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The Bureau of Land Management said it will suspend all new solar energy projects on federal land for the next two years until it completes an environmental impact review. As discussed briefly in the preceding post, the BLM holds the country's most valuable sites in terms of solar energy potential, which are heavily concentrated in the southwest. The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land - nearly 30% of its total territory. The vast majority of those lands are located in the Western states and the vast majority of federal lands in the Western states are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Here's a state by state breakdown of government land ownership.

The Upper Great Plains Wind Energy Programmatic EIS Information Center Web site was launched September 11, 2008. This Web site is the online center for public information and involvement in the Upper Great Plains Wind Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The U.S. Department of Energy, Western Area Power Administration (Western), and the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to evaluate the impacts of wind energy development within Western's Upper Great Plains Customer Service Region (UGP Region), which encompasses all or parts of the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota; and on the Service's landscape-level grassland and wetland easements in North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern Montana.

Renewable Energy World has an article on some large scale efforts to map geothermal power resources in the western US - Western U.S. Entities Move Quickly on Geothermal Mapping. Several large geothermal resource mapping projects are heading toward conclusion so that finally, the power source can be more accurately considered in siting new electricity transmission lines for renewable power development. Given the Obama administration's investment focus on new transmission line development, the result of the mapping efforts should be a relatively rapid increase in the number and size of commercial-scale geothermal projects.

In its efforts to exert some political influence on solutions to the current world financial and climate crises the nascent international ecosocialist movement should direct some attention to a synthesis of the western ecosocialist discourse with the growing Latin American indigenous discourse that is making exciting progress, albeit in fits and starts, toward an international charter for the protection of the planet, Mother Earth, and all forms of life on it.

Electric Generating Sets - Western European Markets Package"package offers a perspective on the actual market situation, trends and future outlook for electric generating sets in different Western European countries.

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO LET OBAMA CONTINUE LOSING TAX PAYER MONEY LIKE THIS?

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) last week announced plans to allow geothermal drilling in more than 190 million acres of federal land, spanning 12 Western states. Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior, said that the proposed initiative could increase geothermal power production in the U.S. tenfold. "Geothermal energy will play a key role in powering America's energy future, and 90 percent of our nation's geothermal resources are found on Federal lands," Kempthorne said. "Facilitating their leasing and development under environmentally sound regulations is crucial to supplying the secure, clean energy American homes and businesses need."

According to a study published in the July 14, 2000, issue of Science, one-third of the world's population is water-stressed, with 8 percent classified as severely water-stressed, including the western United States and northern Mexico, South America, India, China, Africa surrounding the Sahara Desert, and southern Africa and Australia. "Water stress" has profoundly different meanings in developed and developing countries. In Africa and many parts of Asia, it means inadequate water for drinking, sanitation and crops. In emerging economies such as India and China, it translates as an inability to meet the dietary and lifestyle aspirations of a growing middle class.

Washington, D.C. - Nevada Senator Harry Reid today made the following statement regarding the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) moratorium on new applications to develop solar power plants, which could delay development by close to two years: "This notice of intent is the wrong signal to send to solar power developers, and to Nevadans and Westerners who need and want clean, affordable sun-powered electricity soon. While the BLM's proposed delay won't affect developers with existing applications, it could discourage or slow new development to a crawl.

The first wind farm in SA, which produces electricity from wind power, was switched on by minerals and energy minister Buyelwa Sonjica, in Darling, Western Cape on Friday, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) said. The R75-million national demonstration project is the first "green energy" initiative in the country to produce electricity from wind power on a commercial basis - this coming against the backdrop of the national energy emergency, it said in a statement.