Tag Archives: land
California Throwdown: Solar vs. Farmland
Solar developers are swallowing up thousands of acres of productive California farmland to build utility-scale solar installations. That could be a big problem for California’s agriculture industry if the development is not more carefully monitored, said Ed Thompson with the American Farmland Trust. There are currently 40,000 acres of California farmland in development or slated [...]
WOW: 1% of Land Covered With Solar Could Power The World
Solar PV can meet 100% of electricity demand on just 1% of land by 2050, says the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In 2010, they produced a report showing that a combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy can supply the world’s energy by 2050. But how much land would that take to make that huge jump feasible? And how would [...]
Will California Reach It’s Renewable Energy Goals?
California has the most ambitious renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in the nation, requiring that 33 percent of the state’s energy mix come from renewables by 2020. There are 29 states (and the District of Columbia) with RPS goals in effect, but the average amount of renewable energy required in those states is much less than [...]
The Philippines Passes Renewable Energy FiT
In a historic day for renewable energy in The Philippines, the country approved a feed-in tariff (FiT) that convers small hydro, biomass, wind, and solar. It postponed including ocean energy for further study. The government previously announced the FiT for geothermal separately, in what it calls a “geothermal crash program.” It raised the rates to provide incentives to [...]
UK Farms Loving Solar
In the UK, more than a quarter of farmers have turned to renewable energy as a type of secondary income due to the feed-in tariff. As reported in the Guardian UK, renewable energy could overtake rural tourism as a secondary income as over 200 MW of installed renewable energy sources have been installed on farms. [...]
How to Land a Green Job
Green jobs encompass a wide range of occupations. Green jobs are goingto play a pivotal role in reducing unemployment and reviving a sluggisheconomy. The green market has enormous potential, more than any otherindustry. We have already seen massive growth in the The solar and windindustries and this is likely to continue. Far too many Americanpoliticians [...]
A New Galaxy in the Land of Tablets
A key theme at this year’s FPD International/Green Devices 2010 show was touchpanel applications for mobile devices. These shows areincredible because they are the first place to see new and excitingdevices—and to actually hold and demo upcoming ‘hot’ devices. As I worked my way down to the Samsung Mobile Devices booth, a large group had [...]
Fed Fees for Solar on Public Land Draw Criticism
On June 10, the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sent a letter concerning the fees the federal government will chargesolar companies to develop projects on public land. Now, it seems, Uncle Sam is Under Fire. The Bureau’s letter outlined something called the “megawatt capacityfee” — a charge levied above and beyond standard land-use [...]
Energy Policy and Land Use
The migration to renewable energy is complicated by a great number of factors in the renewable energy “triumvirate”-technological, economic, and political. The chart below shows one ofmany different dimensions of this complexity: land use – which, when you think about it, touches on all three. The data in the chart is derivedfrom: 1) a paper [...]