A federal moratorium on accepting new applications for solar energy projects on areas managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has sparked some controversy, it seems.
Those concerns have emerged as the BLM recently embarked on a series of public meetings on its actions, which include developing a new environmental impact statement with the U.S. Department of Energy to assess the effects of the developments, as Climate Law Update recently reported. The government previously had in hand about 125 applications for solar projects covering approximately a million acres of land in the West.
During the approximately 22-month process of developing the environmental document, the BLM said it wouldn't accept new applications for solar projects. That has upset some in the industry, according to reports that have begun emerging as the public meetings, which will help determine the scope of the environmental project, begin. Among the critics were representatives of Ausra, a California company that builds solar thermal facilities, and Acciona Energy, which operates a Nevada solar thermal plant.
Said Ausra's Sean Kiernan, according to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
"Freezing the industry will effectively stunt the industry and effectively destroy the industry before it gets off the ground."
No less a political heavyweight than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has also balked at the government's hiatus. In a statement last week, as officials were holding one of the meetings in Las Vegas, Reid accused the BLM of sending "the wrong signal to solar power developers" and placing a "misplaced higher priority" on fossil fuels. He added he would look into the matter "to determine what can be done to accelerate solar power development without delay."
The Las Vegas Sun also carried a story citing a chorus of boos by solar companies, and noted that Nevada could be particularly affected by the government's actions because the BLM controls 67 percent of the state's land. The paper also reported that federal officials might have neglected to notify Reid of the moratorium.
A BLM official who is working on the program could not be reached for comment Monday. The agency has in the past described the project as a necessary first step in evaluating to what extent public lands can be used for renewal be energy projects. BLM officials recently expanded the agency's meeting schedule, in part to include more sessions in California, and they extended the deadline for comments by July 15. Officials have established a special web site devoted to the the process.
Of course, as Climate Law Update has noted in the past, some elements of solar and other renewable energy projects have created what could at least be characterized as ambivalence among conservationists and environmentalists. Some of that has come through in accounts of the meetings so far.
For instance, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that environmentalists asked government officials to make sure that they protect the plants, animals and wilderness areas that occupy the lands. The Review-Journal noted concerns about the amount of water used by solar thermal projects, as well as the large tracts of land required, as well as worries that developers might clear large areas and then abandon their projects.
Meanwhile, the moratorium did not appear to be the chief worry of the country's chief solar power booster, the Solar Energy Industries Association. Spokeswoman Monique Hanis told Climate Law Update Monday that the trade group was glad the government was looking at the issue. But for her organization, she said, the "bigger concern" is the future of the investment tax credit, a 30 percent break for solar property that has been caught up in a larger impasse in Congress over tax incentives for wind, solar and other renewable energy projects.
Hanis said about 4,500 megawatts' worth of solar projects are already in the pipeline -- ahead of any that might be affected by the application moratorium. All, she said, could be affected:
"Even the ones that are already into the permitting stages won't get built because of the financials."
All of this is happening at a time when there's evidence that solar could soon reach a point where it's competitive in cost with traditional sources of electricity, and is poised to become a much bigger player in the nation's energy game.
(Photo of Nevada solar project, U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Credit: Geri Kodey)
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