Renewable Energy News

available Federal Lands Not Being Used for Solar

Not a light bulb's worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground. Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle. An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials shows that the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.  The federal government has, so far, failed to use the land it already has—some of the world's best for solar—to produce renewable electricity. Nowhere is this more evident than in Nevada, where a Goldman Sachs & Co. subsidiary with no solar background has claims with the BLM on nearly half the land for which applications have been filed, but no firm plan for any of the sites. The Obama administration says it is expediting the most promising projects, with some approvals expected as soon as September. And yet, it will be years before the companies begin sending electricity to the Southwest's sprawling, energy-hungry cities.

Congress in 2005 gave the Interior Department a deadline: approve 10,000 megawatts, or about five million homes' worth during peak hours, of renewable energy on public lands by 2015. Reaching that goal was left to the BLM, which oversees federal land and knows oil, gas and mining leases but is new to solar.  BLM's database of solar applications shows many languished for years while the agency approved more than 73,000 oil and gas leases in the last five years. BLM has yet to give final approval to one solar lease. BLM's solar leasing system ended up allowing developers to lay claim to prime sites—many located in the deserts that span California, Nevada and Arizona. All developers had to do was fill out an application, pay a fee and file development plans. But many were so vague that it was difficult for BLM to separate the serious projects from the speculative ones. "People were making (solar) applications on federal lands not knowing what kind of technology to propose and ... how to develop the land," said Ray Brady, BLM's head of energy policy in Washington

He said the agency's main problem was that there were too few employees available to work on the applications. Under Obama administration, more BLM staff like Helseth have been hired to help weed out dormant applications so developers better suited for the job can be found. Officials say the administration is trying to avoid future land rushes by identifying the best solar locations with the fewest environmental impacts, rather having a free-for-all. Critics say BLM should have done this in the first place and help avoid years of delay. ...from Renewable Energy World

U.S.  Shipping its Biofuels Overseas

Meeting our energy needs in a responsible manner requires the efforts not just of each individual but of our communities.  Please share what you learn here with members of your own community and encourage them to share their successes and challenges with the Energy Bible community. Write to us at editor@energybible.com.