The timing no doubt was coincidence, but while Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was celebrating the country's largest solar project in California, two U.S. senators were introducing legislation to protect desert landscapes in the state.
The irony wasn't lost on the National Parks Conservation Association, which has questioned the location of the solar farm.
“There is a lot of celebrating today in the California desert. Senator Feinstein released the California Desert Conservation and Recreation Act and Sally Jewell flipped the on-switch at Desert Sunlight Solar plant. The confluence of these events highlights the important work that remains to be done in the California desert," said David Lamfrom, NPCA's California Desert associate director. "That includes permanently protecting some of the most beautiful and vibrant lands in America and the continued need to do a better job of siting renewable energy away from species-rich lands. Considering how important our national parks and protected lands are to our desert economy, finding this balance now is fundamental.”
Earlier Monday, the Interior secretary and the director of the Bureau of Land Management Neil Kornze joined California state and industry leaders to “flip the switch” on the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. Now operating at full capacity, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is providing 550 megawatts of electricity to the grid, enough energy to power 160,000 average homes. The facility is estimated to displace 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year – the equivalent to taking 60,000 cars off the road.
“Solar projects like Desert Sunlight are helping to create American jobs, develop domestic renewable energy and cut carbon pollution,” said Secretary Jewell. “I applaud the project proponents for their vision and entrepreneurial spirit to build this solar project and commend Governor Brown for implementing policies that take action on climate change and help move our nation toward a renewable energy future.”
Desert Sunlight is the sixth solar project approved on public lands that is now operational. Together with wind, solar and geothermal, the renewable energy projects built on public lands since 2009 are producing over 2,200 megawatts of power, or enough to power almost 700,000 average homes. An additional 2,500 megawatts is currently under construction, including eight solar projects in California and Nevada.
Desert Sunlight is located on about 4,100 acres managed by the BLM in Riverside County, about 70 miles east of Palm Springs and six miles north of the rural community of Desert Center. The facility uses more than eight million First Solar photovoltaic modules to generate power with no air emissions, no waste production and no water use. The thin film technology has the smallest carbon footprint of any photovoltaic technology. The renewable energy is sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Edison under long-term contracts.
As part of the Interior Department’s commitment to responsible development of renewable energy, the Desert Sunlight project underwent extensive environmental review and mitigation. The BLM worked in close coordination with Desert Sunlight, the National Park Service and other stakeholders to significantly reduce the proposed project’s total footprint down from the proposed 19,000 acres. The BLM is requiring that Desert Sunlight provide funding for acquisition and enhancement of more than 7,500 acres of suitable habitat for desert tortoise and other sensitive wildlife species to help mitigate the project’s potential impacts.
Also on Monday, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both California Democrats, introduced legislation that would expand by 75,000 acres the Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks.
“This piece of legislation is the final chapter in a long effort to preserve one of the most magnificent landscapes in the United States,” Sen. Feinstein said. “We must ensure that critical parts of the California desert—with its mountain vistas, bighorn sheep, mule deer, desert tortoises, Joshua trees, Native American petroglyphs and much more—will be protected for all time.”
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Apple to spend $850M on solar energy from new solar farm in California
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-spend-850m-solar-energy-211547120.ht...
Apple continues to aggressively adopt solar to power its data centers. On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company plans to spend $850 million to purchase energy from a solar panel farm that is being built by First Solar in Monterey, California.
The companies called the deal the largest ever to supply clean power to a commercial user.
I got rooftop solar (living in CA with a southern roof exposure, no brainer). The bulk (over 90%) of rooftop solar installations do not have a battery back up. The utility is your backup battery when the sun goes down. Currently, CA allows new installations to be net metered (e.g. your production offsets your production $ for $), althought that's not the case in all states.
The future of solar installations is cheap battery storage. So far, nobody has figured it out, but plenty of people are working on it.
GOOGLE:
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-build-850m-solar-energy-20475355...
Apple (AAPL) will partner with First Solar (FSLR) to build an $850 million solar energy farm in California, CEO Tim Cook said on Tuesday.
First Solar shares spiked on the news and closed the day about 5 percent higher, while Apple ended about 2 percent higher. Apple's value rose to $710.70 billion as it became the first U.S. company to close with a market cap above $700 billion. The tech giant had touched the $700 billion level before but never managed to settle there.
Cook touched on the solar project and a wide range of company developments-including Apple Pay, the Apple Watch and the company's partnership with IBM (IBM)-at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.
I failed to mention this morning that America is in great danger of losing out to countries like China, Taiwan, India and others where their governments are investing in assistance to businesses that are on the leading edge of research and development in new and improved solar generation.
But in America, our Congress and state legislatures -- the entities that hold the keys to our success or failure -- are doing all they can to drag their feet. Why?
Why would the state of Utah try to charge people who install solar or wind power on their homes a premium fee? Two reasons that are really just one in the end. Rocky Mountain Power and our lawmakers have pretty well bought in to a plot spawned by ALEC (which is funded by the likes of Koch Industries) that tries to convince people that power customers without home generation capabilities are being subsidized by other who don't. The bottom line, however, is the Koch push to protect their coal and oil assets.
Why would the U.S. Congress oppose this? Could it be that their primary goal has been, still is, and will be to simply stymie anything that might be supported by the current administration or the opposing party?
What is the price of all that? How many business opportunities are being ignored and how many American jobs will be lost?
Is common sense dead in America? Trampled by greed?
Great post again Lee, unfortunately with the culmination of the Roberts Supreme Court and specifically its Citizens United decision (there are many others they have made to turn the clock back), we are headed to a corporate oligarchy. Our democratic system is up for sale, this is the most reactionary court since the 1920s. I agree with you.
Hold the keys to our success? If anything, they possess the locks.
And how exactly do they do that. In every case I have seen, governments are subsidizing these uneconomic investments. What "premium fee" are you referencing. Or is this just another of your imaginary strawmen?
Why Lee? You know the answer - because they are bought and paid for.
Yes, Rick, I'm afraid I do. And they have locked too many ordinary Americans out of the possibility of success. Happily, it looks as though legislation that would enable Rocky Mountain Power to charge a premium to people who install alternate electric generation will fail in the current session of our loonislature. Hopefully.
It's also a little more than ironic that Rocky Mountain Power has for years had what they call "The Blue Sky Program" that encourages customers like me to contribute extra dollars on our power payments to help pay for their efforts to build wind farms and solar sites.