‘Hasta la vista, baby!’ The Solar Grand Plan, environmentalism, and social constructions of the Mojave Desert

Proposals for large-scale solar thermal plants in Southern California have won enthusiastic government support. Public debate on this technology's environmental consequences has been notably muted, however. Why have environmentalists found it so difficult to secure ecologically sound siting processes for large-scale solar thermal plants? Instead of representing a shift toward environmental stewardship and sustainability, the discourse of the ‘Solar Grand Plan’ to develop renewable energy in Southwestern deserts parallels high-modernist narratives of the past century. Using discourse analysis, three different conceptions of space and place that shape the debate are identified. The Grand Solar Plan champions solar development as clean energy. This has generated a conservationist narrative that seeks to minimize habitat and landscape destruction but has yet to have a substantial impact on policy – although this may be starting to change. This lack of impact is explicable in terms of a third, culturally dominant discourse of the desert as barren and useless.