Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has done a lot of admirable work protecting California's wild desert lands from development, but her latest plans for the Mojave threaten to split the state's environmental community and could stall clean- energy projects whose construction should be among the nation's highest priorities.
Feinstein is working on legislation that would designate hundreds of thousands of acres of desert land as a national monument, which would put them off-limits for solar and wind energy projects. That could result in a green- versus-green confrontation, pitting those who want to protect the desert ecosystem against those who believe renewable-energy projects are a vital part of the struggle to avert catastrophic climate change.
Spiegel Online published a series of pictures titled "Desertec: Strom aus der Wüste" (translation: Desertech: Electricity from the desert). It includes this image of how much land would be needed to power the world, Europe or Germany with solar-thermal power. The idea is similar to a post we did a year ago: How Much Land to Power The Whole World with Solar?