Lizards and tortoises hampering California's solar energy efforts

[bijou]

The state has a goal of meeting one third of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2020, which has sparked a rush to erect giant solar mirrors which will be subsidised by federal funds.

However, the arid area of south-east California where several companies want to build is already home to endangered animals.

Renewable energy projects are expected to create 48,000 jobs and more than 5,300 megawatts of new energy, enough to power almost 1.8 million homes.

But companies are having to draw up plans to move endangered tortoises and buy thousands of acres elsewhere for the lizards to live.

One solar scheme could ultimately be shut down if the US Fish and Wildlife Service decides to list the flat-tailed horned lizard as an endangered species. The animal’s status is currently under consideration.

A project has already been scaled back in order to avoid an area where Native American artifacts have been found. ...

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Tough choice. Global warming alarmists vs animal conservationists, green on green action. 

[thundley4]

We knew this problem would come up. The same thing has happened with wind farms. These idiots do not get the fact that the best source of power is from nuke plants.

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste
The popular conception of nuclear power is straight out of The Simpsons: Springfield abounds with signs of radioactivity, from the strange glow surrounding Mr. Burn's nuclear power plant workers to Homer's low sperm count. Then there's the local superhero, Radioactive Man, who fires beams of "nuclear heat" from his eyes. Nuclear power, many people think, is inseparable from a volatile, invariably lime-green, mutant-making radioactivity.

Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky.

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * [See Editor's Note at end of page 2]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste