US Government Opens 22 Million Acres of Federal Lands To Solar 106
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The Biden administration has updated the roadmap for solar development to 22 million acres of federal lands in the US West. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have determined that 700,000 acres of federal lands will be needed for solar farms over the next 20 years, so BLM recommended 22 million acres to give "maximum flexibility" to help the US reach its net zero by 2035 power sector goal. The plan is an update of the Bureau of Land Management's 2012 Western Solar Plan, which originally identified areas for solar development in six states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
The updated roadmap refines the analysis in the original six states and expands to five more states -- Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. It also focuses on lands within 10 miles of existing or planned transmission lines and moves away from lands with sensitive resources. [...] BLM under the Biden administration has approved 47 clean energy projects and permitted 11,236 megawatts (MW) of wind, solar, and geothermal energy on public lands, enough to power more than 3.5 million homes. Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said in response to BLM's announced Western Solar Plan updates: "The proposal ... identifies 200,000 acres of land near transmission infrastructure, helping to correct an important oversight and streamline solar development. Under the current policy, there are at least 80 million acres of federal lands open to oil and gas development, which is 100 times the amount of public land available for solar. BLM's proposal is a big step in the right direction and recognizes the key role solar plays in our energy economy."
The updated roadmap refines the analysis in the original six states and expands to five more states -- Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. It also focuses on lands within 10 miles of existing or planned transmission lines and moves away from lands with sensitive resources. [...] BLM under the Biden administration has approved 47 clean energy projects and permitted 11,236 megawatts (MW) of wind, solar, and geothermal energy on public lands, enough to power more than 3.5 million homes. Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said in response to BLM's announced Western Solar Plan updates: "The proposal ... identifies 200,000 acres of land near transmission infrastructure, helping to correct an important oversight and streamline solar development. Under the current policy, there are at least 80 million acres of federal lands open to oil and gas development, which is 100 times the amount of public land available for solar. BLM's proposal is a big step in the right direction and recognizes the key role solar plays in our energy economy."
we've certainly got the land for it (Score:5, Interesting)
Billions of acres of desert land in the west, sounds like an ideal place for solar. And can just crank it up to 115kv and send it anywhere on the US grid. Except for most of Texas of course, because they love their independence.
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skip that high voltage AC nonsense and go straight to HVDC (high-voltage direct current) at 230 kV to 500 kV. We already have this in the US and it works fine (i.e. Pacific DC Intertie). It was using mercury arc back when I was studying this stuff in school, but Wikipedia says they've replaced the mercury in them.
but honestly, I don't understand what argument you're trying to make. we operate many different line voltages in the US some of them up to 1000 kV (pole-to-pole). There are usually some engineering
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What about HVDC?
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I'm a little concerned this conversation is going to go in circles.
Re: we've certainly got the land for it (Score:1)
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HVAC corona losses and suffers from skin effects. HVDC is more efficient for long distance transmission. Short distance, HVAC conversion is more efficient so it wins out.
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AC is always used for transmission lines because you can't step DC up or down with a transformer. Maybe someday we'll have better tech for that but for now we're stuck with AC whether we like it or not. The losses due to high current (at lower voltages) are just a complete showstopper otherwise.
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Doesn't it have to be near transmission lines? Isn't that the main issue?
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Doesn't it have to be near transmission lines? Isn't that the main issue?
There are already big transmission lines across the Mojave (CA and NV).
There are also big transmission lines across northern Arizona and New Mexico.
The Mojave is the best location for solar because it has a higher altitude (lower temps and brighter sun) and is further west, so it helps to fill the late afternoon peaks in consumption.
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Enough for a ton of new wind and solar farms?
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As long as you can easily get rid of the dust and keep daytime temperature low, it is golden. I'll gladly copy your solution for my semi-desert installation if it is a good one.
/ Not a snark
Re:we've certainly got the land for it (Score:5, Informative)
As long as you can easily get rid of the dust
Dust becomes electrostatically charged. There's already in lab methods of passing a small AC current to act as repulsion for dust. The issue that remains with a lot of the solutions is coatings that the interdigitated electrodes don't impure the substrate that makes water impingement an issue, as repulsed dust does help the issue, but doesn't completely reduce water removal of dust.
However the current solutions are indeed ideal for locations where moisture is not a concern like Mars and are usually employed for this particular use, especially lunar landings that need to repeal the highly charged lunar regolith.
There are a couple of folks out there who are working on tin-copper in thin few nanometer thick layers to address the issue. I recently read that one was able to prevent 95% of the ambient moisture from entering the lower layers in 30% or less humidity climates, which deserts sort of fit into that here on Earth. So yeah, it's not quite there, but folks are working on the dust thing.
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One technique is to fly quadcopter drones over the panels after a dust storm.
The rotor wash from the drones will blow the dust off the panels.
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Maybe fit the panels with a compressed air powered blower bar and cycle them when efficiency drops. Or simple roller brushes, if the surface is sturdy enough.
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That works for awhile, but eventually the fine dust sticks and starts to accumulate. Then, the only way to get it off requires physical contact. (usually washing, even with a water spray - which can also be done with drones
I've seen some panel designs that include automatic washers, though I don't know if that ends up better or worse than drone maintenance. (or just plain people rotating through them with a squeegee)
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Thanks. In my area, it just somehow turns to oily dirt. Rain helps, but then it is a location without much of that...
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Simply because something is a desert doesn't mean there isn't a living biome there or that simply burying it under endless acres of solar panels won't cause damage.
Re:we've certainly got the land for it (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply because something is a desert doesn't mean there isn't a living biome there
America has 500 million acres of desert.
The plan is to use 700,000 acres for solar.
That is 0.14%.
There will be plenty of desert left for the lizards.
or that simply burying it under endless acres of solar panels won't cause damage.
The panels are spaced so they catch about half the sunlight. The rest reaches the ground. Plant life in the desert is limited by water, not light, so the 50% shade boosts growth. Many desert species thrive under the panels.
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There will be plenty of desert left for the lizards.
Most of them are in Washington and Hollywood anyway, so it's not a big deal.
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Most lizards and insects don't really LIKE extremely high temperatures, they can just tolerate them well. I would expect that unless they take steps to prevent it, the area under the solar panels will be relatively intensely populated.
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You KNOW this?
Or you're pretending to expertise?
Re:we've certainly got the land for it (Score:5, Insightful)
It may mean that there's some loss of habitat for species that live in the desert, but that's always going to happen regardless of source. Coal requires mining. Wind turbines won't bother ground species much, but will disrupt birds. Hydro means dams and affects fish that live in the rivers. Even if you're extracting uranium from sea water so you don't need to mine it, nuclear will still have some leftover waste that needs storage.
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Their habitats will be disrupted by climate change anyway, so anything that lessens that is probably a net benefit.
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Okay. Kill yourself.
Seriously.
You're an unending source of climate altering greenhouse gas.
"And "ANYTHING" that lessens that is probably a net benefit."
Right?
This is why blind belief is such a stupid benchmark.
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Britain has found that the area under solar panels tends to become a home for insects. It's not at all clear that this would lessen the habitability of the area. In a desert, shade is a precious commodity.
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Because you disturb the environment putting the equipment in in the first place.
Possibly killing existing life in the area and stripping out the habitat. HOPING you're right and new life moves back in.
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Unless you're proposing humanity forego any kind of power generation entirely, anything is going to have some environmental impact. Even if we have some major fission breakthrough, you still need to put the reactor somewhere.
The comment you are replying to is NOT trying to stop the idea, they are trying to encourage the people choosing the locations to not merely think of deserts as empty sand and that you can not just drop anything you want anywhere you want in the desert and have a good outcome.
There are plenty of wastelands out there where nothing really grows, such as above the timberline on the tops of mountains. They are called wastelands, not deserts... even if some of them are considered desert.
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Yes, we Texans do love our independence. And we have more solar than any other state. https://www.governing.com/infr... [governing.com].
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Out in the middle of the Mohave.
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Yes, we Texans do indeed love our independence. And we have more solar power than any other state.
https://www.governing.com/infr... [governing.com].
We have our own deserts and plenty of open land for solar and wind farms.
Texas also has 3x more wind power than any other state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Despite its reputation as an oil state (which is deserved), Texas is also the green energy leader in the US.
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A concern I have is that there should be a mandate that all solar farms in remote areas be dark - as in no night time lighting at all. There is a compulsion by all facility builders that the facility, even if unmanned, must be brightly lit at night. There is no reason why a solar farm needs any lights at night, none. Keep people out? Build a fence with motion detectors. Install infrared cameras if you like, they are cheap. If you need to send someone around the place at night bring the light with them, or h
We've got the land for it, but is it practical? (Score:1)
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Billions of acres of desert land in the west, sounds like an ideal place for solar.
It does sound that way ... until you realize the Southwest deserts, such as the Sonora Desert are NOT mostly empty sand. If you kill off those things, then deserts really will be empty and LOTS of dust storms will bring on new economic challenges.
100 times (Score:5, Interesting)
Under the current policy, there are at least 80 million acres of federal lands open to oil and gas development, which is 100 times the amount of public land available for solar.
Just let that sink in for a moment. That alone should tell us just how little commitment to weaning itself off of fossil fuels the USA has.
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Maybe because cutting out oil/gas before a replacement is in place would be stupid?
Has your country stopped importing oil/gas? No? Cut back on imports? No?
Ok then. The America bashing is hypocritical and boring.
Show us it's done! Lead the way!
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Actually, yes. Let's take Germany as an example. Their coal and gas consumption has been falling. Why hasn't yours?
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Bazz-fazz. Productivity require power, but it doesn't require oil, coal, or gas. The reason we haven't been declining in the use of those is that the government subsidizes them and occasionally requires them. And congress is captured by lobbyists. (The sectarial divisions don't help.)
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True that productivity requires energy from any source not specifically petrochemical products. However, at this time, it is simply the case that there is a lot more petrochemical based energy available than renewable. If we switched 100% to renewable right now the economy would collapse and most of our infrastructure would be dark. There just isn't enough renewable power. This is not a pro/con comment on what we should do but a simple statement of fact. That's why we use so much non-renewable energy s
Re: 100 times (Score:2)
Let's be honest; if Germanys' gas use fell, it was because a certain someone blew up a certain pipeline, and the price of gas rose to ridiculous and unaffordable levels, impacting industry and residents alike. Not because solar and wind replaced it.
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Also, they've passed a law that says all new homes
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My turn at what? I asked if your country has zeroed or significantly cut back on imported gas/oil.
Instead you tell me Spain has electric trains powered by what? Where does the electricity come from?
And home buyers get solar water tanks instead of gas/electric tanks. *eye roll*
If you had a point you failed to make it.
Here are some pesky facts about Spain's oil use rising for a few years in a row.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
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Can you see how using the sun to heat water directly is more efficient than fossil fuels or water heaters & that makes a substantial difference overall? Or that increasing train use (long,
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It does have a huge head start
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A solar field is more like building a warehouse on the acreage it covers. There's a fence around the area, and the public loses access to the land, like this [insideclimatenews.org].
Now, I'm not saying oil is somehow more sustainable than solar. But equ
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"Open" to drilling is pointless if the administration refuses to actually issue leases to permit the drilling:
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a series of executive orders that prioritize climate change across all levels of government and put the U.S. on track to curb planet-warming carbon emissions.
Biden's orders direct the secretary of the Interior Department to halt new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and waters, and begin a thorough review of existing permits for fossil fuel development.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/... [cnbc.com]
Re: 100 times (Score:1)
If you put all solar panels end to end, leaving no gaps that shipped to the US in 2023 youâ(TM)d get to about 12000 acres. Triple the imports to get to 40,000 acres. You MAYBE get to 60,000 acres as you take the entire world supply of solar panels. You are talking 1M acre for the Biden proposal, demand scales exponentially with area, we need 100x more solar panels than currently produced on earth, let alone the 20M acres they opened up.
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You are making an odd argument. First you say that the shade provided by solar panels and the run over water used to clean them will enable plant growth where it wouldn't be possible elsewhere. Then you note that agrivoltaics is not profitable and rarely done. I think that it is rarely done because it is relatively new.
It is possible to grow food in desert areas. But it's expensive and not profitable. A solar installation will change the local ecosystem and that might allow new plant growth. Whether the sol
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No. It's been done since at least the 1800's. It resulted in the dust bowl. But it's not profitable, because the water that would be required is already allocated to another user. (Look up "water wars, US west" You'll have to take off the quotes.)
It's actually worse than historical examples indicate, because the water table has been overused...and in some places it's almost gone.
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Anywhere there is land that the sun shines upon it it's a place we can grow crops.
And the great thing about solar panels is that they provide shade and protect moisture in the soil which, in areas of high sunshine can considerably increase yields from those crops.
since the land would now be a protected wild grassland or something.
You want to look up "solar grazing". Let's just say, this is an excellent problem to have and a grassland doesn't become wild just because it's human created.
Solar power is expensive and damaging to the environment. We'd be much better served with seeking alternatives.
Literally the cheapest electricity out there and it also tends to generate electricity just before peak needs which means that storage can be assured to fill up so it also
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You don't know fuck all about the desert. Watch an episode of Nature. Even the cacti fight each other for shade from the few scraggly trees that grow out there. The shade from a field of solar panels will foster so much life they'll most likely have to start killing it off bi-anually just to keep it from damaging the equipment.
Re: if sunlight land then it is competeing with fo (Score:1)
I suspect that in the 30 or so years that these solar panels will be viable electricity producers that the wildlife will have taken over and it would be difficult to replace the existing solar PV panels since the land would now be a protected wild grassland or something.
It was already protected federal lands, and once solar panels are installed it will still be federally-protected land, just with slowly rotting solar panels rotting on the land...
Re: if sunlight land then it is competeing with f (Score:1)
To fill the total area of 20M acres with panels you would require the next 1000 years worth of global solar panel production at current rates. We only have about 20-30 years worth of commercially viable rare earth metals and silica sand.
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I suspect that in the 30 or so years that these solar panels will be viable electricity producers that the wildlife will have taken over and it would be difficult to replace the existing solar PV panels since the land would now be a protected wild grassland or something.
And I suspect you're off your rocker. Land having plant and animal life on it doesn't equal federal protection of the land. If that were the case all land would be protected (including deserts) and we'd never be able to build anything.
As for solar competing for crop land, these are being built in the desert. Using desert to grow crops is exactly how the Southwest of our country has screwed itself in terms of water. In other words, it's a stupid thing to do in any big way. If this land is to be turned to pro
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If water is a problem then what are the people going to use to keep the solar panels clean? Solar power takes water. If you believe people can operate solar panels without water then perhaps provide some links on how that works since I'm curious on how solar panels can be operated on Earth without water. I know they operate solar panels in space without water but in space there's no sand blowing about to settle on the panels.
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Are you really telling me cleaning solar panels uses as much water as growing crops? If so, cite a source because I wont believe that without one.
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Anywhere there is land that the sun shines upon it it's a place we can grow crops.
Since the sun shines everywhere this is a claim that we can grow crops anywhere. This is clearly not true, only some fraction of the U.S. landmass has all the requirements for successful farming. Currently 17% of the U.S. is devoted to growing crops so that leaves 83% where the sun shines and will not interfere with crops. It would only require 0.5% of the land area of the U.S. built out as solar farms to produce all of the electricity that the U.S. currently produces in a year.
Yeah, the aren't so hard up f
What Biden idiot approved this ??? (Score:1)
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By destroying the land we are saving the environment.
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When did I claim anything about Greenland? You're confusing me with someone else. My take on ice melting is, "I'm not sure how much is really melting and how important it really is and if it's just part of a long term trend of shrink/grow or it's deadly serious or somewhere in between". Does my willingness to examine the data from multiple scientists bother you?
What I do know if we were told decades ago that by now there would be no glaciers on mountains and the North Pole would be entirely water and all
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And?
Maybe I should get a diesel Volkswagen next time. That worked out well.
Why the northern states. (Score:5, Interesting)
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https://twitter.com/WxWyDaryl/... [twitter.com]
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/... [disquscdn.com]
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/... [disquscdn.com]
Harsh weather is not friendly to solar.
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Northern states are not particularly friendly to solar, but ALL of Germany and Great Britain are north of anyplace in the US, and they both make substantial use of solar power.
So... (Score:2)
We can't poke a hole in the ground and extract oil from the ground, but we can cover it with solar panels (or mirrors pointing at tower)? You know, you can remove an oil rig when the well runs dry, but solar farms will require hard scraping the acres under the solar panels (mirrors), altering the federal land.
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Was that a joke? Sorry, but some people are serious about the most peculiar things.
This seems insanely wasteful (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're planning out 20 years you're going to see considerably more benefit to building nuclear plants which consume a tiny fraction of that land and can operate 24/7 without destroying 22 million acres of habitat.
There's also the tiny issue of servicing those panels at such a vast scale - solar isn't "set and forget". Those panels need to be maintained / repaired along with all of its support infrastructure.
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If you're planning out 20 years you're going to see considerably more benefit to building nuclear plants which consume a tiny fraction of that land and can operate 24/7 without destroying 22 million acres of habitat.
There's also the tiny issue of servicing those panels at such a vast scale - solar isn't "set and forget". Those panels need to be maintained / repaired along with all of its support infrastructure.
Are you implying that nuclear is "set and forget"?
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Those panels need to be maintained / repaired along with all of its support infrastructure.
Hurray! We finally have a use for all those dullards who can't write code or act rationally in a society!
Oh wait. Right, we don't care about those people. It costs too much to maintain solar. Let's do something else like burn more coal and oil.
Irony (Score:2)
Ironically, this is more damaging to the actual local environment than opening up land to drilling.
Eco impact study? (Score:2)
Brace yourselves, Russian astroturf incoming! (Score:1)
Anyone else notice the quick 180 from "Oh my God there's never gonna be enough solar in the entire universe aah we're all gonna die if we don't keep burning fossil fuels as fast as fucking possible!" to "Your solar panels are going to literally kill the fucking desert! Aaaaaah save the planet! Crimes against nature! Stop the steal!" ...? I think that one gave me whiplash.
How much is 11,236 megawatts? (Score:2)