Letter to the Editor:

Nevada wilderness needs our protection

Lisa Plaski, Las Vegas

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

The Nevada Wilderness Project has been working diligently to protect Southern Nevada’s Gold Butte area. This scenic recreational area just outside Mesquite is home to our endangered desert tortoise and ancient petroglyphs.

Members of the Wilderness Project have been working hard to designate Gold Butte as a National Conservation Area, which will help protect it from further damage. The area is currently prone to vandalism, illegal off-roading and theft.

Protecting the natural beauty of Nevada will ensure that recreational areas such as Red Rock Canyon will be protected for generations to come. Let’s work together to maintain the integrity of our state.

Thank you, Nevada Wilderness Project, for the work you are doing.

Discussion: 13 comments so far…

By jfnance32

6/24/08 at 7:36 a.m.

Suggest removal

Sounds like a great place to put in a lot of solar and wind farms.

Got any more places like this for us to use?
By Cedar

6/24/08 at 2:12 p.m.

Suggest removal

Obviously you missed the point jfnance32.
Gold Butte is a place that deserves protection from development (including energy) so we can continue to enjoy this beautiful area and the wildlife have a place to call home. There are plenty of areas suitable for renewables, but Gold Butte isn't one of them.
By jfnance32

6/24/08 at 4:58 p.m.

Suggest removal

How can we save planet if we can not build solar and wind farms on our national and state parks?

Those places are the only places that have wind open spaces for us to put those farms in.
By JohnF

6/24/08 at 5:20 p.m.

Suggest removal

jfnance,

You may have a point. After all, G. W. Bush has proposed mining along the borders of our parks.

But I have a better idea.

How about we use the 36 million acres that have been leased to oil companies but are now sitting idle?
By jfnance32

6/24/08 at 8:23 p.m.

Suggest removal

None of that land is Nevada.
By JohnF

6/24/08 at 10:12 p.m.

Suggest removal

I love it when people talk about the need to drill oil in Alaska and off the coast and act as though the transporting of that oil is not an issue.

But when we talk about solar or wind or geothermal energy all of a sudden the issue of transporting that electricity is insurmountable.

Building a pipeline from Pt. Barrow to Valdez was no big deal, but building a power line from Wyoming to Nevada is apparently beyond our abilities.
By jfnance32

6/25/08 at 2:29 a.m.

Suggest removal

There are three reasons why the economics are different.

1) All the land for the pipeline was “free” because it was federal land. Much of the land for the transmissions lines will cross over private expensive land.

2) The pipeline is carrying an enormous amount of valuable oil every day. The economic value of that oil easily pays the capital cost and maintenance cost of the pipeline. Wind and solar do not generate enough economic valued in energy to pay for the transmissions lines. That is why the federal government (tax payers or more likely our children and grandchildren) will end up paying for the capital cost of the transmission lines.

3) The pipeline is just one pipeline. The wind and solar farms will be spread out all over the state. This requires a whole host of transmission lines crossing across the state.

Also, I do not know of many people that like to live near transmission lines.
By JohnF

6/25/08 at 12:06 p.m.

Suggest removal

1) There are existing transmission lines that can be used and the overwhelming majority of the land here in Nevada is federal land, just like in Alaska. You could run a transmission line form the speedway to Reno and probably not have to cross more than a few miles of privately owned land if any at all.

2) As the cost of energy goes higher that equation changes. It's changing dramatically right now.

3) The pipeline may be one pipeline, but the oil it gathers up comes from an area many hundreds of miles wide on the north end. That oil then has to be brought to refineries and then distributed to the gas stations and power plants that use it here in the lower 48. Electricity generated in solar and wind farms could be distributed directly to the end user.

I don't know anyone who likes living near an oil field or a refinery either.
By jfnance32

6/25/08 at 2:28 p.m.

Suggest removal

"1) There are existing transmission lines that can be used and the overwhelming majority of the land here in Nevada is federal land, just like in Alaska. You could run a transmission line form the speedway to Reno and probably not have to cross more than a few miles of privately owned land if any at all."

Senator Reid has a plan to issue government back bonds that will build over $10 billion dollars of transmission lines in Nevada. A bulk of those lines will pumping energy from the solar farms to the west to cities in California.

"2) As the cost of energy goes higher that equation changes. It's changing dramatically right now."

That is scary. So if energy prices go up dramatically then it is true that the solar and wind will pay for the cost of transmission lines.

Hmmm....who pays the higher energy prices?
By JohnF

6/25/08 at 3:04 p.m.

Suggest removal

"That is scary. So if energy prices go up dramatically then it is true that the solar and wind will pay for the cost of transmission lines.

"Hmmm....who pays the higher energy prices?"

You're right, it is scary. But there isn't anything we're going to do to bring the price of oil down, especially since we've spent the last couple of months demonstrating that we're willing to pay the higher prices. Not only that, but the Chinese, Indians, and Europeans have all been demonstrating the same thing.

Of course we all pay the higher energy prices. But now that the cost of solar, wind, and geothermal energy - which were'nt competitive with oil just a few short months ago - are less expensive comparitively, then we should be investing in them. Since these energy supplies are essentially free, the costs will actually decline over time. The start-up costs are high, but unlike oil, we won't have to spend untold billions on wind or sunlight exploration. Further, we won't held hostage to the politics of the Organization of Sunshine Exporting Countries.
By jfnance32

6/25/08 at 3:37 p.m.

Suggest removal

It is the policy of preventing the development of energy from coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear that is driving up the cost of energy.

It is funny. Gas is now $1,000 a gallon. Solar is so cheap now compared to that!

Yeah, it is you guys that is driving the cost up.
By JohnF

6/25/08 at 7:31 p.m.

Suggest removal

There is no amount of drilling we could do that is going to bring the price of oil down. The problem we are experiencing is not one of supply, it is one of demand. Any increase in supply will be more than offset by increases in demand. Demand worldwide is increasing exponentially; supply can only increase linearly (assuming those selling the oil ever have an incentive to increase production). The oil situation is only going to get worse no matter what happens to the supply.

Natural gas? Same thing. Plus, the supplies of both oil and natural gas are finite. They will run out.

Nobody is preventing the development of coal, we're all just waiting for coal technology to get to the point where burning it won't choke the life out of us. Remeber what you said about people not wanting to live near transmission lines? That goes triple for coal-fired power plants. Also, you complain about the amount of water solar power generation requires, but coal requires much, much more. Water is something we don't have much of out here.

Solar power and wind power are things we have in abundance, they're clean, and nobody can ever regulate the supply. Now that they're economically feasible we should be utilizing them.
By jfnance32

6/26/08 at 1:25 a.m.

Suggest removal

“There is no amount of drilling we could do that is going to bring the price of oil down.”

This is new economics like new math. I will call it “Obamanomics”.
Freeze supply while demand is increasing and the result will be no impact on prices.

Yep, that is the ticket. That makes perfect sense in a liberal brain.

The basic theory of supply and demand will be suspended in the Obama administration.

Perhaps increasing supply will cause the price not to rise as fast as oppose to freezing supply will cost the price to increase even more.

“Nobody is preventing the development of coal.”

Senator Reid is.

“Water is something we don't have much of out here.” I agree. Both Solar and Coal require large amounts of water and Nevada does not have a lot to spare. It is just something for people to factor in. Perhaps we can sell energy to California and use that money to buy water from California and still make a sizeable profit.

“Now that they're (solar and wind) economically feasible we should be utilizing them.”

1) Solar and wind are not 24/7 on demand energy systems. That greatly limits their ability to be relied on to supply energy. I believe those systems can not contribute no more than 20% to capacity of the system and I am being kind to with that number.
2) Because of the expense of transmission lines and cost of land both solar and wind will be costly affairs.
3) Because solar and wind are not generating power 24/7 it causes the capital cost of per energy unit to be higher than systems that run 24/7.