ENVIRONMENTAL GAINS ARE UNDERWAY
Why Is This Important?
The environmental quality of a region affects the well being of the residents, as well as helps shape the region’s economic prosperity for decades to come. Residential and commercial choices about transportation behavior, flows of goods and services, and land use greatly influence these generation long trends. Land conversion and preservation provides an important window from which to view changing economic and environmental dynamics, and illustrates how economic and environmental prosperity can be achieved in tandem.
Shifting from carbon-based energy to renewable sources also has the potential for wide-reaching impact on our environmental quality and the creation of economic opportunity. The adoption of clean and renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, can begin to reshape our environmental impact immediately, and put us on a long term road toward climate prosperity.
How Are We Doing?
Over the last 13 years, agricultural land has seen a net decrease of 6,188 acres in the conversion of land between agricultural land and urban & built-up land. The net loss of agricultural land was the greatest in the 2002 to 2004 period in which agricultural land experienced a net loss of 1,731 acres. The net loss of agricultural land has decreased 76 percent since the 2002 to 2004 period.
Most recently in the 2006 to 2008 period, 496 acres of agricultural land were converted to urban & built-up land and 74 acres of urban & built-up land were converted to agricultural land - a net loss of 422 acres of agricultural land. The recent highs for conversions to both agricultural land and urban & built-up land came in the 2000 to 2002 period in which 2,739 acres of agricultural land were converted urban & built-up land and 1,504 acres of urban & built-up land were converted to agricultural land. From this time period to the present, the conversion of agricultural land to urban & built-up land has experienced a decrease of 82 percent, while the conversion of urban & built-up land to agricultural land has declined 95 percent since the same time period.
Solano County’s solar energy portfolio is rapidly growing. As of November 2009, Vallejo and Suisun City led in solar capacity added through the California Solar Initiative; 1,042 kilowatts (kW) and 1,024 kW respectively. Vacaville is also a bright spot. In July 2009 it was ranked second among medium-sized cities for the total amount of wattage generated by solar panels in town by the Northern California Energy Association. In the same month, Suisun City added 1,000 kW over the prior year, which was the greatest addition to solar capacity in the county. Meanwhile, 746kW of solar generation were installed by Solano County in 2009.
Other achievements in solar generation came in 2007 when Meyer, a manufacturer of cookware and kitchen products, installed a 580 kW solar generator and the Alza Corporation, a pharmaceutical and medical delivery systems firm, installed a 1 MW solar generator. Recently in 2009, Budweiser (an Anheuser-Busch brewery) installed a 1.2 MW solar generator. Similarly plans to install a 1 MW solar array in Vacaville were announced by Novartis, a biopharmaceutical company, in October 2009. This installation will provide at least 20 percent of the facility's electricity needs.
Wind energy is also becoming prevalent in Solano County and has great potential. Since 1982, Solano County has installed roughly 600 MW of wind generation capacity. Conversely as an example, the average coal-fired power plant generates 500 MW. Wind generation is particularly promising in Solano County. California Department of Energy research suggests that Solano County has some of the most powerful non-coastal wind in Northern California. This combined with Solano County’s proximity to the State’s transmission lines provides the county with a distinctive opportunity in wind energy generation. Solano County has some of the most powerful non-coastal wind in Northern California. This combined with Solano County’s proximity to the State’s transmission lines provides the county with a distinctive opportunity in wind energy generation.