Assessing the Potential for Renewable Energy on Public Lands

This report represents an initial activity of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) proposed National Energy Policy Implementation Plan: identify and evaluate renewable energy resources on federal lands and any limitations on accessing them. Ultimately, BLM will prioritize land-use planning activities to increase industry's development of renewable energy resources. These resources include solar,biomass, geothermal, water, and wind energy. To accomplish this, BLM and the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) established a partnership to conduct an assessment of renewable energy resources on BLM lands in the western United States. The objective of this collaboration was to identify BLM planning units in the western states with the highest potential forprivate-sector development of renewable resources. The assessment resulted in the following findings: (1) 63 BLM planning units in nine western states have high potential for one or more renewable energy technologies; and (2) 20 BLM planning units in seven western states have high potential for power production from three or more renewable energy sources. This assessment report provides BLM withinformation needed to prioritize land-use planning activities on the basis of potential for the development of energy from renewable resources.