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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."
Here is the printer friendly format for easier reading. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
But make sure the oil companies keep getting their tax subsidies. I mean, how do we expect these poor petro companies to compete with the market controlling renewable energy conglomerates?
Well, the government tends to frown on corporations building power plants on public land without, you know, checking with them first.
I think you don't understand what's going on here. The Bureau of Land Management is in charge of those vast stretches of deserted desert in the southwest. This isn't private land - indeed, the alternative to dealing with the BLM is to build on private land instead.
These companies are submitting applications to get the BLM to let them build on public land. The BLM has to decide whether to let the applicant build power generation facilities on the particular piece of public land they're looking at. Oftentimes, many different applications will be submitted for the same patch of land, and BLM has to decide whether to let one build the proposed plant, or to hold out for something else.
If you want to build some solar plant on your own private land, that's another matter, and you don't have to send an application to the BLM. There will be regulations and approvals and so forth, but you can still do it.
There is no freeze on the building of all solar power generation stations - this is a freeze on applications for using public land managed by the BLM only.
I don't know why this popped into my head.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to speak to the Indians about building solar power plants on their land.
We pushed them off of all the best land and consigned them to places that were arid and infertile. We consoled our consciences by telling ourselves by saying 'hey, we left them with a shitpile of land'. Of course the land wasn't good for anything . . . at least not then.
Additionally, the Indian reservations are a perennial backwater, mired in poverty and desperately in need of external investment. An enterprising company may be able to get access to large amounts of sundrenched land it needs while the Indians get the external investment they need - a mutually beneficial commercial relationship.
Also, the moratorium will tend to press potential investors away from public land and could give reservation based solar farms the chance to leapfrog development in other areas.
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I agree that it isn't a BAD thing... what bothers me, though, is how many in our government are pushing oil and coal as being uber critical to american energy needs... so much so that environment corners cut are worth the price... but when an alternative to their bias comes up, it's time to throw up the red flags... this isn't to say that oil/coal don't get enviro'd up the yin-yang, but the one sided bias is upsetting for a pro-solar guy like myself.
Well, if you can find some way to grant a monopoly to the oil companies on the harnessing of solar power, I'm sure we can clear-up these bureaucratic hurdles PDQ.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
I have to suffer through 2 months (and counting) of 100+ degree days,
This is probably a really dumb question, but as I Brit I have never figured out why settlers chose to live in America. I mean, the climate seems to spend half the year trying to KILL you. I've been to Boston in January and got snowed in my hotel with 6-foot/2-metre snowdrifts that arrived in ONE NIGHT. I've been to Houston in May and been stuck in my hotel lest the 48c/115f heat burn me to a frazzle. I went to California in February and they had to close the coastal highway because the sea had smashed it up.
I don't doubt for a moment that the USA is a lovely place to live IF you have air conditioning and central heating, but when the first settlers turned up a few hundred years ago, long before climate control, exactly what made them think "This is place to live! This location is ideally suited! We shall search no further!"?
Now I realise that the Pilgrims were essentially an extreme religious cult who got booted out of the Netherlands for being too nutty (and believe you me, the Netherlands is a pretty liberal place, getting kicked out of there really does take some doing - they must have been like Waco-quality loons). I know they also faced persecution in England for much the same thing. I also know that the British/Netherland climate of, essentially, rain rain rain, cloud, rain, does get a bit depressing, but at least the weather here never tries to KILL you. Any day of the year, anywhere in the country, you can step outside for the whole day and you won't die.
Whereas the Pilgrims set up home in BOSTON for the WINTER?
Then there's the wildlife. We don't have any dangerous wildlife, we shot it all, whereas you lot appear to have a country full of poisonous plants and poisonous/pointy-toothed predators. If the American weather isn't trying to kill you, there's some ivy or crocodile waiting to give you grievous pain.
And then you sing songs about how great your country is. Sure, your people are virtually all fabulous (and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn't met many of you personally), and ten out of ten for looking on the bright side of things, but your country is trying to kill you - how can that not introduce an element of self-doubt? How can you chaps be so religious when every time you step out of your house/car, some part of God's wonderful environment tries to nail you in the head?
When it comes down to energy conservation, do you never hover your finger over the thermostat, hesitate and think "Wouldn't it be a lot more energy efficient if I lived somewhere else entirely?".
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I would think that the air around a solar plant would actually be cooler, since the panels are converting solar energy into electric power and then transferring it to the grid.
If that energy had not been captured, it would have heated the ground.
My understanding is that the environmental impact issues of solar are focused more on the materials involved in manufacturing and/or disposing of solar panels.
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Now, use better panels with closer to 20% efficiency, and spread them around in more efficient locations, such as in the world's deserts, and you have yourself abundant energy using nothing but solar panels.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Bullshit
It's called SOLAR THERMAL. And you use molten salt or graphite to generate electricity at night.
RS
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