USA: Federal Land is Important for Geothermal Energy Development

Large-scale solar, wind and geothermal developers hit project headwinds on public land (The Nevada Independent)

Nevada Basin & Range. Photo by
Ian Crawford, GRC Field Trip 2015.

With Nevada and other Western states discussing ways to increase the use of renewables, a big question is lingering in the background: Where will all the new solar arrays, wind farms and geothermal plants go?

The answer, at least in part: public land owned by the federal government. The question then becomes: Where?

Solar is not the only renewable that runs into conflicts with federal land. Geothermal does, too.

For instance, the proposed withdrawal of about 600,000 acres of federal land for the Navy’s expansion of its Fallon range could hinder geothermal development in high-potential areas. The state is still planning to negotiate with the Navy on how to mitigate the impacts of that proposal.

Rich Perry, who runs the Division of Minerals and oversees state permitting for geothermal, said that about 60 percent of the state’s geothermal generation is produced on federal land.

“Most of the growth in the last few years has been on federal leases,” he said.

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