We can't wait and the Obama Administration knows it. It has fast tracked 7 solar power and wind power projects with a combined capacity of 5 GW as part of it's we can't wait initiative. The projects are located in Arizona, California, Nevada and Wyoming and will create enough renewal energy to power 1.5 Million homes.
In Arizona, the Mohave Wind Energy project, will be located on nearly 40,000 acres of federal land in Mohave County, Arizona. The 425 MW project is targeted to complete federal permitting in January 2013. The Quartzite Solar Energy project will have a capacity of 100 MW on 1675 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Federal review of the project is expected to be completed in December of this year.
California will see two projects fast-tracked: The 150 MW Desert Harvest Solar Energy project in Riverside County, and the 750 MW McCoy Solar Energy project, also in Riverside County. Both projects are expected to have review completed by December of this year.
Nevada's projects: The Moapa Solar Energy Center, composed of 100 MW of concentrating solar power and 100 MW of solar photovoltaics, located on 2000 acres on the Moapa River Indian Reservation; and, the Silver State South solar power project, 350 MW of solar PV on slightly over 13,000 acres of public land. The former is expected to complete the federal review process by December 2012, the latter by March 2013.
Wyoming's windfall is the Chokecherry/Sierra Madre Wind Energy project. A truly huge wind power project at 3 GW in capacity, on 230,000 acres in Carbon County. Approvals for the first part of the project will be completed in October 2012, the second at sometime in 2014.
In other good energy news the Obama Administration is
opening up 16 Million acres of federal land previously used for military testing and training for wind and solar renewable energy projects.
President Barack Obama is supporting alternative energy as a way to diversify away from oil and reduce the need for crude imports from the Middle East. Republicans including presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized the administration for slowing energy development on federal land.
There are more ways to use federal lands than to drill, baby, drill and frack, baby, frack.