The Green Energy Paradox: Chile Cancels $10 Billion Hydrogen Facility That Threatened World's Darkest Skies
Chile's environmental regulator has confirmed the withdrawal of INNA, a $10 billion green hydrogen and ammonia production facility that would have occupied 3,000 hectares of the Atacama Desert just 11.6 kilometers from Paranal Observatory, home to instruments that have produced three Nobel prizes in physics, according to the European Southern Observatory. The cancellation, celebrated by astronomers worldwide, exposes a fundamental tension in the climate transition: the remote, pristine landscapes that renewable energy projects seek are often the same places performing irreplaceable scientific and ecological functions that cannot coexist with industrial development.
The collision was inevitable by design. AES Andes, a subsidiary of US-based AES Corporation, selected the Atacama Desert for INNA's massive solar-powered hydrogen facility for precisely the same reasons astronomers chose it decades earlier: exceptionally clear skies, high altitude, dry climate, and remoteness from human activity, according to the company's environmental impact assessment. The proposed complex would have included three solar power plants, a port, and transport infrastructure to move hydrogen and ammonia to coastal markets. Green hydrogen, produced by using renewable electricity to split water molecules, represents a critical tool for decarbonizing heavy industry and shipping. The facility promised to harness the Atacama's relentless sunshine to create clean fuel at scale. But that same sunshine, unobstructed by atmospheric interference, makes the region ideal for observing the faintest signals from distant galaxies.
Paranal Observatory sits atop Cerro Paranal at 2,600 meters above sea level, operating the Very Large Telescope, a system of 8.2-meter instruments that has enabled research leading to three Nobel prizes, according to the European Southern Observatory. Nearby, construction continues on the Extremely Large Telescope on Cerro Armazones, described by ESO as the largest and most powerful telescope ever built. Mount Paranal has been repeatedly ranked as the least light-polluted major observatory on Earth. These facilities took decades to identify, develop, and calibrate. The European Southern Observatory, which operates three telescope complexes in Chile, chose these locations after exhaustive surveys to find places where Earth's atmosphere interferes least with observations of phenomena billions of light-years away.
Why You Cannot Move a Telescope
The threats INNA posed were not speculative. Scientists warned in technical assessments that the facility would raise light pollution around the observatories, even at 11.6 kilometers distance, because astronomical instruments are designed to detect photons that have traveled across the universe and arrived so faint that a single streetlight dozens of kilometers away can overwhelm the signal. The industrial complex would have caused vibrations affecting instruments calibrated to detect gravitational waves and measure stellar positions to fractions of an arcsecond. Construction and operation would aerosolize dust that settles on telescope mirrors, degrading their reflective coatings and requiring costly cleaning that risks damaging precision optics. The facility would increase atmospheric turbulence through heat generation and altered air flow patterns, blurring the images astronomers spend careers refining techniques to sharpen.
These are not problems engineering can solve. Adaptive optics can compensate for natural atmospheric turbulence, but not for turbulence artificially introduced at unpredictable intervals. Mirrors can be cleaned, but each cleaning cycle degrades coatings that cost millions to replace. Light pollution can be shielded, but not eliminated when the source covers 3,000 hectares. The fundamental issue is that astronomical observation at this level requires an environment that has barely changed since humans arrived. You cannot relocate decades of infrastructure investment, and you cannot recreate the Atacama's unique atmospheric conditions elsewhere. The world has a finite number of places dark and clear enough for this work, and each one lost is irreplaceable.
AES Andes maintained throughout the environmental review process that the project was "absolutely compatible" with other activities in the area, according to company statements. This was not corporate cynicism but a genuine disagreement about acceptable interference levels. The company likely calculated that 11.6 kilometers provided sufficient buffer, that modern lighting design could minimize skyglow, that construction impacts would be temporary. From an industrial perspective, the Atacama appears empty, a vast expanse of unused land ideal for solar arrays. The company was proposing to build critical climate infrastructure in a location with world-class solar resources and minimal displacement of existing human activity. By conventional environmental metrics, this was responsible development.
The Hidden Geography of Sacrifice
The conflict reveals what maps do not show: Earth's "empty" places are already occupied by functions that require emptiness. Deserts, remote coastlines, and wilderness areas serve as astronomical observatories, wildlife corridors, carbon sinks, Indigenous territories, and ecological baselines. These uses are invisible to development planning because they produce no GDP, employ few people, and generate no tax revenue. They appear on maps as blank space available for higher uses. But as renewable energy scales to meet climate targets, these landscapes are becoming the primary battleground for resource allocation.
The pattern is emerging globally. Solar farms compete with radio telescopes for electromagnetically quiet zones. Wind farms intersect with bird migration routes and bat populations. Lithium mining for batteries destroys unique desert ecosystems and Indigenous water sources. Offshore wind development conflicts with fishing grounds and marine mammal habitats. Each project, considered individually, seems reasonable. Collectively, they represent a systematic claim on the planet's last relatively unmodified environments. The Atacama case is unusual only because the scientific community mobilized quickly and effectively. An open letter in December led by 2020 Nobel laureate Reinhard Genzel urged the Chilean government to cancel INNA, generating international pressure that likely influenced the environmental review.
How Chile's Environmental Review Actually Works
Chile's environmental evaluation service, known as SEA, operates through a multi-stage process that can take years to complete, according to Chilean environmental law. When a major project like INNA is proposed, developers must submit an Environmental Impact Assessment that details potential effects on surrounding areas. The SEA then opens a public comment period, allowing affected parties, from local communities to international scientific organizations, to submit technical objections. Government agencies including Chile's Ministry of Science and the National Monuments Council review these submissions and issue binding technical reports. The process involves multiple rounds of questions, responses, and revisions before SEA issues a final resolution approving, rejecting, or requiring modifications to the project.
In INNA's case, the process revealed how difficult it is to quantify competing public goods. The facility would have created an estimated 3,500 construction jobs and 200 permanent positions in one of Chile's poorest regions, according to AES Andes' economic impact projections. The green hydrogen produced would have served international shipping companies and industrial manufacturers seeking to meet decarbonization targets, benefiting populations worldwide through reduced carbon emissions, but with impacts diffused across global supply chains rather than concentrated in identifiable communities. Meanwhile, Paranal Observatory directly employs approximately 130 scientists and support staff, according to ESO, but serves the global scientific community and contributes to fundamental research whose beneficiaries cannot be easily counted. SEA spent almost a year assessing these incommensurable values before the withdrawal was formalized following meetings with AES Andes. The regulatory process appears to have worked as designed, weighing competing uses and determining that the scientific infrastructure's value exceeded the industrial facility's benefits. But this was a close call, and there is no guarantee the next conflict will resolve the same way.
Itziar de Gregorio, the European Southern Observatory's representative in Chile, expressed relief at the cancellation, but the global scientific community understands this represents a temporary reprieve, not a permanent solution. The decision-making process relied heavily on which stakeholders could mobilize international pressure most effectively, astronomers succeeded where other groups facing similar conflicts have failed.
Competing Goods Without a Framework
The deeper problem is that we lack a coherent system for adjudicating these conflicts. Climate policy treats renewable energy deployment as an unqualified good, with targets measured in gigawatts installed and carbon emissions avoided. Scientific infrastructure, ecosystem preservation, and Indigenous land rights are addressed through separate regulatory frameworks that rarely coordinate. When a green hydrogen facility threatens an observatory, there is no established method for weighing the climate benefits of clean fuel production against the scientific benefits of continued astronomical research. Each case becomes a political fight determined by which stakeholders mobilize most effectively.
This matters because the conflicts will multiply as climate transition accelerates. Green hydrogen production is projected to grow exponentially over the next two decades as industries seek alternatives to fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. Solar and wind capacity must increase by orders of magnitude to meet decarbonization targets. Battery production requires vast increases in lithium, cobalt, and rare earth mining. Every megawatt of renewable energy and every ton of battery minerals must be sited somewhere, and the most economically attractive locations are often remote areas with excellent natural resources and minimal existing development. These are precisely the places that conservation, science, and Indigenous communities depend on remaining undeveloped.
The INNA cancellation demonstrates that mobilized opposition can protect specific sites, but it also reveals the absence of proactive planning. The facility reached advanced stages of environmental review before astronomers raised alarms, suggesting that early coordination between energy developers and scientific institutions could have identified the conflict before millions were spent on planning. Chile hosts world-leading astronomical infrastructure and world-class renewable energy resources, but apparently lacks a spatial planning framework that maps where these uses can coexist and where they cannot. The result is reactive crisis management rather than strategic allocation of finite resources.
We are fighting to preserve darkness in a world that desperately needs energy, and we have not yet admitted these are competing goods rather than compatible goals. The Atacama Desert will face more proposals for solar arrays, wind farms, and industrial facilities, all justified by climate urgency. Other observatories around the world face similar pressures. The question is not whether to pursue renewable energy, but whether we can develop systems for deciding what we are willing to sacrifice for it, and what we are not. Chile's environmental regulators made that determination for INNA. The next conflict may not resolve so clearly, and the one after that may involve choices where both sides have compelling claims to landscapes that cannot serve two masters.