy development on wildlife prefer prioritizing these areas for development.” The Energy Information Administration says: “Covering 4 percent of the world’s desert area with photovoltaics could supply the equivalent of all of the world’s electricity. The Gobi Desert alone could supply almost all of the world’s total electricity demand.” And a 2009 study found that “in most cases” solar arrays in areas with plenty of sunlight use “less land than the coal-fuel cycle coupled with surface mining.” [National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1/2003 ; US Energy Information Administration, 12/19/2011; Defenders of Wildlife, 1/14/2013 ; Media Matters, 1/24/2013]