US Freezes Solar Projects to Study Environmental Impact of Collecting Sunshine in the Desert

The NY TImes story on this latest absurdity from the Department of Interior plays the headline pretty straight: Citing Need for Assessments, US Freezes Solar Energy Projects. And here are the lead paragraphs:

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.

A bit of editing at the copy desk might have yielded a more telling lede:

The federal government has placed a moratorium on solar energy projects on public land in order to study the environmental impact of collecting sunshine in the desert.

It's another spiteful move by the administration designed to slow down the development of alternative energy projects. Some of the best solar resources in the country fall on public land, and fledgling solar companies were left frustrated and angry.

Yet just last week, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne saw fit to stand next to President Bush in the Rose Garden when he called on Congress to allow development of oil shale on public lands in the Green River Basin which straddles Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The moment is commemorated on the Department of Interior web site in both a photo and a video.

Bush complained that Congress has blocked the leasing of federal lands for oil shale development, even though here's what needs to happen to recover the oil embeded in shale deposits:

Extracting oil from shale involves heating the stone to 900 degrees F. This used to be done after mining hundreds of tons of shale. Now companies are experimenting with heating it in place, creating a horizontal river of boiling oil deep below the ground. A 2005 study by the RAND Corporation estimates it would require a 1200-megawatt power plant just to unlock 100,000 barrels of shale oil a day (less than 1 percent of our total oil demand). Large enough to serve half a million people, the power plant alone would burn 5 million tons of coal each year and release 10 million tons of global warming pollution.

 

Moreover, each barrel of shale oil produced by the conventional mining method consumes between 2.1 and 5.2 barrels of water, a commodity already scarce in the region. Runoff from mine tailings – 150,000 tons a day; 55 million tons a year – would threaten water supplies used by cities, farms, and wildlife.

Compare that to the concerns the US has voiced over proposed solar projects:

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.

Surrounded by roses, the President argued that oil shale development -- which could take decades -- is vital to decreasing today's high gas prices. The deposits, he said, are estimated to contain 800 billion barrels of oil -- three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia -- enough to replace 100 years of oil imports -- if fully recovered, which is not possible.

But compared to the Sun, that ain't nothin', as Bill Becker pointed out here yesterday.

Solar energy is free and omnipresent, it produces no emissions, we have a 5-7 billion year supply and the power is delivered to us in eight minutes. The sun remains the best power plant ever devised.

What's next? Closing down beaches to study the effect of how solar radiation, collected by hundreds of thousands of sunbathers, will impact coastal ecosystems?

Update 7/3/08:

US Dept of Interior Takes Own Advice, Dumps Solar Ban on Public Lands

• ‹ previous
• up
• next ›