Renewable energy- wind and solar

Let’s just take wind for now.. it has appeared to me for some time that citizens who don’t want wind installations have been unfairly maligned.  Some have said that they are “funded by the oil industry.”  But for me this is one of those things that media statements won’t ever overcome my own experience with these folks.   They honestly don’t want them.  They don’t like that the advantages of having them are going elsewhere (energy for cities), and don’t see why they should have to suffer for someone else’s benefit.

I understand that.  I think many of the news outlets and talking heads are sympathetic (even here in Colorado, home of all sorts of energy development) to those who say, don’t want oil and gas development, or a new power plant or whatever.  Then there’s calling people NIMBYs.  What we seldom talk about is why some dislike for new industries is OK, and others is selfish and wrong- and of course, who decides which it is.  Due to a variety of political forces, it was easy for some to say.. “those westerners who don’t want new wind installations are just backward”- sort of a “green colonialism” thing.  Less explainable in this model are east coasters who don’t want offshore wind as currently regulated.  Of course, offshore wind has its own financial problems, and are also corporations which could, conceivably have politicians in their pockets.

That’s why I became interested in their thoughts and approaches. Most notably I ran into Bob Stern on a CEQ public comment call as one of the people who knew something about NEPA on the call- he used to work for DOE on energy projects.  Here’s a quote from their press release yesterday.

Save Long Beach Island, Inc. (Save LBI), a grass-roots organization with more than 10,000 supporters dedicated to sound energy policies and preserving our shore and ocean environment, today praised the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Douglas Burgum for announcing a long overdue overhaul of the federal rules governing offshore renewable energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

The group, which has long raised concerns about a flawed decision-making process that has resulted in unbalanced and environmentally damaging offshore projects, welcomed the Department’s August 7 announcement as a critical step toward restoring transparency, accountability, and alignment with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).

“This reform effort is a clear response to concerns we raised in our July 2025 petition calling for cancellation of the Atlantic Shores South and North lease areas off the coast of Long Beach Island, Brigantine, and Atlantic City,” said Dr. Bob Stern, president of Save LBI. “We thank Secretary Burgum for his leadership in reexamining a regulatory framework that has failed both communities and the environment.”

In a letter of August 11, 2025 , Stern urged the DOI to create an early opportunity for stakeholder engagement — before the draft rules are written — through mechanisms such as an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). This would allow community advocates, scientists, industry, and local governments to offer innovative solutions while the new regulations are still being shaped, instead of after draft regulatory language is published.

The organization highlighted several key reforms it believes must be included in the new rules:

• Flip the Wind Energy Area Designation Process: Define off-limits zones for wind development upfront based on clear criteria, such as distance from shorelines, military radar, and whale migration corridors.
• End Segmented Decision-Making: Require integrated project proposals linking location and project design, evaluated through a single regional environmental impact statement treating all proposals in a region as alternatives, to enable fair, transparent, legally required comparisons.
• Strengthen Marine Mammal Protections: Establish rigorous, standardized methods for calculating potential harm, developed jointly with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• Mandate Turbine Removal: Require enforceable removal plans and financial assurances to prevent abandoned offshore structures.

“Flawed siting decisions and a dismissive approval process have fueled public outcry,” Stern concluded. “If this rulemaking is to succeed, the process must be transparent, science-based, and responsive to the communities most affected.”

Save LBI pledged to contribute policy expertise and constructive solutions throughout the reform effort.

It seems like those are ideas worth talking about for onshore as well..

Suppose off-limits zones had been defined for Lava Ridge in the first place for avoidance of the Minidoka Historic Site? Much less drama would have ensured (or just listening to elected officials.. does anyone suppose the State of Idaho was against the project due to “being funded by the oil and gas industry?”

The segmented decision-making is also of interest but goes back to “how broadly should you think about this onshore?”  Certainly the Solar PEIS that BLM did was an example that seemed to work.   But should energy EIS’s be statewide or regional? And how do giant transmission lines fit into that? Should they compare different potential energy sources in different mixes (for example, in some cases FERC is removing hydropower dams)?

Strengthen protections.. this could be for raptors in the onshore wind case.

Then there’s human health and distance.  Which for any energy source are controversial, but mostly that seems to affect private land more than federal.

It seems like there should be one set of rules, both for oil and gas and for wind and solar with bonding for removals.  Maybe one set of rules for migratory birds.  We can think that and not be in the pocket of either set of corporations (and in the wind case, philanthropies).

There’s a new Final Rule on permitting reform for major transmission lines. From the NY Times..

Administration officials are increasingly worried that their plans to fight climate change could falter unless the nation can quickly add vast amounts of grid capacity to handle more wind and solar power and to better tolerate extreme weather. The pace of construction for high-voltage power lines has sharply slowed since 2013, and building new lines can take a decade or more because of permitting delays and local opposition.

The Energy Department is trying to use the limited tools at its disposal to pour roughly $20 billion into grid upgrades and to streamline approvals for new lines. But experts say a rapid, large-scale grid expansion may ultimately depend on Congress.

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Under the rule announced on Thursday, the Energy Department would take over as the lead agency in charge of federal environmental reviews for certain interstate power lines and would aim to issue necessary permits within two years. Currently, the federal approval process can take four years or more and often involves multiple agencies each conducting their own separate reviews.

“We need to build new transmission projects more quickly, as everybody knows,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. The new reforms are “a huge improvement from the status quo, where developers routinely have to navigate several independent permitting processes throughout the federal government.”

The permitting changes would only affect lines that require federal review, like those that cross federally owned land. Such projects made up 26 percent of all transmission line miles added between 2010 and 2020. To qualify, developers would need to create a plan to engage with the public much earlier in the process.

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This seems like the old “if we only engaged people sooner, they would like this project” thinking.
Here’s the requirement.

DOE requires transmission developers to develop a comprehensive public participation plan before they apply for federal authorizations and permits. This is a new and novel approach to transmission infrastructure development and will ensure that communities and key stakeholders are identified and accounted for at the onset of the permitting process.

Back to the NYT story:

Experts said the change could be significant for power lines in the West, where the federal government owns nearly half the land and permitting can be arduous. It took developers 17 years to win approval for one major line, known as SunZia, that was designed to connect an enormous wind farm in New Mexico to homes and businesses in Arizona and California.

And yet, it is in litigation still as we shall see below. And not mentioned.

“Federal permitting isn’t the only thing holding back transmission, but if they can cut times down by even a year, and if we have fewer projects that take a decade or more, that’s a big win,” said Megan Gibson, the chief counsel at the Niskanen Center, a research organization that recently conducted two studies on federal transmission permitting.

The rule would not affect state environmental reviews, which can sometimes be an even bigger hurdle to transmission developers who are facing complaints and lawsuits over spoiled views and damage to ecosystems.

Nor litigation of course, which can also be a hurdle. But speeding up the progress toward litigation should help.. unless, of course, people speed up the analysis and litigants can find more questions to exploit. I think this is the argument folks have used about NEPA for projects they consider to be less desirable.  I think we know this terrain. It all depends on the presence of Groups With Resources Likely to Litigate.

Congress has also given federal regulators the authority to override objections from states for certain power lines deemed to be in the national interest, a potentially contentious move. The Biden administration has yet to wield this power, though it is working to identify potential sites that could qualify.

“We’ve been trying to maximize every nook and cranny of what we can do right now,” said Maria Robinson, head of the Energy Department’s Grid Deployment Office.

Still, experts say, there is only so much the administration can do to expand the grid without help from Congress. To date, lawmakers have struggled to agree on ways to reform the system.

In the House and Senate, Democrats have proposed various bills that would mandate greater grid connectivity between regions or place more permitting authority in the hands of federal regulators. But some utilities and Republicans have criticized those proposals as taking control away from states.

Elsewhere, energy companies have asked Congress to enact permitting reforms that would set stricter time limits on challenges and lawsuits from opponents of new projects. But environmentalists are wary that those changes could also benefit fossil fuel projects such as pipelines.

At a recent conference in New York, David Crane, the under secretary for infrastructure at the Energy Department, said that if he could “wave a magic wand” he would ask Congress for permitting reform to advance renewable energy and transmission projects.

“I would say to people on the left who oppose permitting reform because they think it will lead to more unmitigated fossil-fuel-fired infrastructure, at this point it seems very clear from my vantage point that without permitting reform, what we are hindering is new zero-carbon energy sources,” he said.

My bold. What’s interesting about this is that if an Admin deems that it’s in the national interest, then it can override states. I wonder about Tribes. And according to this article, to environmentalists it’s more important to hold up fossil fuel projects than to increase “zero-carbon” energy. If the billions to build new transmission (from less politically powerful places to more politically powerful places) is coming from the taxpayer, would maintenance of those power lines also fall to the taxpayer? Lots of questions here, especially what regulations can do compared to Congress.
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Here’s the DOE press release:

DOE is also announcing up to $331 million through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support a new transmission line from Idaho to Nevada that will be built with union labor—the latest investment from the $30 billion that the Administration is deploying from the President’s Investing in America agenda to strengthen electric grid infrastructure.

As the Federal government’s largest land manager, the Department of the Interior is working to review, approve and connect clean energy projects on hundreds of miles across the American West,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “As we continue to surpass our clean energy goals, we are committed to working with our interagency partners to improve permitting efficiency for transmission projects, and ensuring that states, Tribes, local leaders and communities have a seat at the table as we consider proposals.”

The Biden-Harris Administration is tackling those challenges head-on, with today’s new CITAP Program and transmission investment announcement as the latest steps in broad efforts to take on climate change, lower energy costs, and strengthen energy security and grid reliability.

It sounds like maybe the energy costs will be lowered for, say the people in Nevada, but not so much, say Idaho. So Idaho gets the industrial infrastructure and the transmission lines, Nevada gets the energy.

My question is whether there might be a better way to build a clean energy future.. and whether the pros and cons of different alternatives (and costs and benefits) and- especially practicalities  (availability of raw materials, supply chains, labor, maintenance) have ever been considered in a transparent way open to public review. Because I haven’t seen it and honestly it’s a bit hard to tell these policies from a solar and wind corporate taxpayer support program.

Anyway, the WaPo story here talks about Tribes and CBD wanting to halt construction on the Sun Zia line (mentioned above as an example of taking too long to permit):

He called it too important of an issue, saying: “The United States’ renewable energy policy that includes destroying sacred and undeveloped landscapes is fundamentally wrong and must stop.”

The Tohono O’odham — along with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Center for Biological Diversity and Archeology Southwest — sued in January, seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the clearing of roads and pads so more work could be done to identify culturally significant sites within a 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) stretch of the valley.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have alleged in court documents and in arguments made during a March hearing that the federal government was stringing the tribes along, promising to meet requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act after already making a final decision on the route.

The motion filed Wednesday argues that the federal government has legal and distinct obligations under the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and that the Bureau of Land Management’s interpretation of how its obligations apply to the SunZia project should be reviewed by the appeals court.

Once again, I’m grateful for reporting by Sammy Roth of the LA Times.  Interesting that for this particular piece, he’s a columnist not a reporter.  I hope you can read the whole thing.  It’s interesting that Sammy says “the western solar plan sounds scary. But it’s better than climate change.” In my view, there are a variety of other decarbonization options.  Are renewables the only answer? No. Are renewables on federal lands the only way to get renewables? No. Could anthropogenic climate change occur even if the US were net-zero? Yes.

Members of the public can still weigh in. Before finalizing the Western Solar Plan, the Bureau of Land Management will host eight public meetings to gather input, including two Zoom meetings, the first of them this Monday at 10 a.m. PT.

Federal officials are also finalizing a regulation that would dramatically reduce the fees paid by renewable energy companies with projects on public lands. Another regulation nearing completion would put ecosystem protection on an equal footing with energy development — one more effort to strike the right balance between clean power and conservation on federal lands.

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The Biden administration released its long-awaited Western Solar Plan last month, laying out a vision for where sprawling solar farms should be allowed — and where they should be blocked — across 11 Western states, including California. The plan covers 162 million acres overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and tentatively concludes that companies should be able to propose solar projects across 22 million acres — an area roughly the size of Maine.

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Note: that’s only solar, not solar plus wind.

Weiner also described the federal government’s maps as “grainy,” saying they offer “more of a 30,000-foot view than a ground-level view” of which public lands are suitable for solar. It will be up to developers to study specific sites themselves.

Federal officials “don’t have the resources to do that level of planning,” Weiner told me.

I was intrigued to hear a similar observation from one of the most vocal critics of solar on Western public lands.

That would be Patrick Donnelly, who lives near Death Valley National Park and is Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group. He told me his biggest problem with Biden’s plan is that it’s a “desktop exercise” that uses “a pretty arbitrary set of criteria” to determine which lands should be closed off to solar. Federal officials, he said, failed to take advantage of “on-the-ground knowledge” to more precisely map out appropriate development zones and protected areas.

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The federal government’s criteria for deciding which areas should be off limits to solar — including endangered species habitat, popular hiking spots and places sacred to Indigenous tribes — “didn’t flag areas that should be obvious,” Donnelly said.

As I talked with Donnelly, Weiner and others, I kept thinking back to something that Tracy Stone-Manning, the Bureau of Land Management’s director, told me when I interviewed her at an environmental journalism conference in April.

To speed up solar and wind development on public lands, she said, her agency needs a lot more money from Congress to hire additional staff members, who can more thoroughly map out the best spots and conduct environmental analyses.

“The biggest problem is having enough people to do the work,” Stone-Manning said.

At the time, that sounded to me like a bit of an excuse. Now I find myself nodding along.

As long as Republicans retain at least partial control of Congress — they currently run the House — more money for clean energy isn’t likely. It almost certainly won’t happen if Donald Trump returns to the White House. Elections have consequences.

What I thought was interesting about this is the idea that more staff can “thoroughly map out the best spots”.  If that were the case, then, wouldn’t it be letting leases and companies bidding on them rather than developers picking sites? I’m not sure how that currently works.  It could be like an oil and gas leasing decision, then someone leases it, then an APD-equivalent kind of analysis for the specific site.  But then that might be three levels of NEPA, this programmatic, a “leasing decision-like” level and an “APD-like” level.

I also wonder about what Stone-Manning says about “enough people”.. if the FS can have contractors do NEPA work funded by proponents (with ultimate authority and review by Feds) why not the BLM?  Maybe someone understands these legal underpinnings.

Also it almost sounds like Sammy is saying “vote for R’s if you want pristine federal landscapes..”

The Bureau of Land Management estimates that over the next 20 years, solar projects will be built across nearly 1 million acres under its jurisdiction in the West — the 700,000 acres I mentioned above, plus an additional 280,000 already open to solar developers in the California desert under an Obama-era federal plan. That’s three times as many acres as the agency estimates will need to be dedicated to solar on all other lands, public or private, in the 11 Western states included in the new plan.

Does that make sense? Should public lands be responsible for hosting three-quarters of the West’s solar farms?

As a lover of those gorgeous landscapes — some of my most cherished memories include backpacking Wyoming’s Teton Crest Trail and camping in Death Valley — my gut reaction is, “No.” Even the federal officials behind the Western Solar Plan seemed to agree, writing that the amount of public land they assumed would be needed for solar was “likely an overestimate.”

For some conservationists, those questionable numbers are one of several reasons the idea of opening 22 million acres of public lands to possible solar development “doesn’t really pass the laugh test,” in the words of Matt Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation at the National Parks Conservation Assn., an advocacy group.

“Why open up all that land and let industry choose?” he asked.

Kirby would prefer to see the Biden administration ditch its current “preferred alternative” — the one with the 22 million acres — and instead select Alternative 5, which would limit solar applications to 8 million acres of previously disturbed lands.

“We’re now in a situation that essentially puts industry in the driver’s seat,” Kirby said.

Members of the public can still weigh in. Before finalizing the Western Solar Plan, the Bureau of Land Management will host eight public meetings to gather nput, including two Zoom meetings, the first of them this Monday at 10 a.m. PT.

I also thought that it was interesting that John Podesta is the “senior advisor to the President for clean energy innovation and implementation.”  It seems like more and more, effort which have a substantial technical component are led by people with no technical background.  This seems to me as if it could be a problem, since there are many pathways to decarbonization, and choosing among them would tend to have a technical element.  I’d be for an open discussion and analysis of all alternatives, including costs, social and environmental impacts, technical feasibility, availability of needed material, national security and domestic job implications, and including the fact that different technological horses in the race will have unknown success (uncertainties and scenarios).  It’s kind of funny that none of this is done, and yet all the analysis is done by someone at a BLM Field Office on a particular piece of ground.

For the record, I don’t think it’s pay-offs to CAP by solar and wind purveyors.. or that nuclear hasn’t paid enough into D coffers.  I think some super-important people have “all renewables” as an ideological bent, no matter what the outcome and to whom.  And I think that the lack of rationality makes people suspicious, which makes them suspicious of “the climate change issue.”

Anyway, back to Sammy.

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I wrote in the fall about “Uncommon Dialogue,” a Stanford University initiative that produced a first-of-its-kind agreement in which a dozen prominent developers and environmental groups pledged to work together to limit ecosystem damage from solar farms. Their dialogue continues, with six working groups crafting development guidelines and policy recommendations.

One of their goals is to come up with incentive programs that encourage companies to build fewer solar farms on pristine public lands and more on already disturbed areas such as Superfund sites, landfills, former mines and water reservoirs — places where it’s typically more expensive to build. The “Uncommon Dialogue” partners also hope to promote solar development on farmland, which helps save water in drought-stressed regions but can provoke opposition from neighboring farmers.

Dan Reicher, the Stanford University researcher and former Clinton administration official who launched and leads the initiative, told me he expects most solar projects in the United States to be built on private lands, rather than public lands.

“The vast proportion is going to be on private agricultural lands,” he predicted.

President Biden’s solar plan forecasts a different outcome, at least for the American West.

One  interesting thing about this to me is that Eastern coastal people with concerns about offshore wind seem to be as easily dismissed by (some) media folks as our own incipient-Bundy interior westerners.  I also “met” an interesting fellow, Bob Stern, involved in this issue in, of all places, a CEQ webinar on the proposed NEPA Phase II regs.   Bob sent it to me as a media representative, so let’s see how other outlets will cover it.

But first, let’s check out the Society of Environmental Journalists backgrounder on offshore wind. This isn’t very objective..it basically says if you’re against offshore wind in your area, you must be a Republican, a fisher, and/or a NIMBY. An obvious problem with this interpretation is that the northeastern States involved are traditionally not Republican.  I’m really not sure why the go-to explanation for disagreements seems to be partisan politics, at least in some quarters. I understand that political reporters would filter information through that lens, but environmental journalists?

The politics of offshore wind farms

On the political front, many Democrats and climate hawks are trying to support offshore wind because they see it as a key renewable energy source to replace carbon-spewing fossil fuel power plants.

Some utilities — NextEra Energy, Dominion Energy and ClearWay Energy — like it because it’s cheaper and is geographically suited.

Certainly, the Biden administration supports offshore wind enthusiastically. For instance, the Inflation Reduction Act had money for it, mostly in the form of tax breaks.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also had money for it. But because such legislation requires compromise, and because West Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (who is fossil fuel-friendly) is needed for many deals, there is a catch.

The federal government, via the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, cannot issue a lease for offshore wind development unless the agency has offered at least 60 million acres for oil and gas leasing on the outer continental shelf.

Others besides fossil fuel industries oppose offshore turbines. Many in the fishing industry, for instance, believe that mammoth wind turbines could disrupt traditional fishing areas and reduce their catch. Fishery groups (such as Maine lobstermen) tend to lobby against offshore wind.

Former President Donald Trump, criminal defendant and GOP presidential front-runner, does not like offshore wind at all. The story really starts back in 2006, when he bought land in Scotland to build a golf resort, then later discovered that a wind farm was to be built offshore that he felt would spoil the resort’s ocean view.

This led to a series of legal battles that Trump lost — although the resort did get built. The subsequent Trump administration was very slow to sign off on offshore wind permits.

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Media coverage (and disinformation) a factor

Trump, who hates “windmills,” sparked a lot of media attention when he started this fall with rants about offshore wind harming whales. Or, to be precise, that offshore wind turbines (of which there are still very few) are driving whales “crazy” and “causing whales to die in numbers never seen before.” Like many things Trump says, this is not true.

Media fact-checked these statements, but in doing so they amplified and repeated them. Whales strand themselves, often in groups, quite often, and have been doing so long before offshore wind was even a glimmer in Biden’s eye.

Historically, scientists have not been able to understand the causes of most whale strandings. (Ship strikes do cause individual whale deaths, as we know from physical necropsy evidence.) Among the debunkers were BBC News, CNN and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It’s not just Trump. When Ørsted canceled its two New Jersey projects in November, the Republicans took what E&E News called a “victory lap.” It has become more than just a New Jersey GOP political thing.

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Whenever  I hear the word “debunked” about a complex scientific issue, I know someone is flirting, at least, with bamboozlery.

I would bet that the relationship between whales and industrialization of seabeds is any form is complicated.  Perhaps whales are the sage grouse of the East Coast (roads/piles for oil and gas are bad: roads/piles for wind are good.  At least in the west, though, we have folks like CBD whose concerns seem invariant as to the source of the disturbance.  Does the East Coast have similar ENGOs?

Anyway,  I’ve uploaded the Save Long Beach Island OffshoreWindAlertReport, and I’ll note below some apparent resemblances between offshore wind projects in the East and onshore wind in the West. Now I know that there are many TSW folks with experience in BLM siting of renewables so hopefully you all can add background and context.

Difference.. Coastal wind would be used locally (with increase in electric costs); Western wind- shipped to Coasts or other high population areas.

Similarity.. Should avoid important wildlife migration routes

(From SLBI report) The green line represents the right whale’s primary historic migration range. The red lines represent the distances from the various wind complexes where the noise level will exceed 120 decibels, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) criterion for disturbing the whales behavior, which they will very likely try to avoid. There is essentially no route the NARW could take to stay within its historic migration range and avoid the 120 decibel and higher noise levels, thereby blocking or seriously impairing its migration that is essential to its survival.

Possible Difference: vessel navigation risk, DOD national security, radar interference, sonar, for offshore.. may be some of that in onshore, but I haven’t navigated those EIS’s.

Possible Similarity:  decommissioning issues

(From SLBI report) The BOEM also does not have a stellar track record with regard to other easier decommissioning efforts. A General Accountability Office report found that it collected only eight percent of the revenues needed to do the necessary decommissioning of oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. It also found that ninety-seven percent of the seabed pipelines have been left in place.

I haven’t checked the BLM track record (not much wind development on FS).

Possible Similarity: Lack of decarbonization programmatic look and choices of technologies/locations;at the same time I think the BLM does a better job on having alternatives in EIS’s. I also think  BLM has more of a history of programmatics (e.g. the 2005 wind energy programmatic EIS, and the 2023 Solar Programmatic EIS)

(From SLBI report) All major decisions, such as the turbine area location, the number of turbines and their size, are made by the applicant and by unelected federal and state agency staff with no EIS preparation or public input. The result has been some obvious mistakes such as the siting of wind energy areas in the path of or adjacent to migration corridors of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
At the end of that decision process a project EIS is offered to the public for its purported input to the process, that is far too lengthy, difficult to read, offers no real options to weigh in on, does not disclose many major adverse impacts, and is replete with inconsistent, unsupported conclusory statements dismissing impacts, as opposed to presenting the actual significant impacts.

Nowhere in this entire process are true alternative turbine locations, project sizes, or turbine powers presented to the public for genuine input.

Any other similarities or differences you want to point out?