5 replies to this topic

[Nvyseal]

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.

Read more @ NY Times

[brewin]

More fuel for the Big Oil conspiracy theorists. (pun intended)

[m.oreilly]

brewin, on Jun 30 2008, 03:14 PM, said:

More fuel for the Big Oil conspiracy theorists. (pun intended)

hey, if it's true...

[BlueScreenOfDeath]

Sad that we have all these possibilties for alternative energy and we dont even want to use it...all we can think about is oil

[brewin]

m.oreilly, on Jun 30 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

hey, if it's true...

I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

[Tweak]

Same thought I had, the oil companys are the one truly behind it in some way, wouldn't suprise me at all.