Corridors should be near green energy

Phil Hanceford, Denver

Monday, Feb. 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Regarding a Las Vegas Sun story last Monday, “More help urged for green energy”:

Throughout the West it is problematic that the transmission corridors proposed by the federal Energy Department favor coal-fired power plants while bypassing areas rich in renewable energy potential.

But this bias toward coal is particularly unfortunate in Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has opposed coal-fired plants on Bureau of Land Management lands and introduced legislation to prioritize development of renewable energy.

In light of the real possibility of these coal-fired power plants not coming online, the Energy Department should be using the opportunity to designate corridors to drive wind, solar and geothermal production.

If the federal government is going to invest millions in solving the energy transmission bottleneck, it only makes sense that it does it in a manner that moves us toward efficient use of clean energy sources. In Nevada and elsewhere, the Energy Department needs to come up with alternatives to minimize damage from the corridors and maximize use of renewable energy.

The writer is an attorney for The Wilderness Society’s BLM Action Center.