Indy Environment: Inside the push to make Nevada's green energy development go brown

Good morning, and welcome to the Indy Environment newsletter. I'm Amy Alonzo, the environment reporter for The Indy.

For decades, people have been encouraged to “go green.” But what if it’s better for the environment to sometimes “go brown?”

That’s the theory behind the Nature Conservancy’s push for development of brownfields rather than greenfields — that some of the land we’ve already scraped, graded and later abandoned could be used instead of undeveloped land in the booming renewable energy transition.

As always, I want to hear from readers. Let me know what you’re seeing on the ground and how policies are affecting you. Email tips to me at amy@thenvindy.com.

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Vast seas of sagebrush spreading over flat, sunbaked earth beckon to developers looking to capitalize on the rush for renewable energy across the West.

Conservationists rally around those same untouched parcels, often home to desert tortoise, bi-state sage grouse and other threatened species. The developers and conservationists repeatedly butt heads on the same issue — where should clean energy infrastructure be built?

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates a land area equivalent to 0.5 percent of the country’s surface is needed to develop the resources to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A 2023 report by the Nature Conservancy found that under current wind and solar development practices, generating that much power would require an area larger than Texas — roughly 7 percent of the U.S.’ land mass.

With well more than 100 active applications for renewable energy projects in Nevada, prospective developers continue looking to greenfields — untouched land they can start fresh on, building supersized projects as they see fit — to meet those needs.

But according to the Nature Conservancy and other environmental groups such as the Nevada Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society, developers should instead be looking to brownfields — previously disturbed areas such as old mines, landfills and former industrial sites, often with electric lines and other infrastructure already in place.

According to a new report by the Nature Conservancy, there are nearly 400,000 acres (about four times the area of the City of Las Vegas) in Nevada that have already been damaged by development and extraction that are also suitable for renewable energy development. These sites are of adequate size and located close to transmission lines and/or substations.

“There’s so many opportunities if we open our minds to building in our developed spaces,” said Jaina Moan, external affairs director for the Nevada arm of the Nature Conservancy. “There’s a whole world of rethinking how we use our spaces that can be really valid contributors to our energy planning.”

Potential sites identified by the Nature Conservancy range from the defunct Anaconda Copper Mine in Yerington to the closed Sunrise Landfill outside Las Vegas.

Now, Moan says the focus is on advancing policy changes to incentivize and prioritize development and getting developers and utilities on board.

But the sites are often not compatible with the competing goals of deploying clean energy quickly, affordably and efficiently and “are unlikely to represent a substantial share of future solar generation,” according to the American Clean Power Association .

There are concerns about liability for cleanup costs. Required environmental assessments and agency oversight can add time and work. Remediation is often needed.

“The perception is it's easier to develop on a greenfield,” said Kerry Rohrmeir, Nevada climate and energy strategy program director for the Nature Conservancy and former business management developer at a Nevada-based geothermal company. “But if you consider legal actions and litigation, then development on a greenfield is no longer a way to develop energy quickly.”

Supersized renewable projects

Redevelopment of brownfields in Nevada’s urban areas has been happening for decades.

Working with the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, the City of Henderson redeveloped a former gravel mine that closed in 2001 and was showing signs of groundwater and surface water contamination into Cornerstone Park , complete with sports courts, picnic areas and walking trails.

In 2000, the City of Las Vegas purchased Symphony Park, a former Union Pacific Railroad fueling and maintenance yard once contaminated by petroleum, solvents and metals, in order to convert it into a mixed-use development. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded Nevada $4.5 million to expedite the assessment and cleanup of brownfields, including $2 million for work at Symphony Park .

But redeveloping larger, more rural brownfields hasn’t caught on in the same way, despite the Nature Conservancy report identifying roughly 375,000 acres of brownfields across Nevada suitable for redevelopment.

In Lincoln County, the Nature Conservancy is working with other groups and local officials to explore the possibility of developing 2 megawatts of solar energy at the former Caselton Mine and Mill. If the project comes to fruition, it will join the handful of successfully redeveloped brownfields to produce renewable energy in the state, such as the 14 megawatt solar field on 140 acres (including a 33-acre capped landfill) at Nellis Air Force Base.

Part of the challenge, Moan said, is that renewable projects are following American culture in becoming supersized.

In June, Arevia Power and NV Energy entered into a power purchase agreement for the largest solar energy and battery storage facility in the state. The 700 megawatt Libra Project is paired with a 700 MW battery storage system on more than 5,100 acres across Lyon and Mineral counties; the proposed Samantha Solar Project outside Ely would generate as much as 600 MW of power from 2,900 acres.

The Nature Conservancy acknowledges that brownfields cannot account for all renewable energy needs to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 , the internationally agreed upon date by which emissions need to reach net-zero worldwide in order to halt ongoing climate damage. In 2019, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill directing the state to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero by 2050.

“Brownfield sites aren’t that big, but they can really serve as good community projects,” Moan said. “Even though these aren’t huge economies of scale, they can fit into our energy mix.”

She lauded NV Energy’s recent conversion of a portion of the former coal-powered Reid Gardner Power Station to a battery storage facility that can store as much as 220 MW of power.

Read more: Site of the nation’s ‘dirtiest coal plant’ is now part of Nevada’s clean energy transition

And earlier this year, Nevada Gold Mines was awarded $95 million in federal funding to develop solar and battery storage systems at three of its active mine sites in Elko, Humboldt and Eureka counties.

The projects are the first combination of utility-scale solar and mining in the state, said Amanda Hilton, president of the Nevada Mining Association.

The next steps

The state’s environmental protection division has made renewable energy development on brownfields a priority for more than a decade, Jenny Jackson, state public information officer, said in an email. In 2013, the state partnered with the Rural Desert Southwest Brownfields Coalition to develop a database of brownfield sites with potential for redevelopment, in part to assist with new transmission line planning and siting of renewable energy projects.

But earlier this year, when the Bureau of Land Management released a draft of its updated plan guiding solar development across multiple Western states including Nevada — where the federal government owns huge swaths of land —, the agency prioritized potential placement of solar projects along proposed and current transmission line corridors rather than siting them on previously disturbed lands.

But, Moan said, getting lawmakers and permitting agencies onboard with using brownfields is needed to spur policy changes that incentivize and prioritize their development.

In 2018, the Nature Conservancy and the Nevada Mining Association proposed and helped pass a state regulatory change to make solar arrays an option for cleaning up old mine sites, a move Moan describes as “successful.”

“We think the regulatory change helped socialize the concept and pique interest,” Moan said. “Now, we would like to work with lawmakers to incentivize and prioritize alternative energy development on old mine lands and brownfield sites and for these sites to be included as part of energy, electrification and transmission plans in Nevada counties, tribal nations and across the state.”

Here’s what else I’m reading (and listening to) this week:

The federal government is approving renewable energy projects across Nevada so quickly, local governments can’t keep up, reports the Nevada Current .

A “devastating” aquatic invasive species is located in the Colorado River; more from Colorado Public Radio .

From our newest Indy team member, a look at extreme heat and its effect on undocumented workers.