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The Biden administration's near-final Western Solar Plan is a case study in the challenges and opportunities of the global energy transition away from fossil fuels. Los Angeles Times climate columnist Sammy Roth explores how the solar plan aims to strike a balance on national public lands—even if nobody gets everything they want out of it.
The plan calls for developing 1.3 million acres across the West for solar projects over the next 20 years, most of it run by the Bureau of Land Management. But the plan identifies 31 million acres for possible development to give the solar industry more flexibility. The plan would bar solar projects on 130 million acres of public land, taking critical habitat, recreation areas, and wildlife migration corridors off the table.
While the solar industry's main trade association is generally supportive of the plan, Peter Weiner, an industry attorney, warns that the final plan could contain technical errors that lead to investors getting cold feet, slowing the energy transition. Conservation groups are also broadly supportive, but some warn it sacrifices too much desert, especially in Nevada.
Still, Roth notes, "in the absence of easy answers — or a few decades to find those answers — solar sprawl is better than climate chaos." BLM is expected for finalize the Western Solar Plan later this year.
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There are very few places in the world where you can go watch wild bears and know them as individuals.... [Fat Bear Week] celebrates the success of brown bears and it tells their stories — the challenges and the difficulties they face to get fat and survive.”
