Brightsource pulls out of solar project

By Stephanie Tavares

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 | 6:01 p.m.

A California solar energy developer with proposed projects in Nevada has pulled out of controversial plans to build a solar thermal power plant in an intended nature preserve near the California-Nevada border, the company announced today.

Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy had submitted an application to the Bureau of Land Management to build a 500-megawatt solar thermal power plant on federally administered land at Broadwell Dry Lake between Primm and Barstow, Calif. The land, once owned by the railroad, had been purchased by the Wildlands Conservancy and donated it to the Department of Interior for conservation. It is part of a larger, 2.4 million-acre, area that U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is trying to preserve from energy and military development.

The controversy over the plant hit the heart of the debate about where renewable energy plants should be located. Environmentalists are torn about the need for clean energy, which they hope will reduce the country's carbon footprint and a desire to preserve wilderness areas and habitat for rare or endangered species.

BrightSource has several other planned solar plants in California and Nevada, including:

-- Two 100-megawatt concentrating solar thermal plants and one 200-megawatt concentrating solar thermal plant on 3,500 acres adjacent to the Primm Valley Golf Course on the California side of the border.

-- A 600-megawatt solar thermal project on 3,840 acres in the Coyote Springs development 40 miles north of Las Vegas.

-- A 1,200-megawatt solar thermal power plant on 2,000 acres of public land near Apex.