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Imagine large-scale solar-power plants being built across the Sonoran Desert, along with power lines up to 300 feet high, to export the sun's power to the rest of the West.

That's the ambition of an idea the Western Governors Association and the federal government are studying — to make Arizona a solar-energy "colony" for 11 other states, two Canadian provinces and Baja California.

The governors are also looking at the other states and how much of the West's land could be set aside to build huge plants and other facilities producing sun and wind power and other renewable energy forms — and to build power lines to carry it across the West.

Solar advocates like to say Arizona and the Southwest have enough sunshine to power all the nation, so the idea carries promise for them.

"If they identify areas for lines that can be sited sensitively and meet the regulations for transmission lines, this is very helpful," said Joseph Simmons, co-director of the Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy at the University of Arizona.

But the proposal has environmentalists — and other activists who generally support solar energy — wary about trade-offs.

They want renewable energy but worry about power lines of skyscraper height spilling across the desert to feed other states' hunger for "clean" energy.

"Where do people think renewable energy will come from? The renewable energy fairy? No, it will have to come from transmission lines," said Elizabeth Webb, a Vail-area resident who successfully fought construction of a proposed Tucson Electric Power power line and substation in that area last year.

The study ranks Arizona first among all the Western states studied in its potential for solar power — 22,109 megawatts in the renewable zones.

Arizona ranked fourth after New Mexico, California and British Columbia in potential for producing all forms of renewable energy — 25,669 megawatts.

A megawatt from non-renewable sources such as coal can serve about 275 homes. The same unit of solar power will serve fewer homes because it isn't available 24 hours a day, utility experts say.

A square mile of desert covered with solar panels can furnish about 100 megawatts of power, says the Western Governors Association, whose $1 million study is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Although the governors aren't focusing on a particular solar technology, one that is commonly talked about is the construction of large, utility-scale plants employing concentrated solar-power systems. They use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam where the sun power can then heat liquids used to generate power.

The Western Governors Association says the power lines could range from 60 to almost 300 feet high — approaching the height of a 30-story building.

Although some solar power produced in Arizona would likely be earmarked for our state, the study's larger purpose is to examine the potential for shipping across state lines.

"The idea is to try to put more renewable energy in the system as a whole," said Rich Halvey, energy program director for the governors association.

Once the study is finished, probably this year, the association will use it to work with utilities and regulators to propose power plant and transmission projects, Halvey said. Decisions about what to build will still be made by individual state corporation commissions and other regulators.

Two factors are driving this idea, Halvey said. One is that many states are requiring utilities to produce a certain percentage of energy with renewables — in Arizona's case, 15 percent by 2025.

The other is that solar power doesn't produce greenhouse gases, which many states such as California are trying to limit because they're linked to global warming.

At the same time, the governors are trying to minimize the possibility of major environmental degradation, by saying energy should not be created on sensitive lands such as national parks, monuments, wilderness and wildlife refuges.

But because the study doesn't spell out how much power any state should be expected to produce, there's no way to know today whether it is possible to locate solar plants only on degraded lands such as abandoned farmland, said an Arizona Game and Fish Department official.

The most critical concern is to avoid fragmenting wildlife habitats, said Josh Avey, Game and Fish's habitat branch chief.

"If we are going to develop the solar industry in the state, is there a way to do it so as to concentrate that development pressure and not have those impacts extend into the landscape?" Avey asked.

Environmentalists Matt Skroch and Kieran Suckling said the energy production should be contained to lands already damaged ecologically, such as mine tailings and urban areas.

"We think there are enough private lands and checkerboarded and degraded public lands out there to do this. Look at the miles and miles of trashed desert between Tucson and Phoenix along I-10. That stuff will never grow back," said Suckling, director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity.

Tucson Electric Power is happy to see further exploration of available solar resources, if only because that could inspire confidence among investors to support renewable-energy development in this state, said its spokesman, Joe Salkowski.

But even if new power lines are kept out of sensitive lands, they will always draw controversy over how they look, said a Santa Cruz County resident who has intervened in utility power-line issues before the Arizona Corporation Commission.

"The first law of power-line siting is 'use what is there first,' " said Marshall Magruder of Tubac. "They may need to go from single- to double-circuit lines, from three to six wires, but that is a heckuva lot easier than building in some whole new transmission corridor where someone will get upset."

On StarNet: For more stories about solar power and other things that have an effect on the environment, visit azstarnet.com/environment