A couple nitpicks: First, Nevada's deserts are more ecologically interesting than the author lets on. They're still probably the least bad option in terms of

A couple nitpicks: First, Nevada's deserts are more ecologically interesting than the author lets on. They're still probably the least bad option in terms of large solar arrays, but Nevada's pine forests are already precarious enough as-is conservation-wise and large solar deployments don't help that. Nevada would be a great place to build nuclear, though, especially with federal subsidies in exchange for being America's nuclear waste dumping ground should Yucca Mountain (or some equivalent proposal) materialize. Second, you don't technically need to fence out wildlife from solar farms; you just need to raise the panels high enough for large animals to not interfere with them. There would still be significant wildlife displacement from the loss of trees and the blocked sunlight (meaning fewer habitat and food options), but probably not quite as dire as the article's suggestion. That said, I don't know of any solar farms built this way. Third, it's unclear under which category parking lot solar panels fall. Parking lots already represent destroyed ecosystems, and I don't see a fundamental reason why all parking lots couldn't be solar-covered.