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Finding and relocating all the tortoises and keeping an eye out for missed ones while the construction was going on is expensive but not relative to the total p
by jonah 13y ago
Finding and relocating all the tortoises and keeping an eye out for missed ones while the construction was going on is expensive but not relative to the total project cost.
Source: My uncle does this work and was on this project.
- redwood 13y agoThat's true, the tortoises cost $22 million, a small percent of the overall cost. But siting, getting approval, finding a place where few folks will fight you, etc etc make it add up in terms of time and uncertainty and then when you do find a place you can move forward on there's a good chance it'll be remote enough to be extra costly to connect.
- jonah 13y agoGranted. However, the large, open, sunny spaces in CA tend to be far from large population centers. He's now working on the project to replace/upgrade the original transmission lines from Hoover Dam which will pick up this power as well. I'm in agreement with the other commenters saying energy production should be distributed. However, this'll require a "smart grid" to balance things out - which we don't have - as well as potentially being less efficient.