President Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia last Thursday as his administration announced the first-ever sale of offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Mexico, which caps several years of advancing offshore wind in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Speaking from the Philly Shipyard — where a company is tapping union workers to build a first-of-its-kind vessel that will be used to build offshore wind farms — Biden touted the jobs and manufacturing associated with offshore wind development. Offshore wind — which stands to receive major tax benefits through last year’s Inflation Reduction Act — is a critical part of Biden’s strategy for creating jobs and slashing greenhouse gas emissions. The president wants to reach 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
Last week, more than 125 climate advocacy groups sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Interior calling on the agency to deploy solar over its 8,000 miles of canals and aqueducts. The agency’s Bureau of Reclamation owns and operates the infrastructure, often in partnership with local irrigation and water districts. Such a move would potentially generate over 25 GW of renewable energy — enough to power nearly 20 million homes — and reduce water evaporation by tens of billions of gallons, according to the letter. To come up with the national numbers, the groups extrapolated from previous research led by the University of California, Merced that analyzed the potential benefits of covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals.
With nearly 100 solar plant applications pending in Nevada, conservationists worry there isn’t an updated management plan specifically guiding utility-scale solar development in the state. There are 96 pending solar plant applications across the state, with 51 in southern Nevada, according to Greg Helseth, renewable energy branch chief at the Nevada state office of the Bureau of Land Management. The federal government has an umbrella plan guiding utility-scale solar development (20 MW or more) in the West. And while agencies in neighboring states have drafted plans to lead the solar rush within their borders, Nevada hasn’t, according to environmental advocates.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will release $20 million in funding for solar waste reduction and lifecycle technologies, including $8 million of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Materials, Operation and Recycling of Photovoltaics (MORE PV) funding vehicle will focus on minimizing the use of the materials required for PV deployments, improve the quality and resilience of PV installations and develop recycling, reuse, and end-of-life practices for the industry.
A solar energy project development company has submitted a conditional use permit application to Butte County, California to install a solar + battery project in the town of Bangor. Renewable Properties of San Francisco submitted the permit at the end of June and is awaiting feedback from the county.
The Salt River Project (SRP) plans to build a new reservoir near Apache Lake to be used for a pumped storage project. The new reservoir would function like an electric battery, releasing water through a hydropower dam and into Apache Lake when electricity is needed for SRP customers in the Phoenix area. SRP would use surplus power on the grid, likely from solar plants, to pump water from Apache Lake about 1,000 feet back up the mountains to refill the 100-200 acre reservoir.
The Department of Energy is proposing to lease never-used land for clean energy production. It has identified 40,000 acres of land potentially available for clean energy projects at the Hanford nuclear reservation site in Eastern Washington, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory, and the Nevada National Security Site. Developments could include solar, wind, nuclear energy, hydroelectric, geothermal, clean hydrogen, and fossil resources that meet clean energy requirements through carbon capture and storage, DOE said on Tuesday.
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