Texas Is Getting Solar Panels. Environmentalists Can’t Stop It.
By Mary Beth Gahan
March 8, 2022
March 8, 2022
A solar facility on a 3,594-acre tract of land has environmental groups searching for a way to save what they consider a living museum
BROOKSTON, Tex. — In northeast Texas near the Oklahoma border, open space stretches for miles. On the surface, it looks like an ideal place to install solar panels.
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex 90 miles to the southwest is expanding at an extraordinary rate, and there is increasing demand for reliable, clean energy — especially in light of a failure of the electricity grid in the state last year. But a planned solar facility on a 3,594-acre tract of land outside Paris, Tex., has environmental groups searching for a way to save a property they consider a living museum. They’re coming up short. Just off Highway 82, a historical marker denotes the significance and gives the land a name. The Smiley-Woodfin Native Prairie Grassland is the largest remaining section of tall-grass prairie in the state. It has never been plowed and replaced by crops. Once the soil is disturbed by development, it will no longer be considered pristine prairie. “There are very, very few of these prehistoric landscapes left, and they really need to be preserved and protected,” said Matt White, the author of “Prairie Time.” “For one person to say ‘Okay, we’re going to erase this for profit’ is tone deaf, extremely shortsighted and downright selfish, actually.” The potential loss of the prairie is an extreme example of the tug of war between the need for renewable energy and |
the quest to protect natural landscapes. Groups on each side have a common goal of combating climate change, and although there is a disconnect in certain situations, some collaborations show that the two can work in tandem.
“Given that the build-out of renewable energy is going to require a lot of land, the questions then become: Where will we put these projects, and how do we do that in the most efficient and most ecologically sound way possible?” said Ciaran Clayton, the director of global media for the Nature Conservancy. The Smiley-Woodfin meadow is part of the tall-grass prairie system that stretches from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Manitoba, Canada. It is one of the most endangered ecosystems in North America. Less than 1 percent of it remains in Texas. The prairie is so important to environmentalists not only because it is home to dwindling populations of grassland birds and a breeding ground for Monarch butterflies, but also because it sequesters carbon. Prairie grasses pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store the gases in the soil and their roots at a higher rate than does Bermuda grass, a pasture grass that spreads easily and replaces prairie grass nationwide. |
Shortly after the Woodfin family sold the land for $5.8 million in 2019, the new owner, Lamar Ranch Ltd., signed a lease for the solar project. Mark Buster, Lamar Ranch’s managing member, was well within his right to do so. Despite the historical marker, there is no conservation easement on the land and regulation in such situations is nearly nonexistent in Texas.
“We have all been scratching our heads about what can be done,” said Kirsti Harms, the executive director of the Native Prairies Association of Texas. The project, called Mockingbird Solar Center, is being planned by Orsted, an energy company based in Denmark. The site will generate 400 megawatts of alternating current, enough to power 80,000 homes, according to its website. It is expected to be operational by 2024. Orsted said the project will contribute $25 million in local property taxes while it is underway. A solar lease usually lasts 20 to 30 years and pays an annual dollar amount per acre to the landowner. |
“We recognize the importance of this native prairie ecosystem,” said Daniel Willard, a biodiversity specialist at Orsted. “One of the best ways to protect biodiversity is the development of clean energy, and we are taking several steps to ensure that development is done in balance with nature.”
Although Orsted has not contacted the Native Prairies Association of Texas regarding this project, the company said it is working with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that animals such as coyotes and deer still have access to the land. Clayton said the Nature Conservancy is in the “early stages” of working with Orsted and that it is “hopeful that they will implement recommendations to minimize the impacts of the facility on the native prairie.” |
The Nature Conservancy debuted a tool in early February that could help avoid situations like this in the future. Site Renewables Right maps out areas in 19 states that the organization identified as best suited for solar panels and wind turbines. The area around the Smiley-Woodfin meadow is marked on the site as having “other biodiversity significance.” That includes silveus dropseed, a globally rare grass. It is also on the state’s birding trail and home to 25 native bee species.
“One solution we’ve identified is deploying renewable-energy projects on previously developed lands such as brownfields sites and former mine lands to minimize land-use conflicts that can cause delays and increase costs,” Clayton said. The installing of renewable-energy projects on prairies, which are appealing because there is no need to clear trees, has been addressed in other states. In May 2021, the Nature Conservancy in Michigan published a guide for planting native grasses around solar panels and said that a “mutually beneficial relationship” could occur. The paper also said the organization “discourages removing or altering landscapes with well-established natural areas that are already providing habitat for native pollinators or wildlife in order to install a solar array.” In Minnesota, solar companies must make a vegetation management plan available to the public and present their site management practices to the Board of Water and Soil Resources if they want to say a project is bird- and pollinator-friendly. |
Minnesota also is home to Fresh Energy’s Center for Pollinators in Energy, which helped develop a standard for vegetation on solar sites in the state — the nation’s first. More than a dozen states now use pollinator scorecards, but Texas is not one of them.
“Just like states look to standards, energy buyers can use those standards as well,” said Rob Davis of the electricity cooperative Connexus Energy, which participated in the short documentary “Pollinators, Prairie, and Power” last year. “Any of these big companies can say, ‘Hey, when we’re buying renewable energy, we want projects specifically that are done in a way that creates value for the local community, that use low-impact design, that avoid previously undisturbed lands like remnant prairies.’” One energy buyer, Salesforce, published a report titled “More Than a Megawatt” in October 2020. In it, the company laid out guidelines and questions that can be asked about a project to make sure best practices are being used to protect the land as renewables expand their footprint. The cloud software company made that initiative global in a commercial that aired during the Olympics and the Super Bowl. In it, the actor Matthew McConaughey journeys from space to earth. The ad was most likely a dig at billionaires who have participated in a new space race. “So while the others look to the Metaverse in Mars, let’s stay here and restore ours,” McConaughey says in the commercial. “ ’Cause the new frontier? It ain’t rocket science. It’s right here. |
3 Lessons for Financing Forest Conservation
By Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff
December 20, 2021
December 20, 2021
— There is a shortfall in the annual expenditure required to preserve the planet’s biodiversity.
— Without private investment dollars, this deficit is likely to persist indefinitely.
— Analyzing the challenges and opportunities associated with forest conservation finance can offer lessons for harnessing private investment capital for socially beneficial outcomes more generally.
— Without private investment dollars, this deficit is likely to persist indefinitely.
— Analyzing the challenges and opportunities associated with forest conservation finance can offer lessons for harnessing private investment capital for socially beneficial outcomes more generally.
The conservation movement, since its origins in the 19th century, has primarily relied on public funding and philanthropic contributions to achieve its ends. Global Canopy estimates that the total annual expenditure on conservation to date has been $50 billion, of which more than 80% was from governmental and philanthropic sources. Ecosystem Marketplace similarly estimates the annual flows of private investment dollars into conservation in the low billions of dollars, with the bulk of these funds going to sustainable food and fiber rather than habitat conservation.
In November 2021 at COP26, a collective $12 billion for forest-related climate finance between 2021-2025 was announced with the support of 11 nations. Yet, all these expenditures lag significantly behind the annual expenditures needed to preserve the planet’s biodiversity, estimated by Credit Suisse, McKinsey & Co and the World Wildlife Fund to be between $300 and $400 billion. Without private investment dollars, this shortfall is likely to persist indefinitely. |
Combining conservation goals and private investments, a variety of factors has led to fresh approaches to the ownership and management of forestland, but the barriers to successfully achieving attractive financial returns and desirable social outcomes can be daunting. The challenges and opportunities associated with forest conservation finance illustrate some of the issues with harnessing private investment capital to address socially beneficial outcomes more generally.
Interest in a third source of capital for conservation finance has swelled and there are a number of reasons why this is seen as an opportunity by investors. There are a number of reasons for the growing interest in conservation finance from the private sector. Investors of private capital are increasingly looking for “real” assets, as they provide diversification from corporate and government securities that dominate investment portfolios and fit long-term investors’ time horizons. |
THE WORLD HAS LOST ONE-THIRD OF ITS FOREST
It also reflects a growing appetite for impact investing – a style of investing that has experienced double-digit growth in the past decade. Impact investors look for investment opportunities that produce both social and financial gains. Impact investing, with its focus on privately held assets, is related to but distinct from ESG (environmental, social and governance) focused investing, which typically focuses on public securities.
At the same time, there are some substantial challenges that forest conservation finance must overcome to achieve widespread adoption. The first of these is convincingly establishing that these investments can achieve an attractive return – however that is defined – while remaining true to its conservation objectives. Almost inevitably, a contradiction exists between the conservation objectives and the financial return maximization. As a result, the annual returns targeted by non-profit project sponsors have been very modest (with the mast majority under 5%) and those by for-profit sponsors only somewhat less so (with the bulk between 5% and 10%). A second challenge has been structuring the investment opportunities in a way that can attract institutional funding. FINANCING FOREST CONSERVATION To scale and successfully implement forest conservation finance, there are three lessons we can distill from analysis of financial offerings to date: 1. The inherent trade-offs between risk and return deserve thoughtful discussion and analysis The appeal of “doing well while doing good” is undeniable, but in their enthusiasm for harnessing investment capital |
for socially beneficial purposes, advocates of impact investment sometimes elide over the fact that the pursuit of social benefits may adversely affect financial returns. While we are optimistic that a middle-ground of projects with financial and impact characteristics that are attractive to a set of investors will emerge, the inherent trade-offs deserve thoughtful discussion and analysis.
2. Enough scale must be created to broaden the pool of investment One defining characteristic of the investment world is the uneven distribution of capital. And large pools of capital almost by definition must write large cheques. Moreover, even the involvement of intermediaries, such as rating agencies and investment banks, requires a minimum efficient scale. The cases highlight a major challenge for an emerging asset class such as forest conservation finance: the rewards of scale. 3. Pioneers can have enormous positive spillovers in legitimizing an asset class Success in these new investment classes requires a simultaneous ability to navigate the financial and environmental worlds, to educate as well as to invest, and to resist the “easy way out” that can lead to compromising these goals. This combination of skills is certainly not commonplace but pioneers in this space illustrate the power of the positive. As this essay makes clear, there are undoubtedly substantial challenges in “fitting in” forest conservation finance with the impact investment model. But given the urgency of the climate and biodiversity challenges facing the planet, solving these issues is of high importance. |
A Bipartisan Approach to Reduce Emissions on Working Lands
The Growing Climate Solutions Act recognizes the role played by farmers, ranchers, and foresters in the fight against climate change.
By Michael Obeiter, Senior Director
Federal Climate Strategy
April 21, 2021
Federal Climate Strategy
April 21, 2021
Policies to promote natural climate solutions—actions that restore or enhance the capacity for trees and plants to absorb and sequester carbon pollution—are attracting a lot of attention from both sides of the aisle. There’s a good reason for that, as these policies are often win-win: they’re good for the climate, and they’re good for the local economy. When you add in the potential for habitat conservation and restoration, they’re good for birds too.
Enter the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021, reintroduced in the senate this week by lead sponsors Mike Braun (R-IN) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), along with several of their colleagues from both parties. As with last year’s version, the bill directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help expand, harmonize, and add structure to the existing patchwork of voluntary greenhouse gas offset markets around the country. It’s a bipartisan approach that recognizes the vital role our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners play in the fight against climate change. The bill would also lay the groundwork for new sources of revenue to flow to local economies in rural areas. Greenhouse gas offset markets allow companies that emit greenhouse gases to purchase credits to offset their own emissions. The money from the sale of those credits directly supports measures like cover cropping, prescribed grazing, and reforestation that either reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, or remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it in soil and biomass. Critical to the success of the bill are provisions that ensure any emissions reductions are permanent, and the measures implemented under the auspices of the bill are additional to what producers were already doing. Importantly for Audubon, the bill also includes avoided conversion of grasslands, forests, and wetlands as eligible activities for the generation of offsets, which will help slow habitat loss for countless species of birds and other wildlife. Of course, this bill is merely a start; a necessary, but incomplete blueprint for reducing some greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture andPolicies to promote natural climate solutions—actions that restore or enhance the capacity for trees and plants to absorb and sequester carbon pollution—are attracting a lot of attention from both sides of the aisle. There’s a good reason for that, as these policies are often win-win: they’re good for the climate, and they’re good for the local economy. When you add in the potential for habitat conservation and restoration, they’re good for birds too. Enter the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021, reintroduced in the senate this week by lead sponsors Mike Braun (R-IN) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), along with several of their colleagues from both parties. As with last year’s version, the bill directs the U.S. Department of |
Agriculture (USDA) to help expand, harmonize, and add structure to the existing patchwork of voluntary greenhouse gas offset markets around the country. It’s a bipartisan approach that recognizes the vital role our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners play in the fight against climate change. The bill would also lay the groundwork for new sources of revenue to flow to local economies in rural areas.
Greenhouse gas offset markets allow companies that emit greenhouse gases to purchase credits to offset their own emissions. The money from the sale of those credits directly supports measures like cover cropping, prescribed grazing, and reforestation that either reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, or remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it in soil and biomass. Critical to the success of the bill are provisions that ensure any emissions reductions are permanent, and the measures implemented under the auspices of the bill are additional to what producers were already doing. Importantly for Audubon, the bill also includes avoided conversion of grasslands, forests, and wetlands as eligible forestry sectors. But the bill's sponsors deserve credit for coming up with ways to ensure that the stewards of our working lands are part of the solution to the climate crisis, and for growing the support for this bill substantially in less than a year. Alongside clean energy and economy-wide solutions like carbon pricing, natural climate solutions are an important part of solving the climate puzzle and helping safeguard the survival of the two-thirds of North American bird species vulnerable to extinction from climate change. We urge the Congress to vote on the Growing Climate Solutions Act, which would facilitate and enable more of these types of projects. |
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The National Grazing Lands Coalition (NatGLC) is dedicated to providing voluntarily ecologically and economically sound management of all grazing lands for their adaptive uses and multiple benefits to the environment and society through science-based technical assistance, research and education.
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Stanford University's Precourt Institute for Energy concentrates the talents of the university on energy research and education, from basic science and technology to policy and business. They disseminate research results and help the university develop energy-literate leaders as part of its educational mission. They also build collaborations globally with industry, other research institutions, government and civic organizations in pursuit of sustainable, affordable, secure energy for all people.
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Valuation of Ecosystem Services
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This video is a part of Conservation Strategy Fund's collection of environmental economics lessons and was made possible thanks to the support of Jon Mellberg and family. This series is for people who want to learn - or review - the economics of conservation. The Valuation series will look at the process of estimating the value of an ecosystem. This video will look at the difference between indirect, direct, bequest, existence and option use and non-use values of ecosystem services.
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