Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: September 16, 2024
Support the landmark new Western Solar Plan!
The Biden-Harris Administration just finalized a new plan speeding solar development on federal lands in the American West, while making sure not to threaten key wildlife habitat.
Thank the U.S. BLM for their painstaking work on the new Western Solar Plan!
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Reasons For Hope
On August 29, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration finalized the new Western Solar Plan, with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management identifying 31 million acres of federal land in the American West that are optimal for solar development, with both high solar potential and low conflict with wildlife habitat. The Plan also prioritizes areas that are close to existing power lines and on previously disturbed lands. The Wilderness Society estimates that if just 700,000 (0.7 million) acres of this area eventually get solar farms, it would displace carbon emissions roughly equivalent to closing 30 coal plants!
It’s important to highlight that a lot of careful work was put into ensuring that solar development could be accelerated without compromising priceless ecosystems, with the BLM consulting tribal nations and 70 government agencies from 11 states. For example, the Plan specifically prohibits solar development in vital wildlife areas like key migration corridors, bird stopover points, and calving grounds. The Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Parks Conservation Association are among the stakeholders strongly supporting the finalized plan. (It’s also worth noting that a recent study has found that the cool shade of solar panels can serve as a growth-enhancing “nursery” for small American desert plants and “biocrust” species like mosses, lichen and cyanobacteria. More research on these interesting synergies would be great!)
In short, the carefully selected solar development areas of the new Western Solar Plan zero in on particular stretches of desert that are ideally suited to produce more clean electrons to help fight climate change without harming local ecosystems!
“The updated Western Solar Plan…will drive responsible solar development to locations with fewer potential conflicts while helping the nation transition to a clean energy economy.”
-BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.
Notably, any future proposed solar projects in these optimal areas will now get an expedited simpler and faster federal permitting process, a continuation of the Biden-Harris Administration’s unprecedented (and ongoing!) attention to clean energy permitting.
"We've been really pushing ourselves to use our executive authority wherever possible to improve the federal permitting process.”
-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian.
This is an excellent step forward to speed up America’s and the world’s transition to clean energy, and likely brings far-reaching benefits for the global fight against climate change! Drop a line to thank the folks at the federal agencies who did the painstaking work to make this plan a reality.
Thank the BLM for their work on the Western Solar Plan!
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