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In a twist that no one had seen coming, the story of the 2023 U.S. fire season has, thus far, centered on New York.
June 7 was “by far the worst day for wildfire smoke exposure in American history” after a freak weather pattern funneled deadly particulates down from Canada — which is having its most destructive wildfire season ever — and into the populous Northeast Corridor.
Then this Friday, some 3,630 miles away from their better-known eponym, the New York Mountains of southeastern California also went up in flames.
As of Tuesday, the York fire had grown to 96,000 acres with 23% containment, making it the largest U.S. wildfire of the year so far. It is hardly a typical fire, however: Burning through the deserty Mojave National Preserve, the York is feeding off of abundant grasses that sprouted after the winter’s record rains as well as “nitrogen-laden smog wafting in from the Los Angeles area,” the Los Angeles Times reports. But considered alongside the 55 or so other large fires burning across nine Western states right now, the York begins to feel like the harbinger of the 2023 U.S. fire season, which typically begins in July but accelerates from August through October.
To date, the U.S. wildfire season has been relatively mild; only 1.1 million acres have burned in 2023 compared to 5.7 million acres at this same time in 2022, the National Interagency Fire Center reports. (The 2022 season itself is remembered for being “unexpectedly quiet”). There was the Newell Road fire in Washington, which burned 60,551 acres and was recently contained, as well as the Pass Fire in New Mexico in May, which burned over 50,000 acres. But wildfires could soon ramp up: The wet winter and mild early summer that held blazes at bay in the American West also fueled new grasses and vegetation, which have since dried into perfect tinder.
(Though it is tricky to attribute individual wildfires to climate change, evidence suggests that the atmospheric rivers that fueled plant growth this winter produced more rain because of global warming, and a separate report found that this summer’s blistering heat would have been “virtually impossible” without the burning of fossil fuels).
Indeed, “Things are shaping up to be incredibly busy this August,” according to The Hotshot Wakeup, a newsletter by and for wildland firefighters, which points to new fires that have developed in Alaska, the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and California. In Washington State, for example, the Eagle Bluff fire, which started on Saturday, has prompted evacuations and burned 15,000 acres in addition to another 3,500 acres across the border in Canada. Other large fires are also burning in Montana — where “bone dry conditions” and “powerful winds” have “kept ground and air firefighting resources busy in recent days,” per Montana Public Radio — as well as in Alaska’s eastern interior.
But it is the York that has authorities on edge. Though forecasts have predicted a low chance of fires in the moister, higher-elevation forests of the Sierra Nevadas this year, the vegetation turning to firestarter in California’s hot lowlands means that places like the Central Valley, coastal southern California, the mountain foothills, and the deserts are all at risk in the coming weeks, The New York Times reports. And while the New York Mountains are remote and absent of much threat to property or human life (beyond the smoke billowing toward Las Vegas), they are covered in old-growth Joshua trees and other rare plants, as well as home to endangered desert tortoises. According to ecologist Laura Cunningham, who spoke with the Los Angeles Times, it will take more than a human lifetime for the landscape to recover from this fire.
Further up the coast, the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center is also warning of the danger of dead vegetation, noting that the Pacific Northwest is experiencing “drier-than-normal” conditions that make it extra susceptible to late summer fires.
If the U.S. has had a reprieve up until now, though, its fire crews haven’t. Since May 8, the U.S. has sent 2,235 firefighters, smokejumpers, rappellers, and fire management personnel to help combat the record-breaking Canadian blazes, including the still-active Donnie Creek fire in British Columbia, the province’s single-biggest wildfire ever. “Resources are already drawing thin,” explains the Hotshot Wakeup, “and the United States is basically running fire suppression for two countries now.” If fire season gets bad in the U.S. in the coming months, tired crews will undoubtedly be fighting our blazes.
Even the other New York might not be spared if fire season takes off. Smoke from Western wildfires has blown as far east as the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Northeastern metropolises before. The York might be a harbinger of the season to come, but for a sun-baked America, the devastation it heralds is tragically old hat.
Read more about wildfires:
It’s Time to Include Smoke In Weather Forecasts
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Almost half of developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
The solar energy industry has a big farm problem cropping up. And if it isn’t careful, it’ll be dealing with it for years to come.
Researchers at SI2, an independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association, released a study of farm workers and solar developers this morning that said almost half of all developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
Unveiled in conjunction with RE+, the largest renewable energy conference in the U.S., the federally-funded research includes a warning sign that permitting is far and away the single largest impediment for solar developers trying to build projects on farmland. If this trend continues or metastasizes into a national movement, it could indefinitely lock developers out from some of the nation’s best land for generating carbon-free electricity.
“If a significant minority opposes and perhaps leads to additional moratoria, [developers] will lose a foot in the door for any future projects,” Shawn Rumery, SI2’s senior program director and the survey lead, told me. “They may not have access to that community any more because that moratoria is in place.”
SI2’s research comes on the heels of similar findings from Heatmap Pro. A poll conducted for the platform last month found 70% of respondents who had more than 50 acres of property — i.e. the kinds of large landowners sought after by energy developers — are concerned that renewable energy “takes up farmland,” by far the greatest objection among that cohort.
Good farmland is theoretically perfect for building solar farms. What could be better for powering homes than the same strong sunlight that helps grow fields of yummy corn, beans and vegetables? And there’s a clear financial incentive for farmers to get in on the solar industry, not just because of the potential cash in letting developers use their acres but also the longer-term risks climate change and extreme weather can pose to agriculture writ large.
But not all farmers are warming up to solar power, leading towns and counties across the country to enact moratoria restricting or banning solar and wind development on and near “prime farmland.” Meanwhile at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about taking farmland for crop production to generate renewable energy.
Seeking to best understand this phenomena, SI2 put out a call out for ag industry representatives and solar developers to tell them how they feel about these two industries co-mingling. They received 355 responses of varying detail over roughly three months earlier this year, including 163 responses from agriculture workers, 170 from solar developers as well as almost two dozen individuals in the utility sector.
A key hurdle to development, per the survey, is local opposition in farm communities. SI2’s publicity announcement for the research focuses on a hopeful statistic: up to 70% of farmers surveyed said they were “open to large-scale solar.” But for many, that was only under certain conditions that allow for dual usage of the land or agrivoltaics. In other words, they’d want to be able to keep raising livestock, a practice known as solar grazing, or planting crops unimpeded by the solar panels.
The remaining percentage of farmers surveyed “consistently opposed large-scale solar under any condition,” the survey found.
“Some of the messages we got were over my dead body,” Rumery said.
Meanwhile a “non-trivial” number of solar developers reported being unwilling or disinterested in adopting the solar-ag overlap that farmers want due to the increased cost, Rumery said. While some companies expect large portions of their business to be on farmland in the future, and many who responded to the survey expect to use agrivoltaic designs, Rumery voiced concern at the percentage of companies unwilling to integrate simultaneous agrarian activities into their planning.
In fact, Rumery said some developers’ reticence is part of what drove him and his colleagues to release the survey while at RE+.
As we discussed last week, failing to address the concerns of local communities can lead to unintended consequences with industry-wide ramifications. Rumery said developers trying to build on farmland should consider adopting dual-use strategies and focus on community engagement and education to avoid triggering future moratoria.
“One of the open-ended responses that best encapsulated the problem was a developer who said until the cost of permitting is so high that it forces us to do this, we’re going to continue to develop projects as they are,” he said. “That’s a cold way to look at it.”
Meanwhile, who is driving opposition to solar and other projects on farmland? Are many small farm owners in rural communities really against renewables? Is the fossil fuel lobby colluding with Big Ag? Could building these projects on fertile soil really impede future prospects at crop yields?
These are big questions we’ll be tackling in far more depth in next week’s edition of The Fight. Trust me, the answers will surprise you.
Here are the most notable renewable energy conflicts over the past week.
1. Worcester County, Maryland –Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.
2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.
3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.
Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…
The most important renewable energy policies and decisions from the last few days.
Greenlink’s good day – The Interior Department has approved NV Energy’s Greenlink West power line in Nevada, a massive step forward for the Biden administration’s pursuit of more transmission.
States’ offshore muddle – We saw a lot of state-level offshore wind movement this past week… and it wasn’t entirely positive. All of this bodes poorly for odds of a kumbaya political moment to the industry’s benefit any time soon.
Chumash loophole – Offshore wind did notch one win in northern California by securing an industry exception in a large marine sanctuary, providing for farms to be built in a corridor of the coastline.
Here’s what else I’m watching …