You know what day it is, Thursday! That means another renewable energy roundup (the most ecofriendly of all roundups.) This week we talk about geothermal energy in Nevada, and the unlikely development of Wal-Mart’s (yes that Wal-Mart) solar plans.

First up the biggest nastiest retailer on the block, Wal-Mart, may be dipping its toes (heck its whole leg) into the the solar pool. It seems the big box retailer may be putting as much as 100 MW(!!) of solar on its various flat (huge) roofs. In comparison googles solar system is only going to be 1.6 MW.

from here

The company put out an RFP (request for proposal) last month to solar electric suppliers and expects to receive responses early this month, according to a representative. The move is part of a long-term plan to convert to renewable energy sources.

Wal-Mart is keeping the details of the proposal under wraps as the process is still ongoing.

However, one person who saw the proposal said that if completed, it could amount to a significantly large installation–on the order of 100 megawatts of power over the next five years.

“To put that into perspective, the solar system currently being installed at Google headquarters in California–the largest single corporate solar installation in history–is 1.6 MW, about 1/60th the size,” wrote Joel Makower, a clean-technology consultant who saw the proposal but is not bidding on it.

Makower said the Wal-Mart proposal called for a system that could be replicated across its stores in five states and make use of available roofing space.

Wal-Mart has set up experimental stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colo. These stores are already using renewable power sources, including solar and wind.

This makes for a perfect business model, they can use there huge ass parking lots for wind farms (cars park in between the turbines) and the big ass roofs for solar fields. If they could offset a significant amount of there rather large energy bills, they could offer even lower prices without building any more sweat shops. Now all we have to do is convince them to pay the workers a fair wage.

And lastly Nevada has been getting its geothermal shit together as of late and plans on quadrupling its geothermal energy output this year.

From here

A new report from the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) concludes that Nevada is now on-track to be producing over 1000 MW of geothermal power — quadrupling its current geothermal output — over the next 3 to 5 years. This level of geothermal production would meet roughly 25% of the state’s total power needs.

“A combination of federal and state policies have propelled substantial new geothermal power development in Nevada,” according to Dan Fleischmann, author of this new report, entitled “Geothermal Resource Development in Nevada — 2006.” His analysis concludes that this dramatic success is due to four major factors:

(1) the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS);
(2) the extension of the federal production tax credit (PTC) to include geothermal energy;
(3) the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) efforts to reduce its leasing backlog
(4) the Department of Energy’s (DOE)support for cost- shared drilling, technical assistance, and the work of the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy at the University of Nevada Reno.

The report identifies up to 29 new geothermal power projects now under development in Nevada. The report finds that new power plants would produce as much as 853 MW. When completed, these new plants will quadruple the existing 276.4 MW capacity from Nevada’s currently operating 15 power plants. With over 1100 MW, Nevada would be generating more power than most of the 25 countries producing geothermal energy today. Only the US and the Philippines produce more.

In addition to geothermal power, the report also identifies new geothermal space and district heating projects in Elko, Fernley, and Reno and two new alternative fuels projects using geothermal energy. A bio-diesel plant is slated to commence operation in the first quarter of 2007 in Wabuska using geothermal resources for both power and heat. Also drilling for the so-called “Gerlach Green Energy Project” recently began at Gerlach. Developers say this Geothermal-ethanol project may create up to 250 Nevadan jobs.

The GEA report is based upon interviews with over 60 leading experts in the geothermal field in the United States, more than 40 of whom have worked specifically with geothermal energy in Nevada. State and federal officials, researchers, utilities, industry representatives, land developers, and clean energy advocates were among the wide range of individuals
interviewed.

The nice thing about Geothermal energy is that if used correctly it is just as renewable as the sun or the wind.