Comments on: “Smart from the Start” — Government Establishes Arizona Solar Energy Zones

By: San Diego Loves Green – Federal Budget Sequestration To Suck Wind from Clean Energy’s Sails

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:34:52 +0000

[…] through on the Obama Administration’s “Smart from the Start” development strategy, Interior and other federal agencies have worked with state counterparts, […]

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:39:00 +0000

Well said.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 22:00:00 +0000

At this point in time large scale arrays are cost efficient enough to be usable. That means that we need some relatively tiny places where it is really sunny and that are close to existing transmission lines in order to get affordable solar on the grid.

I don’t think we’ll see much large scale solar in the long term. Because rooftop solar costs compete with retail rather than wholesale costs and have little to no real estate permitting or transmission costs we’re likely to see our solar go on rooftops and over parking lots.

“Opening 19 million acres of ecologically valuable public wildlands to industrial solar development” is a distortion of facts. The 19 million acres are the less-valuable parts of the total public wildlands.

Interior looked public lands and said “These are the most important for ecological, attractiveness, whatever reasons – we will not permit projects on these lands. These other public lands, the “19 million”, are places where we would not likely object placement of a project.”

Some people throw the 19 million number around as if all that space would be used. That’s ridiculous. It’s dishonest.

The Federal Government owns nearly 650 million acres of land. 19 million is 3% of that total. And I’d be very surprised if even 500,000 acres are used. That’s 0.08% of all federal land.

If you want to protect the environment, as many of us do, then be careful to be truthful and precise. Those who oppose renewable energy will seize on any slip that gives them something to use to attack renewables.

I would not be surprised at all if there weren’t fossil-fuel funded individuals posing as environmentalists and raging about the “19 million spoiled acres” right now.

Concern trolls.

By: science guru

science guru — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 21:06:00 +0000

Ecopolitidae,
You are exactly right, there is no reason to do this when we have plenty of already built human development. The problem is that the utilities don’t want any solar energy that they don’t control and then charge overpriced billing for it. The real issue is getting the government to address the obstructions the utilities invent every day and the crafty financial twisting they do with the monies they collect from rate-payers to fund their utility scale projects. Take a look at their financial dockets on file with the utility regulation entities and you will see they are cooking the books. Here in Arizona, we now have the regulators in bed with the utilities.

By: Antigua Farms

Antigua Farms — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:35:00 +0000

Also, in Arizona (as with elsewhere) public lands are used for cattle grazing, which absolutely destroys these areas. Over-grazing is arguably the largest destructive force in Arizona. I have walked over thousands of acres in southern Arizona and I can tell you that many of these areas resemble images sent back to us from the Mars Rover. Deflated soils from loss of ground cover leaving zero vegetation. Putting solar panels on these exhausted lands would allow them to recover somewhat.

By: Antigua Farms

Antigua Farms — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:31:00 +0000

This is just public lands. The world’s largest solar power plant is located on private lands about ten miles north of Dateland, Arizona, and around 30 miles west of Yuma, Arizona. This land had been used to grow produce for decades, and it was anything but ecologically valuable. It was plowed, lazer-levelled, and ringed by access roads long before the Agua Caliente Solar Power plant project broke ground. Also, most of my neighbors can’t even get it together to keep their yards clean, so to expect each individual home owner to invest time and money into putting solar panels on their roof is simply a lost cause. Yes, it WOULD be the right idea, but I will not hold my breath. Until then, utility-scale renewable power plants are the way to go. (disclaimer: I put solar panels on my home two years ago and am quite happy with them.)

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:55:00 +0000

How about helping us out with some perspective.

Three questions:

1) How many total ecologically valuable public wildlands acres are there? I.e., help us calculate the proportion opened for use.

2) How many acres out of that 19 million are likely to be used for large scale solar?

3) How many acres of ecologically valuable public wildlands, agricultural lands and other use lands worldwide would be destroyed by runaway climate change?

By: Ecopolitidae

Ecopolitidae — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:47:00 +0000

Opening 19 million acres of ecologically valuable public wildlands to industrial solar development is anything but smart from the start. Distributed, point of use solar generation is faster, more cost-effective, efficient and equitable. We should target the VAST built environment already devoted to meeting human needs first. Read the Solar Done Right report “US Public Lands Solar Policy: Wrong From The Start” here: http://solardoneright.org/index.php/news/post/new_report_blasts_administrations_public_lands_solar_policy/