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Green Energy Is Coming for the Desert

Trump’s Bureau of Land Management is pushing to aggressively expand solar farms into the Mojave Desert, which advocates say would decimate its vast biodiversity.

When asked recently if he used artificial intelligence, President Donald Trump — whose Truth Social account is rife with AI slop — offered an unconvincing “yeah” while refusing to provide specifics. Trump, who falls asleep at Cabinet meetings, press events, and even at a 25th anniversary 9/11 memorial service, followed it up by stating that the government doesn’t need to regulate AI since he’s monitoring it. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” he boasted, adding: “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!”

The White House didn’t reply when TomDispatch asked what the U.S. will actually win if it “wins AI.”

AI proponents say we will need $110 billion to build 45 gigawatts of new power generation through 2030. And you might be shocked to learn that Trump’s Energy Department is actually touting “clean energy resources to meet data center electricity demand.” But if you think that sounds like welcome news, think again. In his new book, “Bad Energy: AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who Are Selling Off Our Future,” TomDispatch regular Joshua Frank takes a hard look at the relentless drive for resource extraction dressed up as going green. It isn’t a pretty picture. We don’t need a White House spokesperson to respond to know we’re all going to lose if AI results in an inexorable rush for renewable energy — from large solar projects to wind energy initiatives — that runs roughshod over communities and devastates ecosystems. Today, Frank takes you to the front lines of the energy crush needed to power a world of outsourced “creativity,” spambot-style companionship, and Trump’s digital slopfest. If we allow this eco-hucksterism to proceed apace, we’ll soon need to riff off that classic line by the Roman historian Tacitus: “They make a desert and call it green.”

— Nick Turse, editor of TomDispatch

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Gold Rush in the Desert

Only ghosts and ruins remain in this dusty old town. Tucked under scenic hills of volcanic rock are the remnants of a bank, a railroad depot, and what looks to be a school, along with a handful of other deteriorating structures that are hard to make out. This is Rhyolite, Nevada, whose heyday was fierce but short-lived, something of a one-hit wonder. In 1904, after gold was discovered in the nearby Bullfrog Hills, prospectors descended upon this dry corner of the Mojave Desert with hopes of striking it rich.

Of the several mining camps that quickly sprang up in this part of the Great Basin, Rhyolite was one of the liveliest. By 1908, the town’s population had surpassed 5,000, and at its peak, there were 50 saloons, 35 gambling dens, brothels, a bathhouse, a newspaper, and over a dozen restaurants.

Rhyolite’s flame would burn out fast: The Wall Street panic of 1907 scared off would-be investors, and by 1910, just a few years after the mine opened, most of the gold had been extracted. With no mining jobs left, the town was soon abandoned. All three banks eventually shuttered, and by 1914, the last train departed the Rhyolite station, never to return. Entire buildings, including the old Union Hall, were relocated to a neighboring town, where they still reside. The leftover Rhyolite town site, now a tourist stop, is managed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and has been a not-so-popular location for a string of low-budget Hollywood films you’ve never heard of, like “Six-­String Samurai” and “The Island.”

“Deserts, believe it or not, actually have a high level of carbon sequestration.”

“Deserts, believe it or not, actually have a high level of carbon sequestration.”

The Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi) and the Western Shoshone (Newe) inhabited this arid region between the northern Great Basin and the southern Mojave. This ancient land holds many tales. In the 1980s, archaeologists discovered what appear to be aboriginal campsites dating back at least 10,000 years, to the end of the last ice age. West of Rhyolite is Beatty, a town with a certain rural desert charm. It could be the wild burros roaming the streets or the raggedy Sourdough Saloon with hundreds of dollar bills tagged to the walls. Whatever it is, I understand the appeal for those uninterested in city life. The residents I spoke with told me it was the quiet landscape that drew them there.

I find myself in Rhyolite — just seven miles east of the broiling Death Valley National Park — to meet up with two activists who’ve dedicated their lives to protecting the surrounding Mojave Desert. Kevin Emmerich and Laura Cunningham, founders of the Beatty-based Basin and Range Watch, are concerned that two major solar projects on nearby BLM-managed lands will destroy the desert ecology and provide little benefit to the local community.

The Feds Have Thousands of Stadium Lights on the Border. Switching Them On Would Devastate Desert Ecosystems.

“This type of desert out there actually sequesters carbon in the roots........

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