Skip to main content
Donate

Where to Put that Solar Energy Plant? EPA's Upgraded Map Will Help

By Chris Clarke
August 5, 2013
Support Provided By
Screen shot 2013-08-05 at 2.40.12 PM-thumb-600x340-57056
Places for utility-scale photovoltaic solar in Southern California, according to EPA | Image: Google Earth screenshot of EPA RE-Powering America's Land database

One of the most promising tools the federal government has ever created for finding good spots for renewable energy development just got an upgrade. The Environmental Protection Agency's RE-Powering America's Land initiative, begun in 2008, announced today that it has nearly triples its inventory of abused land that could be suitable for renewable energy development. The tool offers a way to move the U.S. off fossil fuel energy without the environmental loss that goes along with putting renewable energy facilities on intact habitat.

The tool, publicly available as a series of downloadable layers for the free mapping tool Google Earth, now includes 66,000 heavily damaged sites suitable for solar, wind, biomass, or geothermal development. Sites included in the mapping tool include contaminated "brownfields," landfills, old mines, and other sites where the wildlife habitat value is potentially far less than the intact wildlands and agricultural lands that have made up the bulk of utility-scale renewable development in California.

Just as an example, the updated tool now includes more than 10,000 sites capable of becoming home to large solar panel arrays of 300 megawatts or more in size. That works out to three terawatts of power generating capacity, three times the U.S.'s total electrical generating capacity in 2011.

Though the tool has been significantly upgraded this week, it's been available in its more limited iteration for the last few years, which caused some activists to question why the Interior Department didn't take the EPA's database into account when drafting its plan for solar development on public lands.

"We see responsible renewable energy development on contaminated lands and landfills as a win-win-win for the nation, local communities, and the environment," said Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response in a press release Monday. "In President Obama's Climate Action Plan, the administration set a goal to double renewable electricity generation by 2020. By identifying the renewable energy potential of contaminated sites across the country, these screening results are a good step toward meeting national renewable energy goals in order to address climate change, while also cleaning up and revitalizing contaminated lands in our communities."

Support Provided By
Read More
An oil pump painted white with red accents stands mid-pump on a dirt road under a blue, cloudy sky with a green, grassy slope in the background.

California’s First Carbon Capture Project: Vital Climate Tool or License to Pollute?

California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon involves California Resources Corp. collecting emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change. But some argue polluting industries need to cease altogether.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News