Letters to the Editor
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Solar where and how?
The endangered desert tortoise and other desert animals that are already struggling due to habitat loss will be a whole lot happier if we put most of the solar panels in our cities, instead of covering much of the wildlands they need to live.
Regarding Stirling, it doesn't look like it is the large-scale solar technology that is most likely to succeed, at least not any time soon. Serious questions have been raised in California Public Utilities Commission hearings about the commercial reliability (not efficiency) of the Stirling Energy Systems solar dish technology and questioning how SES will scale up from a handful of solar dish units at a national laboratory to the tens of thousands of units necessary to fulfill its contracts with Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric. There is another solar facility in the Mojave that appears to be much closer to becoming a reality (Ivanpah) -- that one already is going through environmental review. As of last week, the Stirling Energy Systems projects for SCE and SDG&E had not yet filed their applications with the California Energy Commission, and the projected filing dates have been repeatedly delayed.