Just imagine if Doral Renewables were an oil company trying to build a pipeline.
Activists and celebrities would be camping out at the site of their latest project, refusing to move. All the major cable news networks would devote unusually large chunks of the news cycle to the protests.
President Joe Biden would likely revoke the project’s permit after some stern words, probably forgetting that he’d signed it in the first place. (And subsequently forgetting he’d revoked it the moment his pen left the paper.)
But, no. Doral Renewables, as the name suggests, isn’t constructing a pipeline. Instead, it’s building a solar energy project in Wisconsin — one that could threaten what remains of the state’s greater prairie chicken habitat.
According to Outdoor Life, the solar project in Portage County is being opposed by “[a]n alliance of hunters, birdwatchers, and public land advocates,” given the outsized impact it’s set to have on populations of the prairie chicken, which are down across the state.
“These groups have stopped short of trying to block the project being proposed by Doral Renewables, which they say is essential in meeting Wisconsin’s long-term renewable energy goals,” Outdoor Life reported Monday.
“Instead, they are asking the state’s regulatory agency to scale down the project in a way that will better safeguard Wisconsin’s last remaining prairie chicken stronghold.”
Friday is the last day for public comment on the large-scale renewable energy project.
The 7,100-acre Vista Sands Solar farm has qualities that make it ideal for solar energy — but those qualities make it a perfect habitat for the greater prairie chicken, as well.
Is green energy feasible?
Sparsely populated? Check. Flat? Check. Few trees? Check. Mostly agricultural land? Check.
Two-thirds of the state’s prairie chicken population lives in the nearby Buena Vista Wildlife Area , per the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. Now, the group is seeking to have the state intervene in the approval process for the massive solar farm.
“It’s treated similar to a lawsuit, with testimony, witnesses, and rebuttals. We just have a vested interest in this process and want to be engaged on a higher level,” WWF executive director Cody Kamrowski said.
“We filed as an intervener because there wasn’t really another conservation group that was going to step up to the table, and we were well suited for this position.”
While it’s unclear what effect the solar array will have on the prairie chicken, it’s not difficult to take a guess, given that Outdoor Life noted that “the birds will go out of their way to avoid power lines, roads, and other signs of human development.”
Since solar panels do a poor job of disguising themselves as prairie farmland, you do the math.
What’s amazing is that pretty much everyone involved in fighting the Doral Renewables project in Portage County is trying to jump out of their way to make it clear that they don’t oppose “clean” energy in spite of the externalities it might cause. Even the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation is making sure people know it supports projects like Vista Sands.
“We’ve been getting beat up a little bit just because there are plenty of groups out there that are [pushing] renewable energy at all costs — regardless of what the local impacts are,” Kamrowski said.
“That’s the really fine line that we’re trying to walk. We support renewable energy and solar, but we need to be mindful of localized wildlife impacts.”
This is one of the greatest hypocrisies of the green energy hustle, and there are more than a few of them to pick from. No matter what environmental damage green technology causes, everyone is supposed to pretend it’s not that big of a deal. Meanwhile, pipelines that don’t have any proven deleterious effect on the environment can not only be protested but effectively shut down by liberal politicians (cough cough Keystone XL cough).
I’m old enough to remember when crunchy types would chain themselves to trees if some kind of rare owl or spider or amoeba was threatened by development. I can’t feign too much concern about the greater prairie chicken, but surely the same people who handcuffed themselves to bulldozers and earth-movers back in the ’80s and ’90s could get kind of worked up about a solar field set to destroy what’s left of it’s remaining habitat in Wisconsin, right?
Yet they won’t, since the only kind of green energy we’re allowed to raise concerns about is the kind that’s proven, reliable and cheap: namely, nuclear energy. That’s still horrible in the left’s book, but it’s not as bad as oil. Still, environmentalists would rather chase unrealistic dreams of a world completely powered by solar and wind energy than build another reactor.
If only Doral Renewables would run a pipeline through the solar field. Then we’d really have them.
