In a press release issued June 29, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said that commercial-scale solar development would be ‘fast-tracked’ by designating prime public lands in America’s West and by segregating solar applications from mining claim applications, for example, to speed solar project approvals.
According to Salazar, the proposed plan will rely on environmental and logistical input to identify suitable public lands for such projects, taking into consideration wildlife habitat, natural resources and other land users. It will also attempt to overcome permitting delays by setting up four new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices.
The BLM (an arm of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior) has already investigated two dozen areas in six western states on about 67,000 acres which hold the potential for producing nearly 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity.
These areas, in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, were evaluated for their solar radiation potential, the slope of the land, their proximity to roads and transmission lines or designated rights-of-way for same, and any mixed-use conflicts. All contain a minimum of 2,000 acres of BLM-managed land. None have wilderness designation, sensitive habitat, conflicting use parameters or high-yield conservation values which would preclude their use for solar farms.
Known as Solar Energy Study areas, the 24 tracts would, if selected, be subject to extensive landscape planning and zoning to insure more timely and cost-effective permitting and development, with the single caveat being the production of 10 megawatts of electricity or more per project.
As part of the facilitation process, the BLM will open a new renewable energy coordination office in Nevada, with three more to follow in California, Arizona and Wyoming. The BLM is also beginning environmental reviews for two major Nevada projects that would jointly produce more than 400 megawatts; NextLight Silver State South, and NextLight Silver State North, both under the auspices of San Francisco-based NextLight Renewable Power, owned by private equity firm Energy Capital Partners.
The BLM has about 470 renewable energy applications pending review. These include 158 applications for solar projects on 1.8 million acres capable of producing 97 gigawatts of energy, or enough to power 29 million homes and provide 29 percent of America’s residential electricity use.
By segregating these 158 active solar applications from new mining claims and other applications for use of public land (i.e., logging, grazing and oil/gas exploration), the BLM will have more opportunity to process the solar applications during the two-year exception period. Even allowing time for public comment, the evaluations should be finished by 2010.