I have a feeling that if power companies could make money by building solar arrays, they'd be all-in in a New York minute. It's kind of like blaming GM for not building electric cars because of the evil oil companies. If they could build a car that ran on water, they'd happily sell them.

Of course, this all implies that vast swathes of uninhabital desert aren't ecosystems worth saving, which I suppose is the point of the article.

Personally, I think that the root of the issue is overpopulation. None of this would matter so much with fewer people and moving millions of them from the Third to the First World ain't gonna help any.