by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
A couple of years ago I mentioned a report called, “Beyond Carbon-Free: A Framework for Purpose-Led Renewable Energy Procurement and Development.” It was published by an energy company in Seattle, together with the Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. It suggested that the goal of net-zero carbon emissions would require “massive areas of land for development,” perhaps “a footprint of 228,000 square miles — a land area greater than that of Wyoming and Colorado, combined.”
With a gift for understatement, the authors wrote that “This tremendous need for land poses significant land-use challenges, and the potential for unintended consequences on both local communities and natural habitats.” Oh well, the report said, “In today’s rapidly evolving energy landscape, this transition looks more achievable than ever.” Its writers were already aboard the federal plan to halt America’s use of oil and gas, and if that means covering rural areas with wind machines and solar panels, well, who needs Wyoming anyway?
Local officials have long understood the problems of renewable energy — especially the footprint required, always in rural areas. A $200 million solar project near Culpepper, Virginia, finally had to give up because officials would not waive their local ordinance restricting solar panel installations to 300 acres. Voters there value their rural and agricultural history and culture and had no desire for a 1,700-acre solar field to replace farms — in order to provide power to distant cities.
What community chooses to be sacrificed for anyone’s national political agenda? Dozens of towns and counties in Kansas are gearing up for an extended controversy over a Department of Energy plan to acquire (by eminent domain if necessary) a 5-mile-wide, 780-mile-long “National Interest Transmission Corridor,” a series of power lines to connect wind and solar installations out West to the Midwest power grid. The new super-powerlines would cross much of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana and at 5 miles wide would consume almost 4,000 square miles, apparently without the approval of states or counties.
