Glass Almanac: Solar Panels in Deserts: Green Energy or Ecological Gamble?

18 comments

1. We’re overlooking the global environmental catastrophe of increasing CO2.

2. Short term climate goals? was this written by an oil exec…. Transforming to a renewable energy economy will outlast every one alive today, just as the oil economy did when it started. Not short term, until we have fusion power on scale, if ever, we need alternatives from fossil fuel.

3. No amount of *even remotely conceivable* changes by having a bunch of solar panels would be worse than keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If anything the changes for PV are local while those for fossil fuels are global.

   To put it bluntly: If we don’t shift over *now* then there won’t be an ecosphere to worry about (and it may already be too late so currently we’re just hoping and praying that it might still work out)

4. FUD.

   If these claims were true (on the scale PV is deployed in deserts), then also all desert greening projects, to reclaim arible soil and land from deserts, making deserts green again, would create the same ‚environment desasters‘.

   Yet nobody complains about desert greening (heck, people love it!), but PV is ‚of the devil‘ for idiots like OP.

5. Large-scale solar farms, especially in sensitive desert ecosystems, definitely come with complex trade-offs. On one hand, they provide massive clean energy that’s crucial for reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change. On the other, as you mentioned, they can alter soil composition, local flora, and fauna in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

   Some studies showing improved soil moisture and plant growth under panels suggest there might be potential for these installations to aid in eco-restoration, perhaps by creating microclimates that support certain vegetation. But the risk of disrupting fragile desert ecosystems is real and should not be underestimated.

   I think this highlights the importance of careful site selection, ongoing environmental monitoring, and integrating ecological expertise into renewable energy planning. It’s also a reminder that no solution is without impact, so balancing climate goals with ecosystem preservation is key.

6. While this article might touch on real issues, and might even be well intended by the authors, the effect it has on the readers is to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and cause predatory delay on the energy transition. The fact is that these ecolsystem alterations are no where near as bad as the global climate change that these solar parks help to reduce. (Look up Nirvana Fallacy)

7. I think environmentalists want to put a pause on reality and freeze everything in time, but ecosystems have been a rapidly evolving complex puzzle evershifting right in front of us. Pausing this process however slow or fast is just as bad. Long term consequences are merely adaptions for life.

8. There are some short and medium term tradeoffs to de-desertification with solar, sure. They don’t outweigh the considerable downsides of not installing solar, though.

   That being said, non-desert open space in China can be used for solar farms if they’re *that* concerned, which I doubt

9. I thought the deserts were spreading – were we meant to just let nature take its course and destroy adjacent ecosystems?

10. Humans have contributed to desertification, and now we have a chance to recover some of the land with agrovoltaics. This seems like a silly argument. Any change in the land will affect the flora and fauna.

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12. It’s a DESERT.

    It’s literally at the very, VERY far end of the habitats considering “amount” or “variations” of life.

    I can easily see how bringing shade into the area can improve moisture and thus allow new ecosystems to florish.

    Actually that’s something we also see here in germany in utility scale PV deployments: animals use the shade for shelter (both wild ones as well as e.g. flock of sheep), new types of plants break up the once uniform grassland – all in all it seems this is a pretty good win also for the ecosystems.

13. OP keeps posting this same thing.

14. This is why small scale rooftop solar makes a ton of sense.

15. This seems to me to be mostly FUD. The solar plant is 312 square miles in 130,000 square miles of desert. The plant is about 0.1% of the desert area. Yes it will have an effect on the environment but the vastness of the desert would mitigate a lot of that effect wouldn’t it?

    Also no one is complaining about “the great green wall” (https://youtu.be/PQAktYhICOQ) tera-engineering the Sahara desert. Is that because there is no renewable energy boogy man.

16. Bogus analysis. Climate change that will occur without that solar is far, far more catastrophic for those ecosystems. Many animals exist at the edge of thermal viability. Warming is going to hammer these ecosystems. For example, many predators hunt only in morning and evening hours and barely eke out caloric balance. Heating shrinks the hunting windows, driving the predators under. What do you think k happens to ecosystems when the predators do out?

    They’re already doomed.

17. Fuck it, China already mines, produces, maintains anything they want with zero regard for the environment.
    They actually “drill baby drill” with no regard for anything, let the do it all they want.

18. It is not good enough to run around and say, “Don’t do thus and that, for all we know, it may have negative consequences!”

    If that is the best these “scientists” can do, they would be better off doing something else.

    What we need scientists to do, is to tell us, “This is the likely outcome if you do this and that, and this is the outcome if you _don’t_ do it. Of the two outcomes, this one is likely the better, and this i why.”

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