Posted on 06/26/2020 8:33:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
A $1 billion solar plant approved in 2011 never delivered what it promised and closed last year.
Solar farms are the new frontier in energy, with falling costs and myriad benefits.
A combination of terrible management and simple technological advancement turned the plant into a dinosaur.
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Bloomberg reports that a planned $1 billion solar plant was out of date and obsolete before it could even be completed. The Crescent Dunes plant opened outside of Las Vegas in 2015, when its technology was already behind, and the solar boom since then has completely eclipsed it. Now, the closed and abandoned plant is the subject of huge ongoing lawsuits.
In a way, Crescent Dunes was like the Elon Musk dream solar farm of its heyday after construction was approved in 2011. It covers about 1,500 acres with thousands of mirrors that heat a central molten salt tower. In 2011, a handful of companies presented plans for the plant and received over $700 million in government loan guarantees.
The tower was the work of SolarReserve Inc., and the rest of the plant was designed and built by ACS Cobra. SolarReserve’s website isn’t online as I write this, and more than one of its projects has ended in the possibility of bankruptcy.
Even at peak operation, “[i]ts power cost [Nevada] about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh today at a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm,” Bloomberg writes. That’s not necessarily a reflection on the structure or management at Crescent Dunes, but a reflection on how rapidly the price of solar technology has fallen.
The total cost of Crescent Dunes was $1 billion for a promised 110 megawatts on 1,500 acres. Now, the Trump administration is approving a $1 billion plant that will make 690 megawatts on over 7,000 acres. The solar dollar is going a lot further in 2020.
From the beginning, Crescent Dunes generated buzz and controversy alike. In 2011, solar had much less of a public profile than it does now, and approving ambitious solar projects could seem like tilting at windmills. But the Department of Energy (DoE), whose overall portfolio includes $38 billion in projects in the same vein as Crescent Dunes, invests in a variety of projects at all stages.
The Department of Defense has more of the government’s high-profile “moon shot”-type investments with DARPA, the Spruce Goose, and other famous weirdies—but in the short term, the government invests in cutting-edge science, too. The Air Force and NASA fund tons of university research. And as in any form of investment, there's risk involved.
And public money has another layer of trouble. Because of the way public contracts are bid for, won, and fulfilled, the companies chosen to complete projects are often the best at the application process, and not necessarily the best at the work the project really involves. Indeed, despite the $737 million taxpayer money and an additional $140 million from private investors, Crescent Dunes never reached the initial promises; the best-case scenarios were already outmoded by the 2015 opening.
Instead of 50 percent efficiency, the plant hovered at 20 percent. And the plant only ever secured one client, NV Energy, which couldn’t rely on the plant to do its part. Industry people and locals say the plant's heat-focusing mirrors killed local wildlife, maybe more efficiently than they ever generated electricity. Bloomberg reports that even though the plant shut down in April 2019, NV Energy wasn’t allowed to sever its agreement with the plant until late in 2019, after the DoE was forced to take over the shuttered plant in August. SolarReserve took the DoE to court.
Early cells required more energy to fabricate than
they’d produce before failure. But, the mirror farm
produced cooked birds instead of the chopped ones
made by wind.
Don’t forget Harry Reid. He made sure that Yucca Mountain receives the nuclear fuel waste it was designed for, in lieu of this project. Now we have this project fail, and spent radioactive fuel canisters on the beach in California.
Rotisserie cooked fowl beats raw chopped fowl.
Thanks RACPE. Solyndra was just one of the money laundering schemes designed to enrich Soetero's cronies and his reelection campaign fund.
Did anyone else watch “Planet of the Humans”? Old Michael Moore does a bang up job debunking green energy. I never thought he would make a movie that I would find informative. Free on youtube, at least until they get it banned again.
If the Kennedys had been involved with the project (maybe they were) , it would have been very profitable, I’m sure.
If the Kennedys had been involved with the project (maybe they were) , it would have been very profitable, I’m sure.
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“They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said ‘welcome aboard!’”
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Only 1k caps too. What a steal
All the pockets were lined I’m thinking....no one lost anything except the taxpayers...
At this rate, in 2030 we will be able to build a plant for $1 billion dollars that fails to deliver 2,000 megawatts. Now that is progress. $$$
“In one sense, it shows the wackos eating one another.”
One good thing about the left these days is that there is no doubt when you hit a nerve. And they will turn on anybody in an instant, no matter who they are or what they have done. They no doubt hate us, but they regard each other with suspicion and apprehension. No loyalty at all. They never know when the Mob will turn on them. This is their Achilles heel.
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Your Tax money being squandered ...
10 trillion ... we could have had solar cells on every house roof in America
Instead most of it it went to pay for government pensions and employees to sit on their hands.
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Just FYI, look into a “ bloom box” a hydrogen fuel cell using natural gas and water. Very interesting. Google has a small plant powering some of its campus.
A similar government owned plant in Spain also closed a few years ago because it didn’t meet expectations.
Personally, i’d like to see one of these solar projects succeed. There is one in Texas that services my area and promises to lower costs, but I am loath to try it unless it demonstrates ability to survive?
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