Bureau of Land Management to Produce Environmental Impact Statements for Utility-Scale Solar

By Rod Adams
This article was originally posted on Red, Green, And Blue, part of the Green Options Media Blog Network. Visit Red, Green, and Blue for more environmental politics news.

Solar energy promoters and marketers have been getting spun up in the blogosphere this past weekend based on a couple of stories that ran in the mainstream media on Friday, June 27, 2008. The frenzy of concern has been generated because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), announced, via a press release issued on May 29 and updated on June 12 that it would be producing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to evaluate the “environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with solar energy development on BLM-managed public land in six western States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.”

As described by the press release, the BLM would require about 22 months to produce the necessary studies to complete the PEIS. During that time, the Bureau would seek public comment, focus on the impacts that would result from the development of 125 applications it has in hand already, defer any new applications, and create a framework for approaches that would best allow the Bureau to mitigate the effects of an expected continued flow of applications after that study period.

Many of the solar promoters who are enraged at the idea that the BLM would halt new applications for wealth generating projects on public land in order to study the environmental impact of carpeting approximately one million acres of desert land believe that the decision is a political payoff to fossil fuel producers. Others believe that the land is barren and just lying there waiting to be exploited.

I believe that the BLM is adhering to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which requires all federal agencies to prepare detailed statements for all “major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that approving leases for projects that will cover a million or more acres of land constitutes a “major federal action”. Based on my knowledge of many PEIS efforts, a 22 month schedule means that the effort is being fast tracked and will complete as quickly as possible. That is a very aggressive schedule for a bureaucracy governed by many rules and requiring certain periods of public comment, like the one that will end on July 15, 2008 to provide scoping suggestions.

The public servants at the BLM are working hard to balance the needs of private developers and public interests by preventing another “tragedy of the commons” rush to exploit low cost leases on public lands to build systems that may or may not harm the environment and may or may not provide a reasonable payoff. There are some important facets of development to consider during the study including water usage, herbicides, reclamation (what happens after the system has completed its useful life), endangered species, and the effects on other people who might already be using the land for recreation.

In the arid areas most suitable for solar development, water is a big deal. Solar panels or reflectors need water for regular cleaning in order to maintain maximum efficiency. If the project is a solar thermal system using a steam plant to produce electricity, it will be governed by the same laws of thermodynamics that govern all other steam plants. Rankine cycle steam plants require the use of condensing heat sinks. The amount of water used in those systems is a function of the power produced, the type of cooling system installed and the highest temperature in the system.

Solar collectors and plant life do not play well together. The collectors rob plants of their needed energy source, and plants can interfere with the efficient, reliable operation of the collectors. At many existing large scale projects, there is a regular program of herbicide application to keep the area under the collection free of any growth.

As people who actually get off of the interstate know, deserts are not really flat expanses of lifeless terrain just itching to be covered by solar panels. They are not the “wasteland” that S. David Freeman, a long time hero of the pro-solar and wind crowd, described in his book Winning Our Energy Independence. Deserts are often teeming with life and hundreds of small ecosystems clustered around small and intermittent water sources. Some of the organisms that have evolved in the difficult, unique environments are rare and wonderful creatures that must be preserved - it is the law.

Finally, the BLM is tasked with trying to balance the nation’s desire for clean energy, the promoters’ desire and need to make money from their projects, the interests of the people who already enjoy the desert’s features and beauty, and the interests of future generations that might wonder why people in our generation thought we should burden them with a bunch of obsolete equipment strewn over millions of acres of land without any saved resources to pay for the removal.

The history of the solar energy business is one of booms and busts, many projects have been built in bursts at times of perceived crisis and high fossil fuel prices only to be abandoned after the owners figured out how little income they produced compared to the effort required to maintain them in working order. One beneficial outcome that might come from the BLM solar energy environmental review process is a requirement to put aside a certain portion of the income from the energy projects to ensure that the equipment will be properly decommissioned once the system is no longer needed or functional.

Though often put on the dart board as a fun target, the BLM in this case is apparently working hard to ensure both access to useful energy and protection of the public land that it administers.

Update: (Added on July 6, 2008) The Bureau of Land Management issued a new press release on July 2, 2008 stating that it will continue accepting applications for future potential solar development on public lands. It will review new applications along with the 125 existing applications while it continues the work toward a PEIS.

Related posts

Solar Energy Could Power U.S. Many Times Over
Molten Salt May Be Solution to Solar Energy Storage
Power Towers Store Enough Solar Energy to Run a City
Solar Thermal Electricity: Can it Replace Coal, Gas, and Oil?
Solar Thermal Islands: Cool Concept or Pipe Dream?

Photo: Ausra’s facility in New South Wales, Australia. Courtesy Ausra

Tags: BLM, environmental impact, NEPA, news, Solar and Renewable Energy Policy, utility scale solar