The latest scheme coming from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office is to transform the many garbage dumps around New York into solar energy farms.
Solar Energy
PlaNYC for a Greater Greener NYC
The plan is just one more part of the ongoing “Greater, Greener” sustainability plan, an all-encompassing project which at the moment contains 132 initiatives designed to improve the basics of life in New York, from improving air quality by cutting down on oil use to a scheme for loans towards more energy efficiency, and cleaning up and developing “brownfield” sites, which is vacant land which has been neglected due to the fact that the land is in some way polluted or contaminated.
Roofs, Dumps and Landfills to be Used for Energy
These initiatives are all part of PlaNYC, whose ultimate goal is to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions of New York by at least 30% before the year 2030. The city will go partners with private firms and together will build more than 60 megawatts of solar energy on roofs, and to also create large scale solar-heating facilities in former garbage dumps, landfills and other city-land throughout town.
“City landfills can accommodate more than 50 MW of solar power on only a small fraction of available land,” the PlanNYC report states. “Installing solar power at these sites could significantly improve local air quality by reducing generation at the city’s dirtiest plants during periods of peak summer demand.”
Grant Money to Help Things Along
In order to insure that PlaNYC’s deadline of 2015 for the creation of 15 solar PV and solar thermal facilities will be met, there is a $125 million renewable energy management program grant being utilized to meet that goal.
Mayor Bloomberg said,
“PlaNYC is our agenda for a greener, greater New York that will help guide our city to a better future. . . we’ve come an incredibly long way toward our goals, and now, together, we’re finding new ways to accelerate our progress.”
