[CPEO-BIF] "Renewable Energy on Disturbed Lands"

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Brown to Green
Renewable Energy on Disturbed Lands

Reusing worn-out farmland for renewable energy generation is one aspect 
of a growing movement to build wind, solar and other renewable projects 
on lands that are already disturbed or have been polluted, like this 
farm in Illinois.

By Tom Kenworthy
Center for American Progress
December 9, 2010


Even at a time when plans for utility-scale solar electricity projects 
covering thousands of acres and producing nearly as much power as 
nuclear plants are becoming almost commonplace, the proposed Westlands 
Solar Park in California's Central Valley is eye-popping big.

If Westlands is built at the scale its backers envision, it would cover 
30,000 acres - nearly 47 square miles - with solar photovoltaic panels, 
or PV panels, and generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for 
about 1.5 million homes. Its size will mean both demand certainties for 
solar component manufacturers and greater cost efficiencies, predicts 
Daniel Kim, a principal with Westside Holdings, the firm planning the 
project. "No one has come up with a reason this is not doable," he says.

...

The Environmental Protection Agency, which has a program called 
Re-powering America's Land, sees a huge potential in converting 
contaminated areas that run the gamut from small inner-city properties 
that could house a few solar panels, to sprawling Superfund sites that 
could be used for utility-scale solar or wind to reclaimed industrial 
sites for manufacturing wind and solar energy components.

...

For the entire report, see
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/12/brown_to_green.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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