Photovoltaic Energy: Ecologists vs Environmentalists

Posted on 11. Jun, 2010 by Ross in Climate Change, Europe, North America

The road to fighting climate change is an increasingly torturous one, with traditional allies standing on different sides of the battle lines. Just about every option of how reduce the global carbon footprint has caused another division, whether it’s been nuclear power, wind turbines, population control, vegetarianism, energy efficiency, carbon offsetting, biofuels, carbon capture and storage… the list is endless.

One of the newest sources of conflict comes has emerged over solar power cells, or photovoltaic cells. Usually the battle lines regarding photovoltaic cells are drawn around the cost vs return on photovoltaic cells: for much of the world the sun doesn’t shine enough of the time to make photovoltaic cells an attractive investment, costing far more per kWh than renewable alternatives such as wind or hydroelectric power.

However, a new front has opened up against the installation of photovoltaic cells, and leading the charge are one of the environmental movement’s core groups: ecologists. Ecologists are at the forefront of the schism in the environmental movement, generally voicing the opinion that saving the world from climate change in the future should not be at the cost of the world’s flora and fauna in the present. Wind turbines are often the main cause of the rift, with studies claiming they cause the death of local bird and bat populations, as well as causing illness and death in nearby livestock too.

Recently, photovoltaic cells have drawn similar ire from ecologists for potential damage they could do to aquatic insects. Photovoltaic cells reflect polarised light so strongly (ironic, given that they’re supposed to be absorbing it) that they can appear similar to bodies of water to aquatic insects such as mayflies and stoneflies.

These and other insects might then try to lay their eggs onto the photovoltaic cells, which would act as a form of ecological trap, wasting the species’ reproductive efforts. A team of Hungarian researchers, publishing their findings in Conservation Biology, are calling on people to lower the efficiency of their photovoltaic cells by adding white tape strips across them in order to reduce the attractiveness of the cells to such insects.

To make matters worse, the effect would be expected to be most damaging to species in arid areas, which ties this phenomenon into the major ecologist battleground against utility-scale photovoltaic cells: the Mojave Desert. California’s most valuable solar energy property is the number one target for development by a number of solar energy companies, with uninterrupted daily sunshine for 360 days of the year.

However, the desert is home to a number of rare plant and animal species including an iconic species of desert tortoise, leading to the proposing of a state bill to form much of the desert into a national monument to prevent solar companies rolling out large-scale photovoltaic installations, much to the dismay of fellow environmentalists.

There is a huge dilemma facing ecologists when taking this sort of stance against low-carbon technologies. Whilst they are doing what is best for a set of species in the current climate, all of the current predictions into the likely effects of climate change on plant and animal species expect massive changes in population distributions along with large numbers of extinctions, especially amongst niche ecological systems and of highly specialised species.

So by voicing protests against photovoltaic cells now for the sake of the survival of aquatic insects now, ecologists are likely to be dooming them further down the line.