• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » ‘Land No One Else Wants’: The Global Transition From Old Energy to New

‘Land No One Else Wants’: The Global Transition From Old Energy to New

‘Land No One Else Wants’: The Transition From Old Energy to New
April 25, 2019
Bloomberg

For two decades, coal has been pulled from a Bent Mountain mine in eastern Kentucky. But in a startling move in the heart of coal country, a rival — solar — is preparing to move on to the land.

From Appalachia in the U.S. to Queensland in Australia and Chernobyl in Ukraine, solar and wind farms are being developed or built in places not normally associated with clean energy, and in some regions long resistant to it.

Slapping solar panels atop so-called brownfield sites, land that housed mines, emissions-belching power plants or were tarnished by nuclear disaster, can be cheaper than decontaminating the ground and turning it into parkland. At the same time, there’s the prospect of turning environmental foes into friends.

“We’re essentially turning these drains on a community into an asset,” said Chad Farrell, chief executive officer of Encore Renewable Energy, a Vermont-based developer that’s contemplating installing solar arrays at coal-ash ponds across Appalachia. “You’re not going to get a large revenue-generating asset on a former landfill.”

Solar is already established within the nuclear zone of Chernobyl, at a massive former coal-fired power plant in Canada, and at landfills and other brownfield sites throughout New England, where renewables are popular but land is at a premium. Meanwhile, BHP Group, the world’s biggest mining company, is working on permits and engineering plans to turn legacy sites in Arizona and New Mexico into solar and storage facilities.

“It’s emblematic of the transition from old forms of energy to new,” said Jacob Susman, a vice president at developer EDF.

Regions long dependent on traditional energy sources for jobs and tax revenue are increasingly turning to solar and wind power, cementing their push into the mainstream at a time when the coal industry is ailing. U.S. power produced from burning coal shrank by 6.3 percent in 2018, as almost 13 gigawatts of coal plants were closed, according to BloombergNEF. That’s second only to 2015 when 15 gigawatts of coal-fired plants were shuttered.

“It’s land no one else wants,” said Jenny Chase, a Zurich-based analyst at BloombergNEF.

In Queensland, Genex Power Ltd. is already producing enough energy for almost 26,500 homes from a 50-megawatt solar farm at the disused Kidston gold mine, where metal was discovered in the early 1900s and operations finally shuttered in 2001. Genex, which acquired the site from Barrick Gold Corp., plans to add a second, 270-megawatt solar array, a 250-megawatt pumped-hydro facility and a 150-megawatt wind operation.

Pumped Hydro

The pumped-hydro plant will utilize two existing mine pits, using off-peak solar or grid power to move water from a lower reservoir to a second, higher storage pool, and then release it during periods of peak demand to cascade over two turbines to produce power. During periods of generation, the site will provide enough power for about 280,000 homes, Genex executive director Simon Kidston said.

The Queensland transformation, meanwhile, could be modeled at other historic mining sites, according to Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corp., which provided debt funding to the project’s initial stage. At Australia’s former Drayton coal mine, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Sydney, Malabar Coal Ltd. is planning to develop a 25-megawatt solar farm.

In eastern Kentucky, active mining at the Bent Mountain site is slated to conclude in late summer, said Ian Krygowski, a development director at EDF Renewable Energy, which is developing a 100-megawatt solar farm there. The site, tucked among wooded mountains, will undergo reclamation work to make it a series of plateaus hospitable for solar.

Southwest Virginia

Next year, a modest 3.5-megawatt solar farm in southwest Virginia is slated to replace a mine that closed in 1957. Developer Sun Tribe Solar is collaborating on the project with several groups including regional environmental group Appalachian Voices on the project in Wise County.

“The land is so scarred from the extractive industries that have been the primary economic driver,” said Chelsea Barnes, a new economy program manager at Appalachian Voices. “It’s an important visual to show the region that it can still be energy-producing but in a way that doesn’t degrade the land and pollute the air.”

For the solar industry, building at sites of former power plants and some legacy mines is an opportunity to tap into existing grid infrastructure. But it’s also an acknowledgment of land limitations. Some places have limits on how much solar can be built in agricultural areas, said Chase of BNEF.

“The narrative has been that those green jobs are going someplace else,” Krygowski said. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Technology Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility Chemicals & Energy
KEYWORDS Asia Pacific Chemicals & Energy Europe North America sustainability Technology
  • Related Articles

    Why $100 a Barrel Oil Could Be Bad for the Energy Transition

    U.S. Battery Strategy Aims to Ease Transition From Coal

    China, the Biggest Buyer of America's Trash, Wants No More

Bloomberg

Global Oil Trade Shakes Up After Fires at U.S. Fuelmakers

More from this author

Wake up to live
“Supply Chains in Crisis”
updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • INTERIOR OF A CHICKEN FARM, WITH WHITE CHICKENS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

    Worst Avian Flu in U.S. History Is Hitting Poultry

    Food & Beverage
  • TWO FINGERS MANIPULATE WOODEN LETTER BLOCKS TO TURN FROM SHOWING THE WORD RECOVERY TO RESILIENCE

    Five Challenges to Supply Chain Resilience in 2023

    Supply Chain Visibility
  • A PERSON HOLDS UP A TABLET COMPUTER IN A WAREHOUSE, SUPER-IMPOSED BY A GRAPHIC SHOWING A COMPLEX WEB OF SUPPLY CHAIN ELEMENTS

    Three Post-Pandemic Actions for Repairing Global Supply Chains

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • A MAN IN A SUIT SHAKES HANDS WITH A WOMAN IN A HARD HAT, NEXT TO A STACK OF CONTAINERS

    Three Procurement Technology Evolutions for 2023

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
  • The blank stare of a child's eye who is standing behind what appears to be a wooden frame

    The Alarming Continued Rise of Modern Slavery in Supply Chains: How Procurement Can Help Reverse the Trend

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM

Digital Edition

Scb nov 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • New Revenue for Cloud-Based TMS that Embeds Orderful’s Modern EDI Platform

  • Convenience Store Client Maximizes Profit and Improves Customer Service

  • A Digitally Native Footwear Brand Finds Rapid Fulfillment

  • Expanding Apparel Brand Scales Seamlessly with E-Commerce Technology

  • How a Global LSP Scaled its Security Program and Won More Business

Visit Our Sponsors

Orderful Yang Ming Alithya
Barcoding Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics
CoEnterprise Data Capture Deposco
E2open GAINSystems Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Infor Inmar Keelvar
Kinaxis Korber Lean Solutions Group 2H
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Logility
LogistiVIEW Lucas Systems MCA Connect
MPO Nvidia Old Dominion
OpenText ORTEC Overhaul
Parsyl PMMI QIMA
Redwood Logistics Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics
Schneider Dedicated Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD
Shipwell Tecsys TGW Systems
Thomson Reuters Tive Trailer Bridge
Vecna Robotics Verity
Verusen
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2023 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing