Interior Names Solar ‘Hot Spots’ Out West

After more than two years of study and public comment, the Department of Interior on Tuesday identified 17 sites on 285,000 acres of public lands across six Southwestern states as prime spots for development of solar energy. Agency officials said the government would fast-track applications for large-scale solar energy installations at those sites in the hope of speeding construction of thousands of megawatts of renewable, non-polluting electricity generation. The agency identified an additional 19 million acres of public lands in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico as potential venues for solar energy projects that could win rapid federal approval. But officials said they were fencing off more than 78 million acres of public land from solar development because the areas have less solar energy potential, do not have immediate access to transmission lines or pose a threat to important archaeological or cultural sites, endangered species, scarce water resources or other environmental values if developed. On the solar energy front, the Interior Department on Tuesday issued a document known as a final programmatic environmental impact statement covering more than 3,000 pages that spells out the considerations in narrowing the sites for solar development and describes the process for permitting new projects...more