New
York Times: Five of nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal
power plants planned for the Southern California desert are
facing legal challenges. As the
New York Times's Todd Woody reports, the Sierra Club
and other environmental organizations claim that the plants
would threaten fragile ecosystems. Another challenge facing the
plants is financial. When the plants were originally proposed,
solar thermal generators, which convert light into electricity
via heat, were cheaper than solar panels, which convert light
directly into electricity. Now, thanks to the advent of
mass-produced solar panels from China, that price advantage has
disappeared.
