Plan to boost clean energy in the California desert released
By Rory Carroll SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California and the federal government on Tuesday released an ambitious plan to combat climate change by accelerating the building of large renewable energy projects in the state’s sun-soaked desert while setting aside millions of acres for conservation. The goal of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan is to identify areas ripe with renewable energy potential that would also have minimal impact on species such as the desert tortoise and a wide variety of avian life. The plan is intended to spur development of up to 20,000 MW of power from solar, wind and other renewable energy sources over the next 25 years. That would more than double California’s current renewable energy production. It would help the state meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by mid-century. The plan follows recent efforts approved by Governor Jerry Brown to encourage consumers to buy low-emission electric cars and to link its carbon cap-and-trade program with that of Quebec. The plan would also create a reserve of protected lands covering more than 22 million acres of desert land in Southern California, most of it owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service, the U.S. Department of Defense and private landowners. Speaking at a press conference in Palm Springs on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said the draft plan strikes a balance between needed energy development and conservation. "So commonly we look across landscapes like this and think that there's nothing there. But there are a number of species that live just in this place," Jewell said. "We now have a roadmap that can be used in other areas across the country to say these are the areas with the greatest potential and the least conflict for development and these are the areas that should never be developed," she said. The plan also has the potential to influence land use policies in other countries, said Laura Crane, director of the California Renewable Energy Initiative for the Nature Conservancy. A year and a half ago, her group hosted government officials from Mongolia on a tour of California’s Mojave Desert, and said they were interested in learning how to balance renewable energy development and protection of species, groundwater and ecosystem function. The draft plan, five years in the making, has a long way to go before it is finalized, which is not expected until 2016. A 106-day public comment period on the draft kicks off on Friday. The plan will need to be approved by the BLM, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Energy Commission before it can be implemented. California’s deserts are home to Native American tribes and people in desert communities, and also serve as important training locations for the U.S. military, all of which have their own perspectives on the blueprint. (Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Diane Craft and Steve Orlofsky)
