Squeezing Juice from Brownfields

Communities across the country are trying to reuse contaminated brownfields as sites for the production of clean energy.

1 minute read

July 3, 2011, 5:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg

"Among the successfully completed brown-to-green projects are a wind farm at the former Bethlehem Steel Mill in Lackawanna, New York; a concentrating solar photovoltaic array on the tailings pile of a former molybdenum mine in Questa, New Mexico; solar panels powering the cleanup systems at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Superfund site in northern California; and the U.S. Army's largest solar array atop a former landfill in Fort Carson, Colorado.

'It's an untapped opportunity to not just deliver cleanup to some of these contaminated or previously contaminated sites, but to recycle our industrial legacy in making progress toward a cleaner energy future,' said Chase Huntley, a policy advisor on energy and climate change for the nonprofit Wilderness Society."

Sites like Philadelphia's Navy Yard are being reused to host small-scale solar power plants and other energy producing uses.

FULL STORY: Brown to Green: A New Use For Blighted Industrial Sites

Thursday, June 23, 2011 in Yale Environment 360

Energy Environment Land Use United States Renewable Energy Philadelphia Brownfields Solar Fields View More

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Get top-rated, practical training

Start Learning

Advertise with us

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.