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Politics & ReligionWell Since every damn forum has one. Might as well leave it out there. This place is loosely moderated and should not be entered if you're weak of heart.
From the "WTF files." I thought we were supposed to be finding alternative energy sources, not trying to destroy them.
June 27, 2008
Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects
By DAN FROSCH
DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.
The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”
Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.
Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.
According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes.
All involve two types of solar plants, concentrating and photovoltaic. Concentrating solar plants use mirrors to direct sunlight toward a synthetic fluid, which powers a steam turbine that produces electricity. Photovoltaic plants use solar panels to convert sunlight into electric energy.
Much progress has been made in the development of both types of solar technology in the last few years. Photovoltaic solar projects grew by 48 percent in 2007 compared with 2006. Eleven concentrating solar plants are operational in the United States, and 20 are in various stages of planning or permitting, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The manager of the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact study, Linda Resseguie, said that many factors must be considered when deciding whether to allow solar projects on the scale being proposed, among them the impact of construction and transmission lines on native vegetation and wildlife. In California, for example, solar developers often hire environmental experts to assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel.
Water use can be a factor as well, especially in the parched areas where virtually all of the proposed plants would be built. Concentrating solar plants may require water to condense the steam used to power the turbine.
“Reclamation is another big issue,” Ms. Resseguie said. “These plants potentially have a 20- to 30-year life span. How to restore that land is a big question for us.”
Another benefit of the study will be a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process, said the assistant Interior Department secretary for land and minerals management, C. Stephen Allred. The land agency’s manager of energy policy, Ray Brady, said the moratorium on new applications was necessary to “ensure that we are doing an adequate level of analysis of the impacts.”
In the meantime, bureau officials emphasized, they will continue processing the more than 130 applications received before May 29, measuring each one’s environmental impact.
While proponents of solar energy agree on the need for a sweeping environmental study, many believe that the freeze is unwarranted. Some, like Ms. Gordon, whose company has two pending proposals for solar plants on public land, say small solar energy businesses could suffer if they are forced to turn to more expensive private land for development.
The industry is already concerned over the fate of federal solar investment tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. The moratorium, combined with an end to tax credits, would deal a double blow to an industry that, solar advocates say, has experienced significant growth without major environmental problems.
“The problem is that this is a very young industry, and the majority of us that are involved are young, struggling, hungry companies,” said Lee Wallach of Solel, a solar power company based in California that has filed numerous applications to build on public land and was considering filing more in the next two years. “This is a setback.”
At a public hearing in Golden, Colo., on Monday, one of a series by the Bureau of Land Management across the West, reaction to the moratorium was mixed.
Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.
Others warned the bureau against becoming mired in its own bureaucratic processes on solar energy, while parts of the West are already humming with new oil and gas development.
Craig Cox, the executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a renewable energy trade group, said he worried that the freeze would “throw a monkey wrench” into the solar energy industry at precisely the wrong time.
“I think it’s good to have a plan,” Mr. Cox said, “but I don’t think we need to stop development in its tracks.”
Here's another WTF Moment from the Wapo. January just can't get here fast enough.
White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail
*
by FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: June 25, 2008
The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.
The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said.
This week, more than six months later, the E.P.A. is set to respond to that order by releasing a watered-down version of the original proposal that offers no conclusion. Instead, the document reviews the legal and economic issues presented by declaring greenhouse gases a pollutant.
Over the past five days, the officials said, the White House successfully put pressure on the E.P.A. to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Both documents, as prepared by the E.P.A., “showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases,” one of the senior E.P.A. officials said. “That’s not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can’t work.”
The Bush administration’s climate-change policies have been evolving over the past two years. It now accepts the work of government scientists studying global warming, such as last week’s review forecasting more drenching rains, parching droughts and intense hurricanes as global temperatures warm (US Climate Change Science Program).
But no administration decisions have supported the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act or other environmental laws.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, refused to comment on discussions between the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency. Asked about changes in the original report, Mr. Fratto said, “It’s the E.P.A. that determines what analysis it wants to make available” in its documents.
The new document, a road map laying out the issues involved in regulation, is to be signed by Stephen L. Johnson, the agency’s administrator, and published as early as Wednesday.
The derailment of the original E.P.A. report was first made known in March by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The refusal to open the e-mail has not been made public.
In early December, the E.P.A.’s draft finding that greenhouse gases endanger the environment used Energy Department data from 2007 to conclude that it would be cost effective to require the nation’s motor vehicle fleet to average 37.7 miles per gallon in 2018, according to government officials familiar with the document.
About 10 days after the finding was left unopened by officials at the Office of Management and Budget, Congress passed and President Bush signed a new energy bill mandating an increase in average fuel-economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The day the law was signed, the E.P.A. administrator rejected the unanimous recommendation of his staff and denied California a waiver needed to regulate vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases in the state, saying the new law’s approach was preferable and climate change required global, not regional, solutions.
California’s regulations would have imposed tougher standards.
The Transportation Department made its own fuel-economy proposals public almost two months ago; they were based on the assumption that gasoline would range from $2.26 per gallon in 2016 to $2.51 per gallon in 2030, and set a maximum average standard of 35 miles per gallon in 2020.
The White House, which did not oppose the Transportation Department proposals, has become more outspoken on the need for a comprehensive approach to greenhouse gases, specifically rejecting possible controls deriving from older environmental laws.
In a speech in April, Mr. Bush called for an end to the growth of greenhouse gases by 2025 — a timetable slower than many scientists say is required. His chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, said a “train wreck” would result if regulations to control greenhouse gases were authorized piecemeal under laws like the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.
White House pressure to ignore or edit the E.P.A.’s climate-change findings led to the resignation of one agency official earlier this month: Jason Burnett, the associate deputy administrator. Mr. Burnett, a political appointee with broad authority over climate-change regulations, said in an interview that he had resigned because “no more constructive work could be done” on the agency’s response to the Supreme Court.
He added, “The next administration will have to face what this one did not.”
The House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, led by Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, has been seeking the discarded E.P.A. finding on the dangers of climate change.
After reading it last week, Mr. Markey’s office sent a letter to Mr. Bush saying, “E.P.A. Administrator Stephen Johnson determined that man-made global warming is unequivocal, the evidence is compelling and robust, and the administration must act to prevent harm rather than wait for harm to occur.”
Simultaneously, Mr. Waxman’s committee is weighing its response to the White House’s refusal to turn over subpoenaed documents relating to the E.P.A.’s handling of recent climate-change and air-pollution decisions. The White House, which has turned over other material to the committee, last week asserted a claim of executive privilege over the remaining documents.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Fratto, the White House spokesman, said the committee chairmen did not understand the legal precedent underlying executive privilege. “There is a long legal history supporting the principle that the president should have the candid advice of his advisers,” Mr. Fratto said.
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Those things just go right into the WTF file. The White House is a bunch of strange people who just don't want to see anything they don't like. Amazing. No wonder we have a huge deficit and an intractable war problem.
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paper by UC-Berkeley energy guru Severin Borenstein (left) arguing that solar power is an economic loser. “We are throwing away money by installing the current solar PV technology,” Borenstein told Matt Nauman of the Mercury News.
I looked through Borenstein’s paper, portions of which are pretty technical. But here are a few key conclusions that I drew from it:
1. Photovoltaic solar panels still cost a lot of money to make and install, despite advances in production technology, and prices aren’t dropping quickly enough to significantly change the economic calculations.
2. Utility-generated electricity is cheaper, even accounting for the high cost of buying and transmitting energy during peak demand periods.
3. The greenhouse-gas reductions from switching to solar are too small to generate a “net social return.”
4. The government subsidies for solar installation — which run more than $10,000 for a typical house – might be better spent funding research into radically more efficient solar technologies.
Not surprisingly, solar advocates were peeved. “Borenstein doesn’t give proper credit to the important role that competition and economies of scale play in driving down costs,” Neal Lurie of the American Solar Energy Society told the Merc.....
Something to consider...'eh?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by keystonejenks
DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.
I know you're new, but just as a matter of ettiquitte, it's thoughtful to provide a link to the context of your quote.
As to your comment, sure that't true, but something else to consider is that many thought cars would never replace horses. With emerging technologies, it's always crazy to limit yourself to what seems like a good idea.
You gotta hand in to UC-Berkeley. They also employ John Yu to teach Con Law (!!!!) at Boalt. Fucking GREAT school. The greatest public university in the entire nation.
BTW, someone guess who the chairman of the UC Board of Regents is. (You're gonna love it!)
Hint: He's filthy rich, he's Jewish, he's liberal, and he's married to a United States Senator.
I read somewhere that Desert Tortoises were doing extremely well in and around solar plants....sounds like a good thing to me.
Funny that ATV groups are complaining that the solar facilities would be "ugly" and "destroy the ATV experience". Sounds like a self correcting problem if you ask me.
photovoltaic's cost no more to produce than the silicon in your computer. there's actually many less processing steps, but the net use of silicon is much higher. not really a problem, are there any beaches that are absent from sand?
photovoltaic's cost no more to produce than the silicon in your computer. there's actually many less processing steps, but the net use of silicon is much higher. not really a problem, are there any beaches that are absent from sand?
Have you ever been out here? Sand is one thing we are NOT in the least bit short on.
Have you ever been out here? Sand is one thing we are NOT in the least bit short on.
They've moved beyond silicon in P/V's.
Some guy's making it like aluminum foil, in these big rolls. You just put in on top of the roof and hook it up. I'm not techie. Maybe someone here knows something about it.
US Government puts moratorium on solar energy
