Dem
47
GOP
53
Democrats have long fought for (and won) battles requiring extensive environmental reviews before pipelines and other infrastructure projects can start. After all, a project could interfere with the favorite nesting sites of the spotted owl, a moose migration, or somebody's sacred mountain. All well and good, but be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
The Biden administration passed laws appropriating funds for some massive solar farms in the Nevada desert that would have turned barren lands green—with solar energy production—and created good jobs constructing and maintaining the solar arrays. Unfortunately, due to the extensive environmental reviews the Democrats fought so hard for, the review process is still ongoing and now the Trump administration has killed what would have been the largest solar power plant in North America. If the Democrats had listened to former senator Joe Manchin and sped up the permitting process, the solar arrays might have already been installed and in operation. Maybe there is a lesson here: The law cuts both ways.
The Esmeralda 7 super project would have covered 185 square miles in southern Nevada, not far from Las Vegas. Four different companies were planning to install and operate solar panels, providing some competition (and thus keeping prices down). The project would have provided 6.2 gigawatts of energy. That is enough to power 2 million homes, or all the iPhones in the world simultaneously. Now the project is dead, even though Congress approved the funding years ago.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who was a strong proponent of fossil fuels while he was governor of North Dakota, said solar power is "intermittent," by which he probably meant the sun does not shine 24 hours a day in southern Nevada. It does shine about 10½ hours per day on the average, and rain is rather rare in the Nevada desert. Nevertheless, Burgum canceled the review, thus de facto killing the whole project.
All utility companies understand that solar power is "intermittent," but it is available during many of the hours when there is demand for power. For the other hours, they either have to use solar energy stored in batteries charged during daylight or use alternative sources, such as wind, hydro, gas or oil. Getting most of your power from solar is a lot better than getting none of it from solar, but Burgum does not see it that way. Burgum also suggested that Esmeralda 7 would not be the last solar project that he will cancel.
Burgum is not going to get any blowback from Donald Trump on this. On Day One, Trump signed an XO pausing the development of all renewable energy projects on federal land (and water). Then he appointed Kathleen Sgamma, president of an oil-industry lobbying group, to run the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees a quarter of a billion acres of public land. In July, Trump signed another XO giving Burgum the full authority to decide whether to allow or deny renewable energy projects on federal land to proceed. Burgum knows which way the wind is blowing (oh wait, that is probably a poor metaphor here, but we can't think of a better one right now. Sorry). So he killed Esmeralda 7 and is out hunting for more solar and wind projects to axe.
It is not entirely clear why Trump hates solar energy so much, but here are some guesses. First, Barack Obama and Joe Biden liked it, so that is an automatic "no." Second, the oil companies made nice contributions to his campaign and he is an honest politician: When he is bought, he stays bought. Third, embracing solar implicitly says that science is right when it says the planet is warming due to fossil fuel use. Once you say science got it right here, it is only a small hop, skip, and jump to saying that science also got it right about evolution and the world was not created in 7 days and the Bible is a collection of fairy tales. For many of his supporters, that would undermine their entire lives. Maybe it's some combination of these three. (V)