FOX FYI: Solar Power

Solar power: it's green, cheap and good for the planet. But some environmentalists are fighting a plan to build solar energy plants in the southwest desert.

FOX 10's Linda Williams has a closer look at both sides of the issue.

"There's this false sense of urgency to install these facilities as fast as possible and it's being pushed under the premise that we have to do this quickly."

Jim Harvey loves the planet, but hates the Administration's aggressive embrace of solar power farms.

"When it comes to renewable energy, I don't think we have to be followers; I think it's time for us to lead."

Trying to double America's renewable energy supply in three years, the administration targeted billions in stimulus money for solar projects.

"There is this sense of urgency because we do have global climate change and we need to do something about that soon." says Jim Baak.

Developers have plans for dozens of plants in southern Nevada and California, but critics call big solar plants destructive, bulldozing thousands of acres of pristine desert to install mirrors and photovoltaic panels.

Then there's the water.

The National Park Service says it is "not in the public interest" to approve concentrated solar plants in the southwest desert because they require 16 billion gallons of groundwater per year, threatening the endangered desert pupfish.

"They are trying to sell us they are trying to greenwash the scraping of thousands and thousands of acres, destroying ecosystems all under the name of or under the banner of saving ecosystems and this is just wrong says Harvey.

The clock is ticking on the debate over whether to spend years studying the full environmental impact of large-scale solar power or get these plants built. The deadline to qualify for stimulus money is 19 months away.

The argument against solar plants in the desert is not falling on deaf ears. California Senator Diane Feinstein says she will block development in the Mojave Desert if the ecosystem is not properly protected.