environmental trade-offs: alternative energy vs. fragile species

From the AP's Michael Blood (hat tip: C-J)...

On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power.

Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.

The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost....

The Bureau of Land Management has received more than 150 applications for large-scale solar projects on 1.8 million acres of federal land...In California alone, such projects could claim an area the size of Rhode Island, transforming the state into the world's largest solar farm....

The site has virtually unbroken sunshine most of the year, and is near transmission lines that can carry the power to consumers....

Except for the tortoise, no other federal or state threatened or endangered animal or plant is on the site, the company said. In 1994 the federal government designated 6.4 million acres as "critical habitat" for the tortoise in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, but the BrightSource site was not included "and is by no means in an area critical to the survival of this species," the company concluded....

6 square miles out of 6.4 million...interesting!