Green energy projects challenged on environmental grounds

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.