Can't Drill, No Nuclear, and now NO SOLAR either!

The New York Times
US
Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects
By DAN FROSCH
Published: June 27, 2008
The freeze has caused widespread concern in the industry, forcing fledgling solar companies to wait just as demand for alternative energy is accelerating.

DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.

According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes.
Full Article

I shouldn't say that I am shocked in any way. This is the government that we are talking about here. Any chance they have to regulate the hell out of something they will.
Here we are as a nation, striving to find better sources of energy as one of our Presidential Candidates decided that we need to immediately reduce our consumption of oil and gas and should focus on "Green Technology" and "New Technology" and here we have the answer to that response and our government needs to stick its hands in everything and muck it all up.
Sphere: Related Content