Bill McKibben says 'liberals spreading misinformation' on solar project south of Santa Fe

Yahoo

13-05-2025

Bill McKibben, a noted environmentalist known for penning a pioneering book on climate change in the 1980s, has weighed in on the white-hot debate over Rancho Viejo Solar, the large renewable energy and battery storage development proposed south of Santa Fe.
McKibben, who lives in Vermont but visited the City Different last fall, had an opinion piece published Sunday in The Santa Fe New Mexican outlining his support for the project and sounding off on its vocal opponents who cite concerns about fire risks and the potential effects on property values.
"Imagine my surprise to hear that an outspoken minority has emerged in Santa Fe opposing plans for a large-scale solar array, one capable of supplying a large part of the town's energy needs," he wrote. "In the rest of the country, opposition to renewable energy has come largely from the fossil fuel industry. But in Santa Fe, it's actually liberals spreading misinformation and working against the interests of their neighbors."
The project proposed by energy giant AES Corp. has drawn concerns about the risks of runaway fires from lithium battery storage, particularly from residents of the Eldorado area who maintain the facility would affect their property values. Some of them decried McKibben's piece and doubled down on their concerns.
Camilla Brom, a Rancho San Marcos resident who started a grassroots group called New Mexicans for Responsible Renewable Energy in opposition to AES' plans, called McKibben's opinion piece "offensive."
"It seems like it's turning into a smear campaign," Brom said, adding,"I am not a liberal, and I am only working in the best interest of the community."
She added, "We're in a fire-risk zone, so why put anything in this zone that would increase the chance of a fire even more — and so close to thousands of people? In my opinion, it's very irresponsible."
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The proposed Ranch Viejo Solar project.
AES is seeking a conditional use permit from Santa Fe County to build its solar array and battery facility on 680 acres of an 800-acre parcel about three miles south of Santa Fe. Once completed, Rancho Viejo Solar could generate 96 megawatts of power and roughly 45 megawatts of battery storage — enough electricity to carry the city's residential load, AES officials have said.
Proponents have said it could play a major role in the state's efforts to curb climate change and argue the project is a safe one. Supporters and representatives of AES also argue new technology dramatically reduces risks posed by such facilities.
'Deep need'
McKibben said in an interview locally and regionally organized opposition to renewable energy projects is not unique to Santa Fe County — he has encountered the dynamic elsewhere, including in Vermont.
"The comparative weight of risk here is enormously on the side of acting, of building out renewable energy fast," McKibben said. "I think that the risk to the entire world, but also in particular the risk to the Southwest United States, by far the deepest risk comes in rapid alterations in the planet's climate. Those are the fires that y'all are dealing with already and will get steadily worse."
McKibben was the special guest at a Santa Fe Conservation Trust fundraiser in September. He also spoke to students at some local high schools, he said.
He believes threats posed by climate change present an urgent call to action and stresses a "deep need to say yes in my backyard" — which also is the title of an article he published in the magazine Mother Jones in 2023.
"I think that's particularly true for people like me: affluent, older, white Americans, the kind of people who are really good at stopping projects with lawsuits and whatever else," McKibben said. "I think it's really time for us to step back a little bit and say, 'There's got to be some change made here on this planet for those who come after us.'"
He has written 20 books, according to his website, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone.
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Joshua Mayer, senior development manager for AES, speaks before the Santa Fe County Planning Commission during a presentation in February about the proposed Rancho Viejo Solar project. The commission voted in favor of AES' permit request for the project.
'Dangerous facility'
The Clean Energy Coalition of Santa Fe County, a group with more than 1,000 members who oppose the project, recently noted in an email to members and the community it has raised about $24,500 to fight the solar and battery storage project. Voicing staunch and spirited opposition, coalition members have packed meeting rooms for county land use hearings on the matter.
The county Planning Commission signed off on the project Feb. 4. Recently, the organization said it filed an official appeal of the Planning Commission's decision, meaning the County Commission will hear the matter sometime this summer.
"You don't put a potentially dangerous facility ... here in the middle of three communities three miles south of a major population center in the state of New Mexico," Lee Zlotoff, president of the Clean Energy Coalition, said in a previous interview.
The project's most outspoken detractors, in deep blue Santa Fe County, maintain they support the transition to clean energy but have concerns about AES and the project, in large part due to past fires at AES facilities. One ignited at a facility in Chandler, Ariz., in spring 2022.
Earlier this year, a blaze that sparked at a solar battery storage plant in Northern California ignited fresh debate in Santa Fe County over Rancho Viejo Solar.
Project supporters maintain battery storage has undergone an evolution in recent years, becoming safer through intensified testing standards and technological advancements. They also argue the project proposed by AES differs in its design from the facility that burned Jan. 16 in California.
McKibben's article pointed out the local project would have "fire suppression technology."
Brom, however, drew a distinction between fire suppression and "fire extinguishing" technology.
"This suppression system, if they don't suppress the overheating in the first cell that overheats, it overheats the other cells and then propagates a thermal runaway fire," she said.
Randy Coleman, the vice president of the Clean Energy Coalition, said he feels there are alternatives to a large-scale projects like Rancho Viejo Solar. What's more, he believes Santa Fe County does not have the planning in place to deal with such a facility.
"The county is just not doing its duty to look at the risks and plan," Coleman said. "If the county had a plan for renewable energy, then they would see that, from a holistic perspective, there are far better things that they could be doing."