Overview

Through the RE-Powering America's Lands Initiative1, the U.S. EPA promotes the reuse of potentially contaminated properties, landfills, and mining sites for renewable energy generation. EPA has identified several benefits for siting solar photovoltaics (PV) facilities on potentially contaminated lands and municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, noting that these sites: May provide an economically viable reuse for sites that may have significant cleanup costs or low real estate development demand; May have environmental conditions that are not well suited for commercial or residential redevelopment; Can be developed in place of limited open space, preserving the land as a carbon sink and/or for other ecosystem services; Generally are located near existing roads and energy transmission or distribution infrastructure; May be adequately zoned for renewable energy; Can provide job opportunities in urban and rural communities; Can advance cleaner and more cost effective energy technologies; and May reduce the environmental impacts of energy systems (e.g., reduce greenhouse gas emissions). 2 EPA has screened more than 11,000 potentially contaminated sites and MSW landfills3 - covering nearly 15 million acres across the United States - for suitability to site renewable energy generation facilities, including utility-scale solar. Maps depicting the locations of these EPA tracked sites and their potential for supporting renewable energy generation can be found at: www.epa.gov/oswercpa/mapping_tool.htm. These maps enable users to view screening results for various renewable energy technologies at each site. In 1988, before municipal solid waste regulations in 40 CFR 258 were promulgated, there were an estimated 7,924 landfills in the U.S. In 2009, that number dropped to 1,908 landfills. The landfills that closed over the intervening years-plus portions of active landfills with closed cells-represent thousands of acres of real property that may be suitable for siting solar PV. At least one study estimates the area of closed landfills to be hundreds of thousands of acres. As part of the EPA mapping effort, over 1,600 of the country's landfills have been pre-screened for renewable energy potential.

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