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Freeze On US Solar Plant Applications Lifted
Posted by
timothy
on Thursday July 03, @02:44PM
from the it-would-have-melted-eventually dept.
from the it-would-have-melted-eventually dept.
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."
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Hardware: US Halts Applications For Solar Energy Projects 481 comments
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."
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Frozen? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Frozen? (Score:5, Insightful)
But what exactly about them shows a "lack of compassion"? Because they'd ban animal testing? That's not a choice I'd agree with, but it has legitimate moral arguments.
How about assaulting people over their choice of clothing? Controlling something through fear... oh yeah, it's a terrorist organization. Wow... compassion what?
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Re:Frozen? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Frozen? (Score:5, Insightful)
nothing like the people that are against everything.
Doesn't matter how good a proposal is, there will always be downsides, and there will always be people that will use these downsides to block anything and everything just to show they have power.
If the 1800's would have been like that the world would look a whole lot different today.
There would be no railroads, probably no roads/cars and aircraft/airports and certainly no space travel.
Progress requires sacrifice, the tough bit is that lots of stuff got sacrificed to profits, not to progress and we're not facing the backlash of that.
The pendulum once disturbed never quite regains its balance.
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Continue Building! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Continue Building! (Score:5, Insightful)
Chance that a coal-fired power plant does significant harm to the environment: 100%
If we can displace some power sources that we KNOW have big negatives with some we're pretty sure won't, then yeah: let's build now and watch for any unexpected consequences as we go forward.
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Don't review it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure if you're aware, but hippie chicks are a pain in the ass. They don't shave their body hair, they're overly concerned with what direction they're facing when making out so they can "harness the natural energy of Gaia", and they think all technology pollutes their auras.
What you want is to score with a hot female electrical engineer, because there's usually a hellion lurking beneath the rose-rimmed glasses and the tight labcoat.
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a second, are you the author of those electrical engineering romance paperbacks I've been reading?
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a second, are you the author of those electrical engineering romance paperbacks I've been reading?
Links please...
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
hot female electrical engineer
you sir have clearly not been to the engineering building on a college campus. The hot female EE you speak of is a mythical creature, like bigfoot, or a unicorn.
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Re:Don't review it! (Score:5, Funny)
The hot female EE you speak of is a mythical creature, like bigfoot, or a unicorn.
Oh, they exist, I've seen them with my own eyes. They've just been hunted to the edge of extinction.
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Solar plants are dangerous! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Solar plants are dangerous! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't believe you left out the biggest problem of all: what to do with all that solar waste.
I know I sure as heck don't want a bunch of depleted sunlight in my backyard!
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No Solar Projects Approved (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the BLM has approved any oil wells on BLM land......
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Re:No Solar Projects Approved (Score:5, Informative)
From the BLM web page:
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/energy/oil_and_gas.html [blm.gov]
It wasn't too hard to find. Being on the main blm web page and all. To answer the question, the BLM does have quite an investment in selling leases for exploiting natural resources. Although, it doesn't explain why they wouldn't be interested in selling leases to exploit sunlight. Of course, we might find out that this was a directive from someone higher up in the administration.
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Re:No Solar Projects Approved (Score:5, Informative)
They're still going to do the studies, and from what I'm seeing they're not planning on approving any of the leases until that study is done:
FTA:
"The BLM in 2006 completed a similar study of the effects of wind farm development in the Midwest. The agency did not, however, halt applications during that process, which began in 2003. Resseguie said that was because wind resources were geographically dispersed and there were no multiple applications for any single location, as there are in California for solar plants."
So it sounds like they were just trying to close the queue so it wouldn't get clogged up while they waited on the results of the survey. It doesn't appear to in any way impact when they will start approving leases.
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Germany has them (Score:5, Insightful)
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.'
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Possible detrimental environmental effects... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Possible detrimental environmental effects... (Score:5, Funny)
So, it'll give me light, heat, *and* dinner? Tell me again why this is bad...
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Re:Builders or speculators? (Score:5, Informative)
California has a mandate that 20% of its power must come from renewables (not including large hydropower plants) by 2012 and higher targets shortly after. The only cost-effective way to meet this requirement is by building massive thermal solar plants very quickly. Lots of the best land for such plants is controlled by the Federal government in one form or another. There are something like 10 500 MW solar farms planned for construction in in various parts of the Mojave desert over the next decade. So, the demand is real.
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Re:ok (Score:5, Informative)
Solar cells are still made from industrial chemical processes, so they're not necessarily very land-fill friendly (obviously, this depends on the chemical makeup of the cell)....and yes, the cells will wear out and require replacement.
Also, as a joker pointed out earlier, since they don't work at night, you need batteries...our battery technology is also fairly heavy on the heavy metals right now. These also wear out, often faster than the cells do.
In the case that the BLM are talking about, there are a number of interesting possibilities:
* How to bees/other insects react to light reflected back off large banks of cells? Does it mess with their navigation?
* Do any of the plans to get cables out to the banks of cells mess with the wildlife they're trying to protect?
* Do the cells have any (potentially) toxic runoff when hit with heavy rains/hail/etc?
* will any residual heat from the cells mess with the local flora/fauna? (if it's an area that's normally snow-covered in winter, what happens if the heat from the cells keeps it snow-free? Does that mess with any of the local plants cycles?)
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Re:ok (Score:5, Informative)
Thermal solar power works by heating something like liquid sodium and then using that to heat steam to 1000F, which is a very efficient temperature to run a steam turbine. As such, they work at night, for between 2-20 hours after sundown (can even out a partially cloudy day, for example).
Thermal solar doesn't need batteries, and you don't use batteries for a grid intertie solar plant. Most energy is needed during the day, when the sun is brightest, so honestly, the big point is taking peak needs off the coal plants -- which is how you have to size them and where you pay most of your money. Photovoltaics can feed into the grid and provide this peak pretty well, although it's yet to be seen if thermal solar can beat them for efficiency.
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Re:ok (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what their study aims to answer (what exactly are the concerns and how bad they are). Unfortunately random people's suppositions don't substitute research, which is why they are investigating it.
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