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There’s an thought floating within the ether (or at the least in my ether) that there’s sufficient sunny federal land in Nevada to energy all the United States with photo voltaic.
Some very tough back-of-the-envelope math suggests it’s doable, requiring simply over 11% of Nevada’s federal land. None of that features room for batteries for storage or the large transmission wires wanted to export all of it — each of which might increase the footprint considerably — and a concentrated set up like that wouldn’t be very resilient or ecologically sound.
The purpose is, there’s room to spare! The federal authorities owns loads of land in different sunny and windy locations, not simply Nevada.
So why don’t we now have extra photo voltaic and wind on public lands?
The Biden administration is hoping to take away at the least one roadblock. This week, the Division of the Inside introduced 50% cuts in hire and capability charges (a charge assessed based mostly on how a lot energy is produced) in an effort to spur extra photo voltaic and wind improvement on federal land. (Geothermal doesn’t get any love on this coverage change for no matter motive.) Utility-scale wind and photo voltaic initiatives can incur lease charges of tens of millions of {dollars} per 12 months, so the increase may very well be vital.
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