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Freeze On US Solar Plant Applications Lifted
necro81 writes "Barely a month ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a freeze on applications for solar power plants on federally managed land, pending a two-year comprehensive environmental review. After much hue and cry from the public, industry, and other parts of government, BLM has today announced that it will lift the freeze, but continue to study the possible environmental effects. To date, no solar project has yet been approved on BLM land."
Because Big Oil doesn't like Big Sun.
My god, what next!? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Yes, it's from ... Ghostbusters!
We'll just figure out what the effects are after we're hooked up to your juice.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Never mind I was wrong. It was government listening to the solar lobby! Move along, nothing to see here.
Some are even predicting U.S. solar plant applications could be ice free by as early as this summer.
Solar power sounds great and is very trendy. Why evaluate the possible consequences for our actions when we can plow ahead blindly? Going ahead with energy policy without considering the environmental effects has worked well for us so far!
Besides, being in favor of solar power helps you score with hippie chicks.
I wonder if anyone actually cried over this.
They will kill all natural plant life, absorb all available sunlight, douse the planet with darkness, freeze up the North Pole, stop the North Atlantic Conveyor, interfere with the mating rituals of rhesus monkeys and cause the whales to change their tunes. It is the end of the world as we know it!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
...ignore the need for science and rush headlong into whatever idea looks good on the surface.
Hey, the great unwashed are clearly capable of making complex decisions without the need for any kind of analysis. The people on TV told them so.
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel goodthink.
I wonder if the BLM has approved any oil wells on BLM land......
Yeah, because coal mining operations and oil drilling are so much more environmentally friendly.
Maybe, just maybe we can begin to harness some clean energy into wider usage.
Regards,
MBC1977,
While we whine about 'environmental considerations' of grabbing free energy from the sun, other countries are actually doing something about it. I was just in Germany where solar cell farms have been built in many places along the autobahns. Further, there are huge windmills everywhere (turning VERY slowly--Any bird which hits one of these is not paying attention. In France they've gone whole-hog nuke for electricity. There isn't a project alive that we can't make take ten times longer and make ten times the cost over our 'concerns.'
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Politics and energy, that's power twice over.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
funny thing-- i predicted this is almost exactly in the first thread-- but got modded down as 'flamebait'.
eat my photons.
davejenkins.com |
this was mostly misreported by news agencies. They made it sound like nobody could build solar power plants, when it only applied to "federally managed land."
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
They lifted the ban on solar plants? It can only mean.....
The oil companies figured out a way to soak the solar consumers more effectively. ....as if there was doubt it would happen.
This cannot happen, it seems to make sense!
Here is something I have never said before... Crimson Avenger eat crow! Ya, you got the mod points, but I got the Government to take my side! How is that for power! ;)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=597459&cid=23968419
Birds instantly cooked in mid air due to highly focused sunlight.
while renewable energy is a good long term goal, going nuclear would/does work today [see France] and the excess power allows you to do interesting things when the grid is not using it all [see CERN]. Now that's not to say there aren't issues, but they are known issues and as long as you don't try doing anything stupid [see Chernobyl] and stick to regulations its >99.999% safe.
and while they're at it perhaps they could invest the money needed to finally get fission working too. all this 'being green' is needed while were burning coal, but once we go nuclear we can throw energy about for supercomputers/labs/cars/etc
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
In the same week, a group of New Mexico utilities have announced a RFP for a new solar project. This is interesting since a significant amount of land in rural New Mexico is Federally controlled, either by the BLM or military.
-mls
I have to wonder how many of the corporations/people who are asking for permits actually have the intent (and ability) to build solar array farms, or are they just hoping to grab the land rights now so that they can hold it hostage and sub-lease it later to others?
Someone give me some possible downsides to solar energy. I'm not being sarcastic - I've never heard this line of thought that solar energy is bad for the environment and would like to hear the reasoning behind it.
this being /., the mods should have been 'interesting' as 'insightful' implies actual experience with said women
They're still not going to actually _approve_ any of these applications. Instead, they'll just let them pile up while they "study" the issue.
If the Department of the Interior were in control of Saudi Arabia there wouldn't be a drop of oil coming out of it...
I don't know where you work/go to school but hot female electrical engineers are hard to find, then when you do find one they are usually off a bit, probably due to the bad A game they hear all the time.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
It doesn't work at night.
So not only does it create electricity from solar energy but provides free meals as well? Hot.
I advocated the same thing as has happened as well. The replies insinuated I was an idiot and got modded up.
My post, no mod points, but at least I wasn't marked flamebait.
An aside. I't good I didn't get modded down, I got modded down enough around that time. I made the mistake of saying I should really abandon my Perl experience and learn Python (because I feel it is better).
Man, did I learn my lesson! Some Perl coder out there is such a rabid fanboy that it would make the other camps (apple, ms, evolution, whatever) envious!
snip
/snip
There are many lame things about PETA. But what exactly about them shows a "lack of compassion"?
*DING*
http://blog.helpinganimals.com/2008/02/to_serve_man.php
Next!
"It may just be that there is something fundamentally unworkable about government itself" -H. Beam Piper
This is another example of the Bush Administration using its power to block anything at all that might take dollar 1 out of the hands of their oil industry buddies. That was a despicable act. They do not want solar to catch on.
I wonder how many beowolf clusters a solar power plant could power?????
The hippies are the only reason your river doesn't look like the Yangtze. They're also the ones that were warning people of urban sprawl, inefficient cars and trucks, and pushing for mass transit.
They care about preserving resources, also known as conserving. I know the new conservative movement is totally ignorant of what that means, but it would be prudent to start learning.
Perhaps if we weren't spending 3 billion a week in Iraq, and driving large vehicles huge distances to grossly inefficient oversized houses, we'd be able to afford a heating oil subsidy until alternatives are available.
I can not understand why people say nuclear is safe. I would accept fusion plants not fission plants. One fission plant going critical with the right weather system overhead could render North America uninhabitable. Is anyone willing to take that chance? We already know what Chernobyl did to people. Why build more?? Invest in something safe and that will work, not something that works and could kill billions. Remember these nuclear plants are ran by for profit businesses. Just like our food supply is grown by for profit businesses and that's clearly not working lately.
The most interesting thing about this whole debacle has been seeing how many people have so little clue about solar thermal. When the story first broke you could see all these Republican apologists ranting about the horrors of photovoltaic production just as we see in this thread here on Slashdot on the other end of the story.
And then if it wasn't the atrocity of silane gas and photovoltaics then it was about how they were going to have to install all these new power lines. Again, we're seeing this same ignorant idiot trash spewed all over Slashdot.
The truth is, this is about solar thermal and this has been throughly vetted in public documents that are freely available to anyone with the slightest interest in the topic. Such far-left comunist hippies as Arnold Schwarzenegger drafted the document which explains in great detail that they have planned the solar thermal projects in question specifically to intersect with existing grid-interties.
No! Gasp, you mean somebody already thought of it?
Yes, read it yourself. Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
It's the Western Governorsâ(TM) Association. Clean and Diversified Energy Initiative. Solar Task Force Report. Get it while it's hot kids.
http://cleantechlawandbusiness.com/cleanbeta/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/solar-full.pdf.
But what I really like about this whole story, yeah I have enjoyed this story from beginning to end, is that it raised the prominence of solar thermal in the mass media. All the long-haired dope smoking hippies bloggers in the world couldn't have achieved what the Bush BLM managed in a single month.
Thanks BLM!
Why are they leasing the land instead of selling it? Put suitable parcels out for bids. Sell it, put the money into the treasury (ideally into the Social Security Trust Fund) and sign over a deed.
Then the local county and state would get some tax revenue, and the people can start developing the rest of the West. We have too much "Crown Land" as it is. And given the rate they are ripping up what few roads are there, the public is being kept out of more all the time.
Besides that, we keep tearing up good farmland to build because the rocky wastes were never claimed when the land was still open for settlement, and now that we have found a use rocky wasteland, the government won't sell it. So, we tear up the farmland because it's privately held, and thus can be sold.
It's time the Federal Government started selling land again. Over 70% Federal land ownership is too much (ID, UT, NV) and 1% is probably too little (NY), somewhere between is the right level.
hot female electrical engineer - individually each word makes sense, but when taken in sequence, I can discern no actual meaning.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Way to go!
and big oil (or you) really care about somebody trying to get by with high heating oil/energy costs??????
Even as a Libertarian, I can tell you that it is BIG money that tries hard to create monopolies/oliglopolies, avoid the law, charge outlandioush amounts of money, and hates being taxed. I do not agree with all the tax attitudes that some have, and I really hate the feds give price supports via tax cuts, direct aid, etc. But I will say that those hippies push that .
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You mean giant oil corporations own our "democracy" and dictate all policy?!?!, NO WAY!
Wake me up when the corporations bring:
JFK
RFK
The Constitution
The Bill of Rights
Freedom of the Press
Democracy
back to life. Until then I'm going to deep freeze myself until society readvances to the point of sanity.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
..some of them serve a useful purpose, the girls like to get naked at their protests. I've tried, believe me, but I still can't find anything wrong with that....
"Therein lies your ultimate hypocrisy: you're talking about caring about the environment and then acting like you have a god-given right to drive around on dino juice"
No he isn't, he's talking about building infrastructure that will continue to see use after the end of gas powered vehicles. Electric cars still drive on roads.
If you look closely, it is YOU who is foisting the straw man of "dino juice" upon him. There are more kinds of pollution than what comes out of a tailpipe. Noise, heat, etc. Taking palliative measures to reduce these things, which still exist with electric vehicles isn't the vile idea your screed makes it out to be.
You just jumped on your high horse and assumed you had the answer, when you didn't even understand the question. If there's anything I dislike about this new environmentalism, it's how often I see people doing exactly that.
You're thinking of photovoltaics. There's an alternative form of converting solar energy into electricity using SOLAR THERMAL energy and simple mirrors. In solar thermal power plants, the sunlight heats a certain material, which then heats water to make steam that runs the turbines that generate electricity. The heated material remains hot enough to generate steam even in the night-time (when there is less demand for electricity, such as air-conditioning), thus ensuring 24 hour electricty generation.
Furthermore, the conversion of gigawatts of solar energy into electricty means gigawatts of energy NOT heating the dirt or air. If you build the solar collectors in the desert (such as in Nevada), you don't have to worry about snow.
There are a few valid concerns over solar power plans. See here http://www.myinyokern.com/Inyokern%20Solar%20Power%20Project.html
Frankly I think it looks like a good idea. But we do live in the desert and so a system that uses a lot of water might be bad for the environment and for us greedy humans who like water. Also while there is a lot of desert it can be very pretty and so at some point we should keep some of it. But I am still for doing it just in moderation and with some concern of the impacts.
That's the unofficial name for the agency. They have no problem allowing fragile scrubland to be overgrazed without compensation to the public or environmental protection. They have no problem with coal companies removing the tops of entire mountains and dumping the waste into nearby river valleys. But now that someone wants to build a solar plant, they're up in arms over the environmental risks. Ugh. The BLM is the most worthless part of a worthless Interior Department, long since captured by ranchers and the coal industry.
Make cheese not war 8:)
Keep in mind that due to the way moderation is designed on Slashdot, there is no personal accountability for moderators. I know they try to pick 'good' moderators but they are still basically giving some random anonymous fuckwit power. Along with that power comes no incentive to 'do the right thing' because they are anonymous, not accountable, and for many users it's a rare treat to wield the mod power so they do whatever they want; damn the consequences.
I've never heard of a sunlight spill, but I know lots of people who have gotten serious RADIATION burns from that sun thing. It ought to be stopped, before more people are burned and injured like my kids have been. Who knows, it might even cause CANCER. We need more studies before approving the sun.
So your complaint is that environmentalists care about the environment, not people? I have a similar complaint about humanitarians. They don't care about the environment.
I'm getting front row tickets for that. Let the hair pulling begin!
Apparently none of the solar applications have been approved so what was the rationale for not continuing doing what hasn't yet been done.
for successfully implementing a Tool reference in a Slashdot post.
Those poor carrots.
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