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Floating solar gains popularity in US, more evidence links air pollution to mental health problems, and some fear solar farms threaten the Mojave Desert.
Floating solar gaining popularity as unconventional US energy source
For the small, working-class community of Cohoes, New York, climate change and costly energy prices are posing increasing concerns, just as they are for cities and towns across the country.
Now, Cohoes, just 10 miles north of the state’s capital city of Albany, is poised to take an unconventional step toward addressing those concerns by constructing what experts say is the first – or one of the first – municipally-owned and operated floating solar installations in the United States.
The town plans to install a 3.2-megawatt floating array of solar panels on its 10-acre municipal water reservoir; construction is due to start later this year.
“We have almost no buildable land [within Cohoes],” said Theresa Bourgeois, the town’s director of operations. “But we really wanted to figure out how we could do this within the city.” Floating solar became the obvious solution, she said.
Cohoes projects the floating solar installation will generate enough energy to power the entire town of roughly 17,000 people. In all, the project will cost the city about $6 million, and the town is hoping that new provisions in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act will provide some funding.
Japan has about 80% of the world’s floating solar capacity, and other countries in Asia and the Middle East have also been quick to adopt floating solar, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Floating solar is far less common in the US, but adaptation appears to be on the rise. Before 2016, only two projects had been installed, but the number grew to over 20 by the end of 2020, according to NREL. The largest projects are concentrated in California and Florida. (Read the rest of the story.)
More evidence linking air pollution to mental health problems, study finds
Long-term exposure to a cocktail of common air pollutants, even at low levels, is associated with increased risk for depression and anxiety, according to a new study published this week.
The study, which followed more than 389,000 adults in the UK for more than a decade, adds to growing research examining the relationship between air quality and mental health, and supports calls from health and environmental advocates for urgent action to address air pollution.
People living in areas where the air contains higher levels of nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other harmful particulate matter were at greater risk for being diagnosed with depression or anxiety over the course of the study. The nitrogen contaminants primarily get into the air from the burning of fuel, including from emissions produced by vehicles and power plants.
Notably, the results pointed to elevated anxiety and depression risk even at levels of air pollution considered acceptable by UK air quality standards, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry.
“Our findings warrant that more strict air quality standards on a globe scale should be adopted based on the new [World Health Organization (WHO)] guidelines to alleviate the disease burden of depression and anxiety related to multiple air pollutants,” Jing Huang and Guoxing Li, researchers at the Peking University Health Science Center in China and two authors of the study, said in an email to The New Lede.
The fact that researchers found mental health effects at air pollution levels considered safe by both the UK and US governments is particularly worrisome, according to Clara Zundel, a postdoctoral researcher at Wayne State University in Michigan and an author of a recent review on air pollution and mental health.
“The first thing that jumped out at me was that [the authors] are actually finding effects at much lower levels of air pollution than have previously been reported,” Zundel said. (Read the rest of the story.)
Postcard from California: The Mojave Desert should not be a solar sacrifice zone
The Mojave Desert is a national treasure: a crucial habitat for thousands of indicator species, including the bighorn sheep and desert tortoises that are supposed to be protected under federal law, and the fantastical Joshua tree, found almost nowhere else on earth. In Southern California, the Mojave encompasses two iconic national parks and the country’s largest national preserve.
In recent years, newcomers fleeing Los Angeles have disrupted the Mojave, crowding the parks and special places, trampling fragile landscapes, fueling exurban sprawl, and displacing longtime residents. And now some who cherish the desert fear it is being sacrificed to the urgency of the climate crisis.
Throughout the Mojave, which reaches into Nevada, Arizona and Utah, construction of “utility-scale” solar power plants is booming.
These solar “farms,” as their developers call them, are arrays of photovoltaic panels that can cover thousands of acres and generate enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes. Most of the power is sold to big utilities.
In the California part of the Mojave alone, at least 50 solar plants have been built, approved or proposed. Some are on private, state or tribal lands; others are on or near federal lands earmarked to preserve biodiversity, open space or cultural heritage.
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has opened more than 1 million acres of public land in the Mojave to potential solar development. Last month, the BLM proposed a major expansion of designated solar zones on public lands, including the Mojave, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and the Escalante Desert in Utah.
To meet its goal of 100% clean electricity by 2045, California must quadruple its use of solar and wind power. The Biden Administration’s goal is to get 45% of US electricity from solar by 2050. Both state and federal policy prioritize the rapid buildout of utility-scale solar over solar panels on individual rooftops. (Read the rest of the opinion column.)