A subsidiary of Goldman Sachs & Co. (NYSE: GS) is sitting on claims for nearly half of the U.S. lands offered for solar development in Nevada by the Bureau of Land Management, according to an Associated Press story.
Cogentrix, which has yet to develop a solar plant anywhere in the U.S. or abroad, reportedly has no firm plans for developing the sites.
BLM issued land leases in a first-come-first-serve manner five years ago. It was the first time the agency had ventured into leasing for solar, and that inexperience is part of the reason why those lands do not host even a single solar installation yet. The agency apparently wasn’t equipped to determine which application proposals were serious.
"Goldman Sachs was one of the first applicants to dot the map with potential projects, and since then they haven’t moved on any of them," Gregory Helseth, the BLM’s new renewable energy project manager in southern Nevada, told AP. "You can’t hold the land forever. You can’t be a prospector and hope somebody down the road wants to buy."
Read the full story at the link below.
Loading...