Finding the Path to Green Energy
Posted April 6, 2009 in Moving Beyond Oil, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Until recently I've spent my entire career at NRDC - more than 30 years! - advocating for protection of America's public lands from damaging human activities like coal mining, oil and gas drilling, road building and the like. Yet, for almost two years now, I have been hard at work trying to facilitate development of renewable energy resources and needed transmission lines in the West - which necessarily means on public lands. How come this huge change my friends and colleagues are all asking.
The answers are simple - but I'll admit they took a while for me to see them.
Climate change is the biggest challenge facing our planet today. To address that challenge we must access renewable energy resources as well as do all the other things many of my NRDC colleagues have been advocating for decades - like conserve energy and increase energy efficiency. Many of the nation's best renewable resources are located on public lands and hundreds of applications have been filed with federal land managers to build generation facilities to convert those resources to electricity. To convey that electricity to the people who need it will take new transmission lines or at least upgrades in many cases. All of these activities - just like all other forms of energy development - will have environmental impacts. But the thing to understand and remember is that global warming too has environmental impacts and those impacts are being felt right now in our national parks, our national forests and other federal lands. As with the work on energy development I've done in the past, the key is to make sure that these generation projects and any needed transmission are appropriately sited and operated.
The Western United States holds significant sources of renewable energy - solar, wind and geothermal resources. The nation and these states need to develop this energy to solve both the economic crisis and the climate crisis that we now face. But the West is also home to remarkable wilderness and stunning landscapes, diverse wildlife, fragile ecosystems and irreplaceable cultural resources. Finding sites for new renewable energy projects and electricity transmission lines where development will do the least damage to the West's unique and sensitive resources will be a major challenge, but one that can and must be met.
Right now, federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management are developing policies for siting and operating renewable energy projects and transmission lines on federal lands. In some states, there's been a virtual land rush with literally hundreds of applications for large-scale renewables projects, mostly solar, pending before the BLM, and the first environmental reviews of those projects will soon be made public. California and the Western Governors' Association have each instituted multi-stakeholder processes aimed at facilitating renewables development, while eight western states have laws requiring utilities to generate increased amounts of electricity from renewables. To bring this new power to the people who need it, new transmission lines will be needed. Clearly, all this development - while urgently needed to reduce our reliance on electricity generated by fossil fuel, especially coal - will have significant impacts on the lands involved, whether federal, private or state. Equally clearly, some places are better suited than others for renewable projects and new transmission lines.
To help find the balance of meeting our energy needs while protecting sensitive resources, NRDC today launched a brand new Google Earth interactive mapping tool that provides maps of 13 states in the western United States to help environmental activists, transmission planners, renewable energy generators, regulators and others identify areas where land uses, like energy development, are legally restricted. Other data layers highlight areas that should be avoided in energy development, including habitats critically important to wildlife and lands proposed for inclusion in the federal wilderness system. Users exploring specific geographic areas (such as those proposed for energy development) can easily see how little land is legally off-limits as well as many of the other areas with unique and sensitive resources that deserve special protection. With Matthew McKinzie, NRDC's resident GIS genius who actually created this site, I'm going to be blogging about its many features going forward.
Once these unsuitable places are off the table, the task of identifying where renewable development is appropriate can be taken up. With this information, we can work together to make sure renewables development is carried out in an environmentally responsible manner - on non-sensitive, non-controversial places. Avoiding development on sensitive and controversial lands and appropriate areas will help secure widespread support and prompt approval of projects. Going to non-controversial areas will help ensure that renewable resources are brought on line as quickly as possible.
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Comments
Carol A. Overland — Apr 7 2009 08:14 AM
Do some checking please. THe goal of MISO with their transmission web planned is to "displace natural gas with coal." The midwest lines beging at the mine mouth coal plants. It's for coal. In the Mid-Atlantic, the big web they are building there is from the biggest coal plant in the country through four transmission corridors (google "Project Mountaineer") towards New York. The good news is that NYISO and ISO-NE have withdrawn from promotion of the Midwest to the East lines saying they have their own renewables, that it may not be the most economical way to get power around, and that, by the way, we know that your transmission plans include a LOT of NEW coal (as if the bad wasn't enough). Search www.legalectric.org for "NYISO" or for "JCSP" to learn about NY opposition and midwest transmission plans. I represent clients fightihg the first wave of midwest transmission, CapX 2020 (see www.nocapx2020.info), and the evidentiary hearing record is clear -- it's NOT for wind. Also, you're obviously not even thinking of line loss -- please do, as the inefficiency and absurdity of transmission over long distances eliminates it from consideration. Please do some homework on transmission before you advocate for it.
Carol A. Overland
Attorney at Law
Representing clients fighting transmission lines
Randy Reynolds — Apr 7 2009 09:47 AM
In your efforts, please remember that we do need to "keep the lights on" and also, more importantly, keep people from freezing and/or heat exhaustion. I have no problem w/ tree huggers, but let's practice a litle prudence and try not to over react, as we most generally do!
Peter Black — Apr 7 2009 12:22 PM
Johanna and Matthew:
Nice work on the maps! I'm EDF's GIS geek...perhaps we should partner up to add more form and functionality to this information. Two things need to be done in my mind:
- refine the no fly zones for threatened or endangered species. Your data has scale issues since much of it was never intended for 1:24k level decision-making.
- integrate renewable energy spatial data and perform the "clip" upon the no fly zones. That will show us, the audience, what areas are the low hanging fruit of renewable energy development and should be fast tracked.
Drop me a line if you're interested in collaboration.
Peter
Kristi Celico — Apr 7 2009 03:54 PM
Johanna:
Have you all engaged local NGOs in this process? If not, are you concerned about furthering the divide between national and local groups?
Richard Spotts — Apr 8 2009 06:19 PM
Johanna:
I generally support and applaud your comments. However, I am concerned that Secretary Salazar and BLM may set a dangerous precedent with their handling thus far of the "Catellus" lands issue. As you know, Senator Dianne Feinstein is working to uphold BLM's previous commitment to protect these former railroad lands that were acquired for BLM with a combination of $58,000,000 of conservation dollars, including from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). One purpose of these acquisitions was to improve management for important Mojave desert tortoise habitats. This is an ESA threatened species. If some of these lands are now developed, will LWCF and other conservation funders be reimbursed? And could this violation of trust undermine the prospects for future federal cooperative conservation campaigns? Please keep these important questions in mind as you continue your commendable work. Thanks!