In Fort Mohave, Arizona, even Republican voters are fighting gas power plants as utilities try to lock in fossil fuels
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Over the next few months, the Sunrise Hills retirees – among them many climate crisis skeptics and committed fossil fuel proponents – uncovered a trail of misinformation that appear to suggest MEC and Aepco, which is developing and will own and operate the gas combustion turbines, were at times opaque as they sought to fast track approval and circumvent closer scrutiny. MEC/Aepco “categorically deny” any effort to intentionally mislead anyone.
The retirees organized and began fact-checking and calling out claims about affordability, outages and low pollution made by MEC and Aepco in the glossy brochure and during public meetings.
It turned out that with a capacity of 98 megawatts, the two-turbine proposal fell just under the 100 MW limit that requires a state mandated comprehensive environmental review of impacts such as emissions, noise and water consumption by an expert committee at the state utility regulator, the Arizona corporation commission (ACC). Yet the utility has openly discussed plans to eventually double the size of the plant.
It also turned out that many of the county residents who spoke favorably of the plant in front of the board were in fact MEC employees and board members.
Yes, but it’s still an American problem in general. The city with 100 golf courses isn’t in Illinois where it wouldn’t have to be watered all the time. It’s in California. It’s not in Illinois because you can’t play golf with warm weather and sunny skies all year round in Illinois. You need a Southwestern desert for that. Even Florida doesn’t work as well despite the Oralndo golf courses because it rains a lot.
Meanwhile, Illinois gets nowhere near as much sunshine as the Southwestern desert.
So until we, as a nation, start building things in places that make more ecological sense rather than more economic sense, it will be an American problem in my eyes.
Yes, you are definitely correct about this. I was looking more at the energy side while you are looking at it from the water sustainability side. Different part of the overall same thing.
With climate change I am half expecting to be discussing the “great plains desert” someday in the future, assuming I live that long.
And most water restricted states have had laws regarding the building of new golf courses for at least a generation, including more conservative states like Arizona. There is also a legally set system for water rights based on who first developed the land.
And it isn’t like other parts of the USA don’t have ecological risks of their own.