PacifiCorp and the state of Utah recently celebrated the opening of a 2,500-acre solar farm, the Green River Energy Center in Utah’s desert. The project will do some good, but at the cost of destroying four square miles of habitat.
The outdated technology features panels that track the sun across the sky, instead of installing stationary panels, which are now ludicrously cheap, at a variety of angles so that creatures living there can take advantage of the shade and are not frightened away from the area by motorized moving metal.
Or even better, every parking garage, public building, shopping center, and commercial enterprise could have solar panels affixed to the roof so that we can avoid this kind of environmental sacrifice, the desert inhabitants can be left in peace, Utahns don’t have to look at an eyesore and birds are not fooled into thinking that vast reflecting surfaces are water, when they are not.
Rachel White, Woods Cross