"In Nevada, plans are moving ahead for transmission lines, solar farms, geothermal plants and more in the name of fighting climate change. Yet even among environmental groups and government officials, the projects are controversial."
"ON HIGHWAY 50, Nev.—Local conservationist Patrick Donnelly drove east along the Loneliest Road in America, a ribbon of pavement in north central Nevada that deserves its name. Before him, sprawling in every direction, was a green-gray sagebrush basin so large you could probably plop Las Vegas in it and still have room to spare. Save for a stiff wind and the occasional cow bleat, a heavy silence sat on the valley. Not much moved aside from skittish grouse and a few scattered cars. This is a place, a big open hunk of public land, where humans haven’t made an intensive mark.
At least not yet. In corporate conference rooms and government offices from Vegas to Washington, D.C., policymakers, executives and lobbyists are planning a very different future for valleys like this one. If their plans become reality, vast swaths of undeveloped land across Nevada could soon be crossed by towering transmission lines and studded with solar farms in the name of fighting climate change.
The Biden administration has made an aggressive drive to permit 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on America’s federal lands by 2025, which the U.S. Department of the Interior says is enough to power 12 million homes. It surpassed that goal in April. In August this year, it also proposed a solar plan that would make more than 31 million acres of federal land across the American West available for potential solar development."
Jimmy Tobias reports for Inside Climate News December 15, 2024. This article was produced in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations, with support from the Puffin Foundation.
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