| High renewable energy potential
in West
February 21, 2003 By Hil Anderson, UPI Chief Energy Correspondent From the National Desk United Press International 1510 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20005 USA 202-898-8000 Fax: 202-898-8057 Los Angeles, California (UPI) - The Bush administration, which has been frequently criticized for its perceived lack of support for renewable energy development, Friday released an extensive estimate of the potential for renewable energy projects on millions of acres of federal lands in the West. The report compiled by the Departments of Energy and Interior will give land-use planners a better means of determining which areas might offer the best returns on investments in renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal power. "Our public land managers will be able to use this information as a tool for planning purposes as we work to increase our domestic sources of renewable energy," Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson told a news conference in Colorado. "Currently, renewable energy, including hydropower accounts for only 9 percent of our nation's energy, but is the fastest growing segment of our energy supply," Watson said. "As the report demonstrates, public lands have abundant opportunities for renewable energy development." Factors such as weather and terrain were taken into account in the survey -- as were the proximity of the BLM lands to roads and towns that would be utilized by project employees -- and the availability of transmission lines to carry the environmentally-friendly power to market. The survey found 63 Bureau of Land Management planning units in 11 western states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, had high potential for power production from one or more renewable energy sources. Another 20 BLM units had high potential for power production from three or more renewable energy sources. Nevada had five such BLM areas, while California had four. The area around Las Cruces, New Mexico, distinguished itself by showing a high degree of promise for five types of renewable energy -- wind, biomass, geothermal and both photovoltaic and concentrated solar power. The BLM manages some 262 million acres in a dozen western states. Virtually all of the lands had the potential for some type of renewable energy production. Most of the promise appeared concentrated in the Southwest, where frequent sunny days, steady winds and geothermal resources were found. There were also regions that had the potential to be sources of both renewable energy and nonrenewable sources such as coal and petroleum. Those areas included southwest Wyoming and the Powder River Basin of Montana, which are noted for coal and gas, but also have a high potential for wind energy. In addition, California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico were deemed by the study to have "highly favorable" regulatory climates for renewable energy while other states were less aggressive in promoting such projects. State policies were not, however, a major factor in determining the renewable energy potential of a particular BLM area. "Because the energy policy environment in each state will evolve over time, current state-level incentives should not be the primary driver of BLM's land-use priorities," the report said. The study was issued at a time when the Bush administration has been under fire for supposedly selling renewable power's potential short and opting instead to rely heavily on oil and natural gas to meet the nation's future energy needs. "We are disappointed that the Bush administration cut funds for homegrown, clean energy sources," Alan Nogee of the Union of Concerned Scientists said earlier this month in a critique of the president's 2004 budget proposal. "These budget cuts hurt renewable energy sources like wind and geothermal power just as they are ready to take off." Renewable energy has been seen as a means of supplying virtually unlimited electricity to remote rural locations and potentially contributing a portion of the power transmitted to urban areas that is currently generated from coal, natural gas and nuclear. The Bush budget plan reduced spending on geothermal technology research by 3.8 percent and wind power development by 5.5 percent. Funding was also slashed for grants to ranchers and farmers who want to set up renewable energy projects on their lands. At the same time, analysts have determined that the nation has plenty of conventional generating capacity, which puts new renewable power projects at an economic disadvantage. A report released this week by the San Francisco consulting firm CleanEdge said that while green energy sources were indeed having greater difficulty finding the resources to expand, the consumer market was slowly growing and had captured a 2.3 percent share of the nation's venture capital market as compared to 0.7 percent in 2000. "Market indicators demonstrate that many clean-energy technologies are on the rise," the report said. "A confluence of forces is making clean energy one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak economy." Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030221-040652-1194r Related: DOI and DOE announce availability of new report that evaluates renewable energy resources on public lands February 21, 2003 Department of Interior news release The report studied resources on BLM, Tribal and Forest Service lands. "Our public land managers will be able to use this information as a tool for planning purposes as we work to increase our domestic sources of renewable energy," said Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson. "By working in partnership with DOE to locate and identify sources of renewable energy on public lands, we maximize our efforts in implementing the president's National Energy Policy." |