Feds To Streamline Wind Project Approvals

Why large-scale wind power is so hard to build

Michael McDonald, September 3, 2016 (OilPrice via USA Today)

“…[The federal Bureau of Land Management] wants to shake up the rules around wind farm approvals…Since 2009, the Obama Administration has approved 46 wind farm projects that would cover a proposed 216,356 acres of public land. Yet only 15 of these 46 projects have made it into operation. The rest are [cancelled or] stuck in limbo with years of mandatory environmental analysis ahead…[The BLM’s solution] is to change the way it deals with land allocation…[This is expected to] speed up the process of building windfarms because it can pre-select areas most likely to get a quick environmental project approval and then auction off those properties in a competitive process...[but] it also means that the lease tracts will cost significantly more, which in turn will likely lead to fewer project proposals…The proposed new rules virtually guarantee more revenue for the government…Environmentalists are generally supportive of the new rules…[but it is possible] the BLM is building a system and no one will [use]…” click here for more

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