{"id":1459860,"date":"2024-02-28T22:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T03:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1459860"},"modified":"2024-02-28T22:40:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T03:40:00","slug":"rural-america-set-to-be-transformed-by-up-to-55-million-acre-federal-solar-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/rural-america-set-to-be-transformed-by-up-to-55-million-acre-federal-solar-plan\/1459860\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural America Set To Be Transformed By Up To 55 Million-Acre Federal Solar Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rural America Set To Be Transformed By Up To 55 Million-Acre Federal Solar Plan<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

Solar energy\u2019s appetite for vast amounts of land has prompted the Biden administration to propose designating as much as 55 million acres of public lands as potential sites for industrial-scale solar farms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s an area larger than 36 states and similar in size to Idaho or Minnesota.<\/p>\n

An updated initiative<\/a> by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), called the Western Solar Plan, proposes six alternatives for solar development.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the most aggressive of these scenarios, 55 million acres across 11 Western states would be made available for solar energy. The least aggressive alternative would designate 8 million acres for that purpose.<\/p>\n

The BLM\u2019s \u201cpreferred alternative\u201d falls halfway between the two, setting aside 22 million acres for solar development.<\/p>\n

In total, the BLM manages 162 million acres of public land designated as \u201cmulti-use.\u201d These multiple uses include farming, ranching, hunting and fishing, hiking and camping, drilling, and mining\u2014and more recently, wind and solar installations and transmission lines to connect them to the grid.<\/p>\n

The BLM, a division of the Department of the Interior, states that, in order to carry out the Biden administration\u2019s goal of generating 25 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from wind and solar on public lands by 2025\u2014and generating 100 percent \u201crenewable\u201d electricity by 2035\u2014solar panels would need to be sited on 700,000 acres of public land.<\/p>\n

More than 3 million solar panels are required to produce 1 GW of electricity, according to the Department of Energy. One GW can power 500,000 to 750,000 homes on average, assuming a constant supply of energy generation and use.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Interior Department\u2019s work … is crucial to achieving the Biden\u2013Harris administration\u2019s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035,\u201d Laura Daniel-Davis, acting deputy secretary of the Interior, said in a Jan. 17 statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this updated solar roadmap will help us get there in more states and on more lands across the West,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur public lands are playing a critical role in the clean energy transition<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The states targeted for solar development include Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. This initiative is part of a wider effort to satiate the demand for land from solar companies.<\/p>\n

The sheer scope of the BLM plan\u2014designating tens of millions of acres for solar development when the agency says 700,000 acres would suffice to meet Biden administration goals\u2014is a red flag for many communities.<\/p>\n

Dylan Hoyt, the planning program manager in the Utah Public Lands policy coordinating office, calls it \u201cbad optics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I say bad optics, I mean when you tell me that I have 17,000 acres in Utah that\u2019s set aside for solar, and now we\u2019re going to jump to 3.7 or 1.5 million,\u201d he told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat looks terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environmental groups and advocates for wind and solar energy applauded the plan. The Wilderness Society issued a statement<\/a> that \u201cin the face of climate pressure and the injustices of our current fossil fuel-based energy system, a rapid transition to a renewable energy economy is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times published a supportive op-ed<\/a> that stated: \u201cBiden\u2019s Western solar plan sounds scary, but it\u2019s better than climate change.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article mentions Robert Moses, New York\u2019s mid-20th-century unelected Parks and Recreation Commissioner, who was responsible for enormous urban planning projects including parks, bridges, and highways that crisscrossed the state.<\/p>\n

Among Mr. Moses\u2019s more notorious mega-projects were highway systems such as the Cross Bronx Expressway that ran through urban communities and turned once-vibrant neighborhoods into slums.<\/p>\n

A man walks across an overpass above the Cross Bronx Expressway, a notorious stretch of highway that is often choked with traffic and contributes to pollution and poor air quality, in New York City on Nov. 16, 2021. (Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Destroying the Environment to Save It\u2019<\/h2>\n

Some who are on the receiving end of the BLM\u2019s solar plan say that, despite assurances from environmental groups, they remain concerned about the scale of this government development project and the amount of land that it would consume.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say we have to protect the environment, but they\u2019re OK with destroying the environment to save it,\u201d Gabriella Hoffman, policy analyst and host of the \u201cDistrict of Conservation\u201d podcast, told The Epoch Times. \u201cIt makes no sense if you\u2019re a conservationist.\u201d<\/p>\n

A report<\/a> by The Nature Conservancy, published in May 2023, states that reaching the goal of net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 by using wind and solar would require more than 250,000 square miles, or 160 million acres, of land, which is an area about the size of the state of Texas.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some communities that find themselves in the path of the wind and solar industries say this is too high a price to pay for an uncertain benefit. Energy analyst Robert Bryce keeps a database<\/a> of more than 600 local communities that have opposed wind and solar installations across the United States to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea that we can save the environment by carpeting the rural landscape with oceans of solar panels and forests of wind turbines\u2014it boggles the mind how climate activists can justify this,\u201d he told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

To subdue local resistance, some states, most recently Michigan, are writing new laws<\/a> that prevent local communities from blocking wind and solar projects. However, some in the Western states say they still expect significant pushback to the BLM plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely going to impact wildlife,\u201d Mr. Hoyt said. And not only an impact on species that live in the designated solar zones but also on those that migrate through them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely going to be conflicts with ranchers, there could be conflicts with access to public lands depending on where it\u2019s built<\/strong>, and there could be potential conflicts with the mining industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStates didn\u2019t really have a say in the goals in the first place, which I think is disconcerting because the states represent the citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

A solar farm sits next to a housing development in Columbia, Mo., on March 15, 2023. The Biden administration wants the United States to generate 100 percent \u201crenewable\u201d electricity by 2035. (Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

From Multi-Use to Single-Use<\/h2>\n

One of the prime target states for solar development is Nevada, both because of the amount of sunlight it receives and because of its proximity to California and Las Vegas, with their ever-expanding demands for electricity.<\/p>\n

The federal government owns 85 percent of Nevada\u2019s land, most of which is desert, but residents dispute the notion that it is devoid of wildlife and say they are concerned about the sheer scale of BLM\u2019s solar plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNevada is hard-rock mining country,\u201d Andy Rieber, a public lands consultant residing in Nevada, told The Epoch Times, \u201cbut the average footprint in Nevada for mining disturbance is less than 1,000 acres.<\/p>\n

Read more here…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 02\/28\/2024 – 17:40<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bRead More<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rural America Set To Be Transformed By Up To 55 Million-Acre Federal Solar Plan Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Solar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}