There might be a credit crunch, but that’s not stopping solar companies from trying to lay claim to millions of acres of desert real estate. The federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a 78 percent jump in the number of solar energy project applications since it reversed a controversial decision last July and started to accept applications again. The number of applications has risen to 223 from 125. The applicants are vying to build solar power plants that are 10 megawatts or larger in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, according to the BLM data provided by Andrew Malone in the agency’s public affairs office. In all, these projects would occupy 2.3 million acres. It’s difficult to say what the total power generation capacity that has been proposed is since some developers have yet to specify that information on their applications. Many of the proposals call for building projects with hundreds of megawatts of generation capacities. ‘I didn’t realize they had gotten that many,’ said David Briery, a spokesman for BLM’s Desert District in California. Briery isn’t so surprised by the high number of projects being proposed in his district, home to […]