Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/27/2011 10:25:07 AM PST by artichokegrower
SAN FRANCISCO -- Just weeks after regulators approved the last of nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants to be built in the Southern California desert, a storm of lawsuits and the resurgence of an older solar technology are clouding the future of the nascent industry.
The litigation, which seeks to block construction of five of the solar thermal projects, underscores the growing risks of building large-scale renewable energy plants in environmentally delicate areas. On Jan. 25, for instance, Solar Millennium withdrew its 16-month-old license application for a 250-megawatt solar station called Ridgecrest, citing regulators' concerns over the project's impact on the Mohave ground squirrel.
At peak output, the five licensed solar thermal projects being challenged would power more than 2 million homes, create thousands of construction jobs and help the state meet aggressive renewable energy mandates. The projects are backed by California's biggest utilities, top state officials and the Obama administration.
But conservation, labor and American Indian groups are challenging the projects on environmental grounds. The lawsuits, coupled with a broad plunge in prices for energy from competing power sources, threaten the ability of developers to secure expiring federal loan guarantees and private financing to establish the projects. Only one developer so far, Oakland-based BrightSource Energy, has obtained a loan guarantee and begun construction.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Wonder how hard it is to get on the California Endangered Species list. Bet, sea gulls are there too.
Not only that, but our energy policy is held hostage by a bunch of indecisive squirrels that can't make up their minds.
“The American Indian group represented by Briggs, La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle Advisory Committee, on Dec. 27 filed suit seeking an injunction against five solar thermal power plants”
How about if we shut off the electrical power to couple of the Indian casinos located down there?
This so called greening isn't greening at all. Just knowing what I know, it would appear most of this so called earth friendly things are worse for our environment then what we had before. ETHANOL is one. The new mercy light bulbs. The solar panels and wind mills that don't work that great and take up vast amount of land if used for the population and not just personal. They took freon off the market and replaced it with stuff(can't remember what it's called) which makes fridges not last as long as the old ones. New electric cars that if implemented for even a small portion of the population will put a strain on power plants and we could have brown outs and black outs on a regular basis. STUPID!! And I could go on and on. There is always a price to pay for any of this stuff oil, gas, wind, solar, ect. They have to use common sense and balance out the good and the bad before shoving this junk down our throats.
1) Has anybody figured out how much pollution the manufacture of SQUARE MILES of solar panels will cost? Guaranteed, if somebody invents cost-effective solar cells, it will be blocked on those grounds.
2) Have solar proponents accounted for the pollution and water usage caused by having to CLEAN solar panels? Solar panels encrusted with dirt and bird poop do not generate much power. They have to be WASHED regularly.
3) A rooftop panel will not generate enough power to fully power the average house. They will have to be planted on real estate.
The news to me in this article is the the thermal plants, though built and working; are being purchased to be torn down and replaced with photo-voltaic.
So they are being scraped because the site and approvals are valuable; presumably.
I am no friend of the Bugs and Bunny crowd, but they seem to accidentally get one right.
I challenge it on common sense grounds.
Doesn't anyone read world news any more?
Spain has one ot the largest and oldest plants of the type proposed.
Not only are they losing their national shirts, but power rates have skyrocketed.
A twofer.
When you weigh the energy produced/unit of “environmental damage” — solar, wind and bio-fuel projects are a poor match against oil sands, nuclear, or even coal.
This battle between the “tree-huggers”, and the “nerds” was predicted years ago. Here's a link to a related thread I posted two years ago:
For the last 40 years, where I have followed solar energy officially and non-officially, the (subsidized) proponents have certainly dealt with this little inconvenience resolutely and consistently : They ignore it.
Georgetown University built the "Ick" building to great fanfare and great expense. It is still there, but simply as a curiosity and a feel-good PR asset. It powers nothing of significance, and is almost impossible to clean.
Here in my area a group of greenies who ran a composting project were getting sued by other greenies because the compost was leeching into and contaminating a river. It was nice to sit back and watch the mayhem.
That illustrates the folly of providing massive subsidies, for production-scale projects based on emerging (unproven) technologies. If a large number of pilot projects had been funded, for R&D purposes, it is likely that some expensive boondoggles could have been avoided.
Man, you got that right. It’s like watching the 3 stooges.
“The state Senate on Thursday approved a measure requiring California utilities to buy 33% of their electricity from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by the year 2020,”
The environmental laws must be changed to avoid an energy and economic meltdown. Third parties should not have standing. We elect politicians to make these choices. Politicians delegate administrative to government agencies. I do not agree with many of the decisions by the administrative branch but they currently have power. Environmentalists have become the fifth branch of government, a wholly unaccountable branch with deep pockets partially funded by taxpayers. Taxpayers are funding our own destruction. The situation is madness. However, Democrats do ont want to change the situation even when the fifth branch turns against them. The Democrats like to use the fifth branch against conservatives. Conservatives need to press for a radical overhaul of the environmental laws. This madness must stop.
I live on the Mojave Desert and I have plenty of Mojave Ground squirls on my property, or at least some first cousins. If they run out of squirls at the solar site, they can have all of mine. So far as I’m concerned, they’re a pest.
As "thermal" power plants (Rankine cycle) they would have to obey the laws of thermodynamics which require that they reject heat while producing power. Thermodynamics sets an absolute upper limit to their thermal efficiency of about 47% (the actual number being the 1 minus the ratio of condenser to boiler temperatures measured in absolute units). That is, they must dissipate about half of the heat they collect to the environment in order to produce any output power. The conventional methods used to meet this requirement are flow through systems using lake or river water or cooling towers to condense the steam exiting the turbines. A demand for cooling water will certainly impact the site planning for these power plants since deserts are deserts because water is not widely available.
If the designers try an end run on thermodynamics and specify an air cooled radiator it would have to be very large to dissipate half of the heat flux passing through the plant. Air cooling would also drop the thermal efficiency of the plant because it would unavoidably raise the condenser temperature to near the boiling point of water.
Regards,
GtG
King Obama should simply command the sun to shine on these plants 24/7 and then all would be right.
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