Saving the Mojave from the solar threat 

tommy750

Posts: 1040

I spoke with the engineer who designed the solar farm in Ramona where I live (off dye road)and he said the Desert is not the best place to put solar because the electronics in the panels get extremely hot during the summer and start to limit production. He also said the solar companies are paying $600 per acre per month to lease the land, which includes all set up and tear down for free. The farm in ramona is 43 acres so I am pretty sure the farmer is getting 25k per month! Not a bad way to make a living. I am not sure about BLM land though. If that is the case a 4,000 acre solar farm near soda mtn would give the gov't $2.4 mil per month! No wonder our backcountry lands are being sold out under our feet.

Here is the link to the ramona farm
http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/06/ramona-solar-farm-county-supervisors/[/quote]

Was out with Jeff Sahagun, the BLM El Centro archaeologist a while back and I asked him why not put solar on all the marginal Imperial Valley farmland instead of scraping pristine BLM desert. He replied that BLM desert is essentially free for these large corporations but they'd have to pay a few bucks monthly to rent farmland, so that was a nonstarter. Guess BLM (AKA we taxpayers) is getting jack for these destructive solar arrays that should be on our roofs and not in our deserts.Tom