Solar ban lifted

Announcement to rescind solar energy moratorium made in Albuquerque.

An artist's rendering of a field of dish-Stirling engine systems, part of a proposed solar dish farm, posted on Sandia National Laboratories Web site.

By Denise Tessier 07/03/2008

ALBUQUERQUE -- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's freeze on commercial solar lease permits was lamented several times during a rare U.S. Senate hearing in Albuquerque Wednesday, but by the end of the morning session word was out that the barrier had been lifted.

Democrat Jeff Bingaman, Republican Pete Domenici and Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the three senators at the hearing, lauded the BLM's decision, the news of which came about an hour and a half into the hearing.

Sanders, who brought up a "note of concern" about the BLM freeze early in the meeting during his introductory remarks, saying, "I will do everything I can to rescind that edict," reportedly had expressed his concern about the freeze to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., while touring Reid's home state the day before the Albuquerque hearing.

In Albuquerque, Sanders said the BLM had 150 applications "and to the best of my knowledge, not one application has been accepted." Part of the problem, he said, was that "two people" were charged with processing them all. "Here we are trying to solve global warming," Sanders said, hampered by a "bottleneck" due to a shortage of personnel.

BLM's vast holdings in the West are particularly crucial to concentrating solar power, or CSP, which was the focus of the Senate hearing, because these commercial solar power utilities require vast acreage -- about 6 acres per megawatt, or 5 square miles of land for a 500-megawatt plant, according to Charles E. Andraka of Sandia National Laboratories' technical staff, who was a hearing witness.

Before learning of the BLM's reversal, Domenici said Congress needs to give the BLM "some policy advice" on dealing with solar lease applications. "We've got to find out how we can help."

Frederick H. Morse, U.S. operations senior adviser for Abengoa Solar, Inc., a Spanish firm poised to produce a CSP plant in Arizona, said that the reality is that three types of applications will find their way to the BLM: "real projects" with signed contracts and operating dates, "maybe" proposals, which can be a problem "because you can fill up the queue with that" and "speculators" who will be guessing that the land will be lucrative for solar energy development down the road, which he said "is like grazing land without a cow."

Bingaman is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, while Domenici (a former chairman) is senior Republican on the committee. Bingaman said the hearing was held at Sanders' request.

Sanders plans to introduce on July 7 the 10 Million Solar Roofs Act, which would require the Secretary of Energy to set up a program to provide rebates to individuals, businesses, and government buildings to spur the installation of solar panels on roofs.

Craig O'Hare, special assistant on renewable energy to state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prokup, also enthusiastically greeted the news Wednesday.

O'Hare said in an e-mail:

It's great news that the BLM has reversed itself and will continue to accept solar project submittals on BLM land. The moratorium could have "slammed the door shut" on a host of utility-scale solar projects in the southwest just as solar projects and their viability were gaining some momentum.

The public and solar industry outcry against the moratorium was obviously loud and clear: delaying solar projects already in the pipeline would set the U.S. back a number of years and would be wholly inconsistent with the increasingly urgent call for domestic energy security.