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Landfill to Become Next Urban Solar Project

Hopatcong, New Jersey has become yet another city to realize the potential of tarnished urban land for solar power generation. For some time, the focus of large-scale renewable energy production was solely on remote landscapes, especially in the desert southwest. Environmental opposition and lengthy transmission hurdles have many cities now looking inward for swaths of land (and rooftops) large enough to support solar power production.

In New Jersey, where lack of remote land may be the biggest issue, officials in Hopatcong have approved a former 23-acre landfill for use as a solar power generation plant. It is brilliant use of otherwise useless land, more commonly known as brownfields.

Officials there will now begin solicitation of solar developers for plans on how to best utilize the land for a solar farm. There is also talk of making the local school district the primary recipient of the resulting clean energy.

Brownfields pepper nearly every city in America. As this New Jersey plan comes to fruition, let it be yet another bastion of the potential of urban solar farms for delivering clean solar power where it's needed most. Let us first develop renewable energy on land that has already been tainted by industry and development, as opposed to the pristine lands that make up our vast deserts and wildernesses.

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