The RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative encourages development of renewable energy on potentially contaminated land when it aligns with the community’s vision for the site.
“We see responsible renewable energy development on contaminated lands and landfills as a win-win-win for the nation, local communities and the environment,” Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response assistant administrator Mathy Stanislaus said.
“In President Obama’s Climate Action Plan the administration set a goal to double renewable electricity generation by 2020.
“By identifying the renewable energy potential of contaminated sites across the country, these screen results are a good step toward meeting national renewable energy goals in order to address climate change while also cleaning up and revitalizing contaminated lands in our communities.”
The updated screening provides insight into the significant potential for renewable energy generation on contaminated lands and landfills nationwide.
For solar energy alone, the EPA identified more than 10,000 contaminated sites with the potential to install a 300 kilowatt solar array or greater.
Based on the mapped acreage, these sites could cumulatively host solar energy systems that capture greater than 30 times more solar energy than all renewable systems operating in the US today.
Since RE-Powering’s inception, more than 70 renewable energy projects have been installed on contaminated lands or landfills. Those projects represent more than 200 megawatts of installed capacity.
In other EPA news, the agency also has released updates for oil and gas standards for storage tanks.
The updates will phase in emission control deadlines, starting with higher-emitting tanks first and provide the time needed to ramp up the production and installation of controls.
The oil and natural gas industry uses tanks to temporarily store crude oil, condensate and other liquids before those liquids are moved to a pipeline, sold or moved for disposal.
Those storage tanks can be sources of emissions of ozone-forming volatile organic compounds, along with several toxic air pollutants including benzene.
Storage tanks emitting six or more tons of VOCs a year must reduce emissions by 95%.
The updated rule establishes two emission control deadlines.
Tanks that come online after April 12 are likely to have higher emissions and must control VOC emissions within 60 days or by April 15 2014, whichever is later.
Tanks that come online before April 12 are likely to have lower emissions. They have to control their VOC emissions by April 15.
The updated standards also establish an alternative emissions limit that would allow owner-operators to remove controls from tanks if they can show the tanks emit less than 4t per year.
