New Google Earth Maps Show Where Renewable Energy Projects Can Be Built

The maps, covering protected areas in 13 western states, are available for the public to view

The National Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have created maps --using Google Earth-- of restricted lands and sensitive wildlife areas in the western U.S., to help plan development projects by avoiding such areas.

Two environmental groups have teamed up with Google in an effort to help steer renewable energy development away from sensitive areas, by utilizing Google Earth maps.

The National Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council on Wednesday unveiled the new tool –which is called the Path to Green Energy– and it’s available for the public to use.

“We need to deploy clean energy on an unprecedented scale,” said David Bercovich, Google.org Program Manager. “As we decide where to build renewable energy generation plants and transmission lines, it’s essential that we protect irreplaceable wildlife and landscapes while making it as easy as possible for developers to build these projects.

The new maps pulled together endangered species habitats, national parks and other forms of protected land from 13 western states and loaded all the data on Google Earth.

The analysis covers about 860 million acres, about half the land area of the lower 48 states in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

There are currently 128 million acres, or 15 percent of the mapped out areas, that are protected. More than two-thirds of the protected areas occur in just six of the 13 states: Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah...

See Full Article: New Google Earth Maps Show Where Renewable Energy Projects Can Be Built

Posted using ShareThis