scholarly journals From Brown to bright - the development of renewable energy on marginalized land

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Bernhard Spiess
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Site Selection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Large Contribution ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages

Most post-industrialized countries are experiencing marked changes in the reutilization of land and the generation of electricity. On the one hand, the redevelopment of previously developed and potentially contaminated lands, so-called brownfields, has led to urban revitalization, rural wasteland recycling, as well as an increased protection of greenfields. On the other hand, the rapid growth of renewable energy installations has contributed to a more diverse, more distributed, and cleaner energy mix, albeit often on greenfield land. While brownfield redevelopment and ‘conventional’ green energy address land reuse and sustainable energy goals independently, brightfields could kill two birds with one stone. This nascent concept has thus far produced a scant amount of literature, regarding site typology, policy support and its barriers. This research addresses these significant gaps in the literature. The typology or former land use of existing brightfields is examined in an international context, finding that Canada has so far few ‘true’ brightfields, while the United States and Germany can boast hundreds of projects. The brightfields in the United States seem to have a ‘type, as the majority are located on landfills, while ex-military sites are the dominant former land use of so-called Konversionsflächen in Germany. The examination of technical, regulatory, financial and social barriers to the implementation of brightfields constitutes a large contribution to the literature. It provides a useful insight into the challenges to develop brightfields and shows that its barriers are not simply the sum of brownfields and renewable energy barriers. Lastly, this research finds that different types of brownfield owners may have different agendas and site selection priorities, which are not reflected in current site selection tools and a more context-dependent site identification tool is created using Analytical Hierarchy Process. This dissertation presents original research that contributes to the understanding of brightfields and its literature. It analyses brightfield typology and support in an international environment, their advantages and disadvantages, while also providing a practical tool for brownfield owners to identify and compare candidate sites. By doing so, this research provides a significant contribution to this emerging field of study.

scholarly journals From Brown to bright - the development of renewable energy on marginalized land

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Bernhard Spiess
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Site Selection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Large Contribution ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages

Most post-industrialized countries are experiencing marked changes in the reutilization of land and the generation of electricity. On the one hand, the redevelopment of previously developed and potentially contaminated lands, so-called brownfields, has led to urban revitalization, rural wasteland recycling, as well as an increased protection of greenfields. On the other hand, the rapid growth of renewable energy installations has contributed to a more diverse, more distributed, and cleaner energy mix, albeit often on greenfield land. While brownfield redevelopment and ‘conventional’ green energy address land reuse and sustainable energy goals independently, brightfields could kill two birds with one stone. This nascent concept has thus far produced a scant amount of literature, regarding site typology, policy support and its barriers. This research addresses these significant gaps in the literature. The typology or former land use of existing brightfields is examined in an international context, finding that Canada has so far few ‘true’ brightfields, while the United States and Germany can boast hundreds of projects. The brightfields in the United States seem to have a ‘type, as the majority are located on landfills, while ex-military sites are the dominant former land use of so-called Konversionsflächen in Germany. The examination of technical, regulatory, financial and social barriers to the implementation of brightfields constitutes a large contribution to the literature. It provides a useful insight into the challenges to develop brightfields and shows that its barriers are not simply the sum of brownfields and renewable energy barriers. Lastly, this research finds that different types of brownfield owners may have different agendas and site selection priorities, which are not reflected in current site selection tools and a more context-dependent site identification tool is created using Analytical Hierarchy Process. This dissertation presents original research that contributes to the understanding of brightfields and its literature. It analyses brightfield typology and support in an international environment, their advantages and disadvantages, while also providing a practical tool for brownfield owners to identify and compare candidate sites. By doing so, this research provides a significant contribution to this emerging field of study.

scholarly journals Demand for biomass to meet renewable energy targets in the United States: implications for land use

GCB Bioenergy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1476-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Oliver ◽  
Madhu Khanna
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
The United States

scholarly journals Burdened by renewable energy? A multi-scalar analysis of distributional justice and wind energy in the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Mueller ◽  
Matthew M Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
The United States ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Energy Infrastructure ◽  
Wind Energy Development

The transition towards renewable energy is likely to be uneven across social and spatial dimensions. To ensure this transition is equitable and just, energy injustice has become the key framework for analyzing and interpreting the distribution of energy infrastructure. Wind energy development has experienced a significant gap between broad public support for increased development but persistent localized opposition to proposed projects, indicating that wind represents a locally unwanted land use. We argue that although the negative impacts of wind energy infrastructure are less extreme than those posed by other, more toxic, unwanted land uses, their status as a locally unwanted land use will produce similar distributional injustices as have been found throughout the environmental injustice literature. Using data from both the American Community Survey and the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, we use logistic and Poisson regressions, fixed effects, and temporal lags to evaluate the current landscape of wind energy injustice along the social dimensions of income, race and ethnicity, age, education, labor force participation, and rurality at three spatial scales: between all counties within the contiguous United States, between counties within states with wind energy, and between census tracts within counties with wind energy. We find results vary by scale and whether the model is comparing the presence of any development or the size of that development. The most evidence of injustice is visible at the within-county level related to whether or not there is any wind energy development, with few relationships present when evaluating the absolute size of development.

Renewable Energy on Tribal Lands: A Feasibility Study for a Biomass-to-Energy Plant on the Cocopah Reservation in Arizona

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Lauren K. D’Souza ◽  
William L. Ascher ◽  
Tanja Srebotnjak
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Alternative Energy ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biomass Energy ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Energy Plant ◽  
Energy Projects ◽  
Alternative Investment

Native American reservations are among the most economically disadvantaged regions in the United States; lacking access to economic and educational opportunities that are exacerbated by “energy insecurity” due to insufficient connectivity to the electric grid and power outages. Local renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass offer energy alternatives but their implementation encounters barriers such as lack of financing, infrastructure, and expertise, as well as divergent attitudes among tribal leaders. Biomass, in particular, could be a source of stable base-load power that is abundant and scalable in many rural communities. This case study examines the feasibility of a biomass energy plant on the Cocopah reservation in southwestern Arizona. It considers feedstock availability, cost and energy content, technology options, nameplate capacity, discount and interest rates, construction, operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and alternative investment options. This study finds that at current electricity prices and based on typical costs for fuel, O&M over 30 years, none of the tested scenarios is presently cost-effective on a net present value (NPV) basis when compared with an alternative investment yielding annual returns of 3% or higher. The technology most likely to be economically viable and suitable for remote, rural contexts—a combustion stoker—resulted in a levelized costs of energy (LCOE) ranging from US$0.056 to 0.147/kWh. The most favorable scenario is a combustion stoker with an estimated NPV of US$4,791,243. The NPV of the corresponding alternative investment is US$7,123,380. However, if the tribes were able to secure a zero-interest loan to finance the plant’s installation cost, the project would be on par with the alternative investment. Even if this were the case, the scenario still relies on some of the most optimistic assumptions for the biomass-to-power plant and excludes abatement costs for air emissions. The study thus concludes that at present small-scale, biomass-to-energy projects require a mix of favorable market and local conditions as well as appropriate policy support to make biomass energy projects a cost-competitive source of stable, alternative energy for remote rural tribal communities that can provide greater tribal sovereignty and economic opportunities.

Utopias of One

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kotin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Original Research ◽  
The Soviet Union

This book is a new account of utopian writing. It examines how eight writers—Henry David Thoreau, W. E. B. Du Bois, Osip and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Anna Akhmatova, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and J. H. Prynne—construct utopias of one within and against modernity's two large-scale attempts to harmonize individual and collective interests: liberalism and communism. The book begins in the United States between the buildup to the Civil War and the end of Jim Crow; continues in the Soviet Union between Stalinism and the late Soviet period; and concludes in England and the United States between World War I and the end of the Cold War. In this way it captures how writers from disparate geopolitical contexts resist state and normative power to construct perfect worlds—for themselves alone. The book contributes to debates about literature and politics, presenting innovative arguments about aesthetic difficulty, personal autonomy, and complicity and dissent. It models a new approach to transnational and comparative scholarship, combining original research in English and Russian to illuminate more than a century and a half of literary and political history.

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