Special to the PVT
PRIMM AP — Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.
Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials shows that the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.
At a time when the nation drills ever deeper for oil off its shores even as it tries to diversify its energy supply, the federal government has, so far, failed to use the land it already has — some of the world’s best for solar — to produce renewable electricity.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Nevada, where a Goldman Sachs & Co. subsidiary with no solar background has claims with the BLM on nearly half the land for which applications have been filed, but no firm plan for any of the sites.
The Goldman Sachs subsidiary, Cogentrix Solar Services LLC, has 26 of the 58 applications on file for right-of-way with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for solar projects in southern Nevada.
The company filed for 13,440 acres of BLM land just north of the planned Solar Millennium project in Amargosa Valley all the way up to Highway 95. That prevented Solar Millennium from locating its project farther north away from the center of the town of Amargosa Valley, which has been the subject of some local complaints.
When the DOE designated 24 solar energy zones in July 2009 where solar projects would be expedited on BLM land, the one site in Nye County surrounded 22,400 acres on which Cogentrix filed for right-of-way.
Cogentrix filed for another 12,800 acres of BLM land west of U.S. Ecology, just south of Beatty, near Highway 374 for a solar project.
The Obama administration says it is expediting the most promising projects, with some approvals expected as soon as September. And yet, it will be years before the companies begin sending electricity to the Southwest’s sprawling, energy-hungry cities.
Congress in 2005 gave the Interior Department a deadline: Approve 10,000 megawatts, or about five million homes’ worth during peak hours, of renewable energy on public lands by 2015. The Bush administration, however, kept BLM’s focus on oil.
BLM’s solar leasing system ended up allowing developers to lay claim to prime sites, many located in the deserts that span California, Nevada and Arizona. All developers had to do was fill out an application, pay a fee and file development plans. But many were so vague that it was difficult for BLM to separate the serious projects from the speculative ones.
“People were making solar applications on federal lands not knowing what kind of technology to propose and … how to develop the land,” said Ray Brady, BLM head of energy policy in Washington, D.C.
In the Southern California desert near Palm Springs, for example, San Diego-based LightSource Renewables filed an application in August 2008 for 2,500 acres, BLM records show. The small, two-person development firm knew enough to recognize the land’s worth — it was close to transmission lines — but had no previous experience with such projects.
Co-founder Paul Whitworth said it is now focusing on getting private land, and is not pursuing plans for its BLM site. The agency, however, still considers the application active, meaning other interested firms cannot access it.
“We don’t know what technology will win or lose, and certain sites cater to certain technologies, but a good site is a good site,” Whitworth said when asked why they filed their application. The firm has never filed a development plan, records show.
While dozens of smaller firms like LightSource joined in the rush, BLM records show two Goldman subsidiaries filed 52 of the 354 applications throughout the region, more than any other company.
“Those 52 applications are an example of the problem of clogging up the system,” said V. John White, executive director of the Sacramento, Calif.-based Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a clean-energy advocacy group, in an e-mail. The system has limited access by experienced solar developers to the best sites.
“Some of these lease applications tied up more land than would be needed for a real project,” he said.
Over the years, BLM rejected applications or companies withdrew them, bringing the total active applications to 123. Some of Goldman’s California applications were withdrawn after U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed last year that part of the Mojave Desert where some of the projects were proposed be declared a national monument.
An AP review of BLM’s applications database found Cogentrix has staked more development claims in the Southwestern deserts than any other company. In Nevada alone, Cogentrix has applied for exclusive development rights on nearly as much federal land as all other companies combined. Its active lease applications cover about 120,000 acres — the equivalent of more than eight Manhattans.
“Goldman Sachs was one of the first applicants to dot the map with potential projects, and since then they haven’t moved on any of them,” said Gregory Helseth, the BLM’s new renewable energy project manager in southern Nevada. “You can’t hold the land forever. You can’t be a prospector and hope somebody down the road wants to buy.”
A Goldman representative defended the firm’s solar investments, saying the Wall Street titan has since gained experience through its 2009 purchase of an aged solar facility in San Bernardino, Calif., that it was moving forward in good faith and was not blocking anyone. The company also announced this month it had reached a deal to build a small, 250-acre project in Colorado on private land.
“While we continue to pursue development of projects utilizing public lands in the Southwest, we have not held land reservations if they are determined not to be viable for future solar development,” company spokesman Ed Canaday said in an e-mail.
Companies that hold BLM solar development applications are prohibited from selling them, but the companies themselves can be sold along with the potentially lucrative applications.
Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar, an industry leader and a maker of solar panels, bought two smaller companies, including the companies’ land rights and power agreements with utility companies. First Solar paid about $400 million for OptiSolar and $285 million for NextLight.
Analysts say the sale value of both companies likely was increased because they held BLM solar development applications.
First Solar spokesman Alan Bernheimer said the acquisitions were valued on the companies’ signed agreements with utilities not on their BLM land positions.
In September, at least two of the “fast-track” projects — by Oakland, Calif.-based Brightsource Energy and by First Solar-owned Nextlight — are expected to get the first solar permits issued by BLM. Bringing plants online however will likely take years.
These fast-tracked sites are located on either side of the dormant Goldman lease near Roach Dry Lake, located about 35 miles south of Las Vegas, and will use the same Southern California Edison transmission lines that pass over Goldman’s site.
Solar Millennium and Solar Reserve, which has plans for a solar power plant west of Tonopah, are among the companies on a fast track for completion.
Helseth said the agency’s main problem was that there were too few employees available to work on the applications.
Under the Obama administration, more BLM staff like Helseth have been hired to help weed out dormant applications so developers better suited for the job can be found. Officials say the administration is trying to avoid future land rushes by identifying the best solar locations with the fewest environmental impacts, rather having a free-for-all.
Critics say BLM should have done this in the first place and help avoid years of delay.
“BLM let people file applications willy nilly wherever they wanted,” said Johanna Wald, a land-use attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Mark Waite of the Pahrump Valley Times contributed to this article.
