Posted on 04/17/2014 5:00:27 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmentalists. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement with the environmental groups to add thousands of acres near their projects for wildlife protection.
As more solar farms arise in the sunny corners of the U.S., it’s inevitable that solar developers will have to play ball with environmental groups. First Solar and SunPower announced an agreement on Tuesday with the Sierra Club and others to add thousands of acres near their proposed projects for wildlife protection.
The agreement calls for the two companies to add 9,000 acres to the 17,000 acres they had already planned to set aside for wildlife protection in the Carrizo Plain of San Luis Obispo County, California, where First Solar plans to build the 550 MW Topaz Solar Farm and SunPower will construct the 250 MW California Valley Solar Ranch. The companies will buy the 9,000 acres and use conservation easements to protect them from development in perpetuity, said Ingrid Ekstrom, a spokeswoman for SunPower, which expects to complete the land purchase within 12 months after the completion of the solar project in 2013, she added. The timeline for the land purchase will be similar for First Solar, said First Solar spokesman Alan Bernheimer.
The two companies also promise to both remove 30 miles of fences to make it easier for wildlife to travel through the protected area and to avoid using chemicals designed to kill rodents since the region is home to the endangered San Joaquin kit fox and giant kangaroo rats.
In addition, First Solar and SunPower will contribute money to help the county buy undeveloped land...
(Excerpt) Read more at gigaom.com ...
Looks l;ike a bribe to me.
There’s a money trail here somewhere - a big one.
In 2012, 17 ‘solar energy zones’ were created, targeting some 450 square miles of land in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. I wonder if this land has to be acquired within a set timetable, in order to qualify for government guaranteed loans?
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2014/02/worlds_largest_solar_power_pla.html
The Ivanpah plant is rated at 393MW and claims to produce enough electricity to power “140,000 California homes” for 2-3 hours during peak hours. Solar electricity generated will cost about $321 per MW/hr. Electricity produced by gas and coal costs about $100 per MW/hr.
The 100MW plant slated for King County in 2015 isn’t really worth a mention other than the land theft, since output is generally 20% of the rated MW.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/08/100-mw-solar-power-plant-for-california-central-valley/
The two Carizzo Project plants combined will rate at just 900MW, so about another 400,000 “California homes” for 2-3 hours. That’s nice, except California has 10 million housing units.
The Carrizo project intends to ‘set aside’ 26,000 acres for ‘protected zones’. The Tonapah project has set aside even more. This is now land only the in-crowd will get to enjoy.
Who facilitated the ability of these solar firms to buy all that excess land, at such a price that they’re more than happy to give a big chunk away - as long as it isn’t returned to the farmer or rancher or miner?
The government is guaranteeing billion dollar loans for low-wattage farms, and gets free land kicked back out of the deal. The county also gets in on the real estate when the solar companies ‘help the county’ buy land. The environmentalists get fees just for joining every lawsuit, and, win or lose, they also get special privilege of right-of-way for their ‘studies’.
It would appear the smelt, rat, turtle, owl and lizard, are, in fact, red herrings hiding a river of greenbacks. imo.
Absolutely love your post. I think we’ll find enough racketeering, bribery, corruption, high crimes and treason here to sink a dreadnought.
At least some light is now being shed on the bastards. Thomas Jefferson was right about the tree of liberty. Too bad it has come to this.
It would be nice to know how the Fed benefits in these deals. Is it a direct piece of each electric bill + the taxes on those bills? Is it rental? There is some kind of deal, and it would be good to know what it is. Is the land sold to them? Are they leasing it?
Anyone know?
thanks, Jim :)
I’ve compiled a list of solar- and wind-energy companies who have donated substantial amounts of money to Harry Reid’s re-election campaigns since 2008. And I am now working on a list of companies who have received financial or legislative support through legislation passed when the Dems had control of both houses of Congress, which includes any legislation that took effect post-2008. Any contribution you wish to share is appreciated. I will report said data on the BLM Intelligence thread as it is available.
Sometimes, being a DBA is beneficial. ;)
SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION-1 {AND|OR} CONDITION-2;
LAST NAME = “Reid” tells me A LOT indeed.
What are you searching with that command? That’s fascinating.
A customized database I created today that includes data I retrieved from the FEC, the Senate, the National Archives and other sources.
bttt
Awesome!
(I don’t know what they’re calling the farm at 29stumps, that I saw a few months, but that is probably one of the total, also).
found this map:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/33by2020/documents/renewable_projects/REAT_Generation_Tracking_Projects_Map.pdf
also, chocolate mountains:
1.2 pg 86 All acquired Catellus lands were conveyed to the U.S. by S.F. Pacific Properties, Inc. a Delaware corporation, by Grand Deed for valuable consideration ($), or by donation (gift). Lands were acquired with LWCF appropriations by Congress and by funds from the Wildlands Conservancy, a non-profit corporation. Catellus sold lands to the BLM at a bulk discount / per acre value below appraised value. Wildlands funded all transactions which were a donation to the BLM. Wildlands was not paid any LWCF money since the lands were owned by S.F. Pacific Properties. Wildlands lobbied Congress for LWCF money and contributed money from donors to fund the purchases. Later acquisition phases involved the transfer of all mineral and oil and gas rights from S.F. Pacific to Wildlands prior to the transfer of the surface rights to the BLM. These rights are currently held by Wildlands (split estate) and the BLM owns the surface only on some properties.
1.9.1 (pg 105) The BLM sought and received permission from the Secretary of the Interior to issue a notice of proposed withdrawal for the West Chocolate Mountains REEA (public notice forthcoming in the Federal Register). In effect as of the date of publication, the proposed withdrawal would segregate 22,562 acres of public lands in the REEA for up to two years from surface entry and mining...
other verbage:
These impacts could include a conflict with existing federal, state, and local land uses, plans, and policies; conflicts with existing BLM land use authorizations; changes in public land disposition; restriction of the land use authorizations of the BLM; restriction of land tenure adjustments; or restrictions on livestock and grazing management.
Up to about 50,000 acres of land could ultimately be developed for renewable energy at the West Chocolate Mountains REEA. In addition, tens of thousands of other acres of other BLM and non-BLM land could be developed in the foreseeable future. If all of these projects were to be developed, they would cause a cumulative impact to recreational use in the region...
....Further, given that many people live in the area because of its rural character, projects approved under the West Chocolate Mountains REEA EIS, combined with other changes in the landscape, may permanently alter the rural feel of the community.
also found this, looks like they already have Chocolate Mountain.
http://8minutenergy.com/projects/
“All 8minutenergy projects are located on disturbed, low-value farm land.” (low value my eye)
their projects are listed as:
Chocolate Mountain 50MW, Calipatria I 20MW, Midway I 50MW, Mount Signal 200 MW, Calexico I 200MW and Calexico 2 200MW, all in Imperial County
also
Lotus 50MW in Madera County,
Golden Hills 70MW in Stanislaus County
and
Recrest 20MW in Kern County
I finally remembered - TARP...
First Solar raked in $646 million in 1705 loan guarantees through partner Exelon and landed another $547.7 million of the same from the Ex-IM bank.
Ormat Technology, which is a Nevada Geothermal partner. Ormat’s lobbyist in Washington, Kai Anderson, and one of the company’s top executives, Paul Thomsen, are former aides to Mr. Reid.
Just last month, again with Mr. Reid’s support, Ormat secured its own Energy Department loan guarantee, worth $350 million,
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/278975/next-solyndra-andrew-stiles
Unreal: Solyndra CEO Called Obama White House the “Bank of Washington”
So BLM bought the land for the Chocolate Mountain zone? Isn’t the LWCF to be used for parks, national treasures? How does a solar energy zone fit that bill? ....and if the area is developed...more restrictions on its current use for grazing. Wildlands also gets all the mineral and oil rights going forward.
Thanks for the info.
Bookmarked. Good research.
But “republicans” are the evil rich money-seeking partners of Wall Street and “evil” co-sponsors, right?
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