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Solar Canopies | Earth Wise

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There are plenty of solar panels on residential rooftops but there are also increasing numbers of arrays of them on croplands, arid lands, and grasslands. Large solar arrays are mostly built in open spaces like these rather than in developed areas.  The reason is that it is cheaper to build on undeveloped land than on rooftops or construct covered parking lots.

However, building on undeveloped land is not necessarily the smartest idea.   Undeveloped land is a dwindling resource that is needed for many different things:  growing food, sheltering wildlife, storing and purifying water, preventing erosion, and sequestering carbon. 

Putting solar panels on parking lots has the appeal that they are abundant, close to electricity customers, and are on land that already has been stripped of much of its biological value.

Putting a solar canopy over a parking lot can produce large amounts of electricity and has the added benefit that it would provide shade for cars.  For example, a typical Walmart supercenter might have a five-acre parking lot, which is enough to support a 3-megawatt solar array.  If Walmart put solar canopies on all of its 3,500+ super centers, it would provide 11 gigawatts of solar power – as much as a dozen large coal-fired power plants.

Solar canopies are still pretty uncommon, but some examples are ones at four DC Metro rail stations, one at JFK Airport, and a large one at the Rutgers University Piscataway campus.

Building parking lot solar canopies is much more expensive than putting solar arrays on open space, but they do eventually pay for themselves. Despite active opposition by utility and fossil fuel interests, solar canopies may eventually be a common sight.

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Why Putting Solar Canopies on Parking Lots Is a Smart Green Move

Photo, posted January 10, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Green Light For Commercial-Scale Offshore Wind | Earth Wise

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The Biden administration has given final approval to a project it hopes will usher in a new era of wind energy in the United States.  The greenlight was announced by the Department of the Interior on May 11.

The Vineyard Wind project intends to install up to 84 huge wind turbines about 12 nautical miles off the cost of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.  In total, Vineyard Wind could generate 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes.  The construction project will create about 3,600 jobs.  The $2.8 billion project is a joint venture of the energy firms Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The idea of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast was conceived 20 years ago but ran into repeated setbacks, delays, and well-funded opposition from waterfront property owners concerned about what will ultimately be the barely discernable sight of tiny blips on the distant horizon.  The Trump administration moved to cancel the permitting process for Vineyard Wind, but the Biden administration revived the project in March as part of its greater efforts to tackle climate change.

Electricity generated by Vineyard Wind will travel via cables buried six feet below the ocean floor to Cape Cod, where they will connect to a substation and feed into the New England grid.  The project is expected to begin delivering wind-powered electricity in 2023.

The Biden administration says that it intends to fast-track permits for other wind projects off the Atlantic Coast and that it will offer $3 billion in federal loan guarantees for offshore wind projects and invest in upgrades to ports across the United States to support wind turbine construction.

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Biden Administration Approves Nation’s First Major Offshore Wind Farm

Photo, posted February 8, 2007, courtesy of mmatsuura via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Is U.S. Offshore Wind Finally Happening? | Earth Wise

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Offshore wind capacity has been growing rapidly in recent years, especially in Europe and China.  Globally, there is now more than 30 GW of offshore wind and industry experts predict that there will be well over 200 GW of installed capacity by 2030.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has only two small pilot projects, one with five turbines off Rhode Island and another with two turbines off Virginia.  But after many years of battles with determined opponents, false starts, regulatory struggles, and other hurdles, the U.S. offshore wind industry appears to be poised to take off.

A combination of significant commitments by power companies to purchase offshore wind power, strong support by the Biden administration, and billions of dollars in investments is creating the new-found momentum.

New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland have collectively committed to buying 30 GW of offshore electricity by 2035.  (That’s enough to power roughly 20 million homes).

Among the first major offshore installations to be completed in the next few years in the U.S. will be Vineyard Wind, 15 miles off of Martha’s Vineyard, another wind farm 60 miles east of New York’s Montauk Point, a third fifteen miles off Atlantic City, New Jersey, and a fourth off the Virginia Coast.

Offshore wind projects will create nearly 40,000 jobs just in the New York-New Jersey area over the next ten years.  There is still some opposition from elements of the commercial fishing industry and from some coastal residents.  However, with state and federal governments committed to reducing carbon emissions and rapidly reducing regulatory barriers, and with the price of offshore wind continuing to get lower and lower, most observers agree that the U.S. offshore wind industry is finally on the verge of really getting going.

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On U.S. East Coast, Has Offshore Wind’s Moment Finally Arrived?

Photo, posted August 9, 2016, courtesy of Lars Plougmann via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Removing Dams Restores Ecosystems

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In many parts of the country, dams that sometimes date back as much as 100 years are being removed and are giving way to the revival of migratory fish and their river ecosystems.  Since 1912, more than 1,600 dams have been removed in the U.S., but the pace of dam removal has greatly picked up in recent years.  2017 and 2018 were the highest years ever with 91 and 99 dams removed, respectively.

When dams are removed, the response from migratory fish can be almost immediate.  A large dam removal project on the Penobscot River in Maine in 2012 opened up 1,000 miles of habitat with a quick return of shad and alewives, followed by salmon.

In 2022, four large dams across the Klamath River will be removed.  The dams, which are located at the California and Oregon border, were facing an expensive re-licensing process and, because of their age, could no longer be run at a profit.

Re-licensing the dams along the Klamath was going to cost as much as $400 million.  On the other hand, uncapping the Klamath River has tremendous commercial and tourism potential.  Two states, tribal nations, and other stakeholders have all seen the virtues of restoring the landscape to its original form.

Opposition to dam removal is typically driven by aesthetics or recreational preferences.  But dam economics are getting increasingly worse.  Now that electricity can be produced far more cheaply with wind and solar power, many American dams have become artifacts of an older manufacturing era.  Meanwhile, rural towns near decommissioned dams are likely to now have more robust fishing industries.

In rivers big and small, migratory fish and river ecosystems surge back to life as old energy structures are taken down.

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Take Down That Dam: River Ecosystems Bounce Back As Removals Soar

Photo, posted June 11, 2016, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

New York Offshore Wind

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New York has passed ambitious legislation to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change, but the state needs to start taking action to make those reductions possible.  One such action it has taken is an agreement that will enable the construction of two large offshore wind projects.

The projects are to be built off the coast of Long Island.  One will be 14 miles south of Jones Beach and the other 30 miles north of Montauk.  The wind farms will be built by a division of Equinor, a major Danish energy company, and a joint venture between Orsted, another Danish company, and Eversource Energy, an American firm.

The two New York wind farms are expected to be operational within the next five years and have the capacity to produce 1,700 megawatts of electricity.  That is about 20% of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s overall goal for offshore wind.

Wind farms are a major energy source in the United States, now providing about 7% of the country’s electricity.  That compares with only 2% in 2010. But nearly all American wind turbines are on land.  There is only one small offshore wind farm in the US off the coast of Rhode Island.  Things are very different in Europe.  For example, Britain expects to get 10% of its electricity from offshore wind next year, which is up from less than 1% in 2010.

Developers of offshore wind farms have struggled to gain a foothold in the US.  Some projects have foundered because of cost issues, but others have faced opposition from politicians and coastal-property owners.  But assuming the New York wind projects clear permitting and environmental hurdles, offshore wind may finally be on the move in the US.

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New York Awards Offshore Wind Contracts in Bid to Reduce Emissions

Photo, posted May 22, 2007, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Electric Buses On The Rise

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Electric buses are replacing conventional diesel-fueled buses at an accelerating rate that is outpacing the adoption of battery-powered cars.  According to forecasts by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, by 2030 some 28% of car sales will be electric vehicles while 84% of new buses will be electric buses.  So far, some 12 years away, the actual adoption of electric buses is outpacing this optimistic projection.

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A Climate-Friendlier Coolant

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Recently, negotiators from more than 170 countries reached a legally binding accord in Kigali, Rwanda to cut the use of hydroflurocarbons, or HFCs, which are chemical coolants used in air conditioners and refrigerators.  HFCs are just a small percentage of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but they are supercharged greenhouse gases that have 1,000 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide.

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