Last week AES Andes—a subsidiary of the AES Corporation, an American energy company—announced it had scrapped its plans for a sprawling, city-size renewable energy project in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The decision comes after a year of backlash from astronomers who have been relying on the telescopes under Chile’s world-class skies.
I’m glad we’re able to preserve at least a small segment of our skies. The loss of the stars, while far less environmentally destructive than other forms of pollution, is such a tragedy.Â
I’ve wanted to travel north to see the Aurora and clear skies for years now, maybe one day.
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Last week AES Andes—a subsidiary of the AES Corporation, an American energy company—announced it had scrapped its plans for a sprawling, city-size renewable energy project in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The decision comes after a year of backlash from astronomers who have been relying on the telescopes under Chile’s world-class skies.
They feared that [light pollution from the project would ruin their celestial views](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/europes-extremely-large-telescope-faces-a-new-dire-threat/). An [ESO study](https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2501/?lang) had predicted that the project, called INNA (Integrated Energy Infrastructure Project for the Generation of Hydrogen and Green Ammonia), would increase light pollution by at least 35 percent for Paranal’s Very Large Telescope, a set of four interlinked 8.2-meter observatories at the forefront of astronomical research.
I’m glad we’re able to preserve at least a small segment of our skies. The loss of the stars, while far less environmentally destructive than other forms of pollution, is such a tragedy.Â
I’ve wanted to travel north to see the Aurora and clear skies for years now, maybe one day.
This is fantastic news!