Kelly’s Recent Comments

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  Correction to title in earlier post

  "There are at LEAST three silver linings"

  Sigh.On Feds freeze new solar projects on public land, pending review posted 1 year, 4 months ago 26 Responses

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  There are at three silver linings to this delay

  First, it will give the scientists who are measuring the rate at which deserts absorb carbon dioxide more time to complete their studies. In May 2008, Desert Research Institute in Nevada reported results from a study in the Mojave Desert of the southwestern U.S. They found that "The annual removal of the greenhouse gas [carbon dioxide] from the atmosphere was upwards of 100 grams of carbon per square metre, on a par with some temperate forests."

  http://news.dri.edu/nr2008/Mojave_051208.php

  According to the DRI press release, they are conducting more research this summer to see how much carbon dioxide is being removed by the biotic crust that forms on desert soils. That crust is fragile stuff which can take hundreds of years to form. If it is removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in significant quantities, this has huge potential implications for how the desert should be treated, not just in regard to building renewable energy facilities, but also as to whether off-road vehicles should be allowed to drive cross-country (not on trails) across desert lands that are publicly owned.

  Second, it will give the California Energy Commission a chance to get ready for the wave of applications headed its way. In California, central-station solar energy generating facilities over a certain size (50 MW?) have to be permitted by the California Energy Commission (CEC) even if the project is on U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. When I've talked to some CEC representatives in the past, they have expressed concern about having enough staff to process all the large-scale solar applications that they expect to land on their doorstep. According to some BLM staff I've talked to, funding will be an issue at the CEC because the CEC does not recover costs of the environmental review from the applicant, while BLM does. In other words, if what I was told is accurate, the costs of the environmental review will be borne by the CEC (as funded by CA taxpayers), and if they don't have enough in their current budgets for all the review, well, then things get pretty interesting. It's true that the CEC does have an application fee, but the BLM staff I've talked to didn't think that was adequate to cover the costs of processing the application, especially the necessary environmental review.

  It should also be remenbered that there have already been a LOT of renewable energy applications submitted to the BLM in the western U.S. even before the delay. Here's a link that shows the solar, wind, and geothermal leases and applications for just ONE BLM district in California, the California Desert District, which is also designated as a National Conservation Area.

  http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ca/pdf/cdd/ene ...

  Unfortunately, the map at the link doesn't overlay with designated critical habitat for endangered species, and it should. That is an issue that will likely come up in the programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) that the BLM is preparing for solar. Should large-scale solar facilities be allowed in designated critical habitat for endangered species, remembering that critical habitat has been identified as that necessary for the species to recover and be delisted as endangered? (I'm simplifying a little, but you can easily Google critical habitat to find its exact legal definition.)

  The third silver lining is that this PEIS will help to standardize BLM procedures. Right now, each BLM office is doing things differently because they don't have much written guidance. I have been told that insiders such as a former high-level Department of the Interior official have been hired as consultants by companies wanting to build giant desert solar facilities on BLM land. These insider consultants are applying political pressure to attempt to get special treatment for their clients that other renewable energy companies don't get. Having a PEIS will better level the playing field among the companies. I personally support a level playing field because many of the renewable energy developers these days are from the fossil-fuel industry. It's too soon to know how many of them are serious about building renewables and how many are just speculators.On Feds freeze new solar projects on public land, pending review posted 1 year, 4 months ago 26 Responses

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  Beware of greenwashing

  The San Diego environmental community has worked very hard to expose this transmission line project for the greenwashing sham it is. You can read a lot about it at the San Diego Sierra Club's Smart Energy Solutions website: http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/index.shtml.

  Environmental, environmental justice, and consumer advocate groups opposing this transmission line project include:
  Anza-Borrego Foundation
  Border Power Plant Working Group
  California Native Plant Society
  California State Parks Foundation
  California Wilderness Coalition
  Center for Biological Diversity
  Desert Protective Council, Inc.
  Environment California
  Environmental Health Coalition
  Friends of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
  Pacific Environment
  Ratepayers for Affordable, Clean Energy
  San Diego Audubon Society
  San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society
  Sierra Club, San Diego Chapter
  Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Chapter
  Utility Consumers' Action Network
  Wilderness Society

  Much better clean energy solutions can be found in the San Diego Smart Energy 2020 report: http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/smart.shtml.On Huge Calif. solar plant would run transmission lines through state park posted 1 year, 4 months ago 39 Responses

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  We sure could use distributed generation over here

  The centralized power station idea is going to cause a great deal of mischief in the California desert. That's because in the last few years, there's been a boom in proposals for renewable energy projects on public land in the California Desert Conservation Area. It's renewable energy, so it's great, right?

  But the projects require lots of land, sometimes 7,000-9,000 acres each. The CDCA is a National Conservation Area, and significant portions of it are also designated critical habitat for endangered species. So the state faces the ugly spectre of environmentalists fighting each other over whether those projects should be permitted. Kinda like Sophie's Choice: shall we save the polar bear or the desert tortoise?

  Smaller, more scattered projects, coupled with more self-generation in the cities, would be easier on desert wildlife and the human communities that live in the desert. Unfortunately, the utility company buyers appear to be fixated on the large central station model.On Distributed power could have saved us some serious pain over there posted 2 years, 3 months ago 3 Responses

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  Not the guys I'd like to see the money go to

  I'd be a lot more excited about this if the renewable energy part of it would help communities own their own energy projects rather than giant corporations. GE and AES don't need any help getting capital for their renewable energy projects, but communities sure do.On Mock, yes, but then take a closer look posted 2 years, 3 months ago 7 Responses