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US Halts Applications For Solar Energy Projects
Dekortage writes "The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce 'a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.' The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year."
Sorry, but this is a horrible thing. Your analogy of a 'code freeze' does not apply, because a code freeze allows all the interlocking parts of an app to make sure they work well together. Code freeze is needed when you have disparate programmers working on a single code base.
Here, we have a market full of companies trying to make profit on different strips of land-- completely separate from each other.
The only reason the BLM is calling for this freeze is because they are incompetent government nabobs. They cannot deal with the paperwork, so they are panicking and forcing a freeze in the market-- they are distorting progress and introducing a market inefficiency just because they cannot rethink their processes and figure out a way to both handle incoming requests as well as revamp their overall baseline environmental impact study for solar.
Whoever proposed this freeze should be fired. It's likely some bureaucrat that cannot be fired, so remember to write your congressman and give your grief about how the BLM is doing no damned good (as if they ever did).
I grew up in the West deserts, and I know that the BLM are morons-- Bureau of Livestock and Mining was our name for them. They've never been environmentally minded-- they've always just been a dirty hand in whatever local dirty business needed a handout from Uncle Sucker.
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Hell, you can put one on the roof of my someday-in-the-future electric car, too, so I won't even have to plug it in to recharge.
sibe you dickhead, when did they let you off probation? You're not supposed to be on the internet.
You won't have to plug it in, but it'll take eternity to charge it up. If you're using gasoline or hybrid or plug-in you've violated the constraints of the PP's statement.
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I disagree. Quoting Ayn rand is always gratuitous, never obligatory.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!