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Posted on 04/18/2011 3:08:13 PM PDT by Qbert
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu this morning announced his department is offering a conditional commitment for a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to support the first two phases of a gigantic solar energy project in Southern California.
This first half of the Blythe Solar Power Project, sponsored by Solar Trust of America LLC, is a two-unit concentrating solar thermal power plant that will produce 484 megawatts of power; Solar Trust Chairman and CEO Uwe Schmidt told reporters today that site preparation in Riverside County started last fall, and full-scale construction is likely to start late this spring or in early summer. A second phase – two more units capable of producing just as much energy as the first two – will be built a few years from now. All told, this will be the world’s largest solar facility, producing enough electricity to power more than 300,000 single-family homes each year.
This project is part of the company’s mission to “revolutionize the way we generate energy here in the United States,” Schmidt said, noting this will be the first solar facility on a scale and output capacity equal to the largest coal-fired and nuclear plants operating today.
Chu said the Obama Administration recognizes “we’re in a global race to develop and deploy clean energy technology,” and this project not only will create about 1,000 local construction jobs but also will avoid dumping more than 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
Schmidt said the job creation actually will be much more considering the supply chain necessary for such a project, stretching from the job site to Midwestern steel mills.
Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters California appreciates the confidence and investment put into this project, and while the state has been at the forefront of alternative energy for more than 30 years, “you’ve got to have a long-term perspective and you’ve got to keep at it.”
Chu had joined Brown last week as he signed into law the state’s new renewable portfolio standard, increasing California’s current 20 percent target in 2010 to a 33 percent standard by December 31, 2020. Brown said today he’d like to see 20,000 megawatts of solar output by then.
This first half of the Blythe project include HelioTrough collectors, which the company says is a larger-yet-simpler design that’s less expensive to build and install but more efficient than earlier parabolic trough technology.
According to the project’s website, the technology uses hundreds of trough-shaped mirrors to focus the sun’s light and heat onto a pipe that runs along the collector’s focal line. This causes a heat-transfer fluid in the pipe to get hot, which generates steam in the power block through heat exchangers. Then, as with conventional power plants, that steam will be directed into a turbine to generate power.
This will be the first concentrating solar power parabolic trough plant to use an air-cooled condenser unit, which will decrease water use by nearly 90 percent compared with a water-cooled CSP facility. It will sell all of its electricity output to Southern California Edison and will deliver power into the California Independent System Operator power grid.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling over $21 billion to support 22 clean energy projects across 14 states. The program’s 11 generation projects will produce nearly 25 million megawatt-hours annually, enough to power over two million homes.
Isn’t this the project that the tree-huggers have tied up more-or-less permanently in the courts??
In which case, the Feds - with their ‘left hand’ - are committing $2.1B to a project that the Feds - with their ‘right hand’ - are suing to make sure will never be built....
He can promise all he wants, but he doesn’t have the checkbook...
If these numbers are real then it makes sense.
If they are "Bullet Train" numbers (likely) then forget about it.
Example: does the 25 million megawatts assume a 100% capacity factor, i.e. no maintenance downtime, no warm up cycles, or cloudy days?
This technology will probably end up being a niche, like the windmills, geysers and hydroelectric dams are now. Not a baseline for a green future.
If I’m not mistaken the EPA can do this without congressional approval.
“He certainly is generous with our money.”
And worse yet, it looks like “Solar Trust of America” is actually a joint venture between... two German firms (Germany’s Solar Millennium AG and privately held Ferrostaal AG):
“I tell ya, in 2008, $4 gasoline brought my state to its knees before Wall Street melted down,” Barbour said, “and we’ve blown through $3 a gallon on our way to $4, and it reminds me of what the Secretary of Energy said in 2008, Secretary [Steven] Chu, then Dr. Chu, said what we really need in the United States to get the cost of gasoline up to where it is in Europe $8 or $9 a gallon. We don’t need that where I am.”
Better keep an eye on Uwe Schmidt. He’s likely to take his wad, made off the backs of the taxpayers, and run for the US Senate or Governor of California, so that he can waste even more taxpayer dollars.
My Congressman, John Culberson (TX – 7,) got an opponent in 2008 in the form of the political entrepreneur, Michael Skelly. Mr. Skelly got his start promoting taxpayer funded projects by developing the Rain Forest Aerial Tram in Costa Rica with the help of the US’s “Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Act.” He moved on to the much more lucrative Wind tax credits, and promoted wind farms in the US. He sold his company in 2005, making millions and was looking for other opportunities to “serve.” He spent about $2 million of his own money in a losing effort, and never once mentioned in his ads that he was a Democrat.
Unbelievable, these people.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, it’s what $2.80 a gallon?
If these numbers are real then it makes sense.
If they are "Bullet Train" numbers (likely) then forget about it.
Example: does the 25 million megawatts assume a 100% capacity factor, i.e. no maintenance downtime, no warm up cycles, or cloudy days?
This technology will probably end up being a niche, like the windmills, geysers and hydroelectric dams are now. Not a baseline for a green future.
2.1b company will run with money belly up in a years time. Thank you America. By the way ............... http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/feds-plan-284-billion-loan-oil-refinery. Thanks again tax payers of America. It is time we wake up. We are the enemy
no forest fire hazy days?
loan guarantee = give away of other people's money when it fails
I wonder if these guys read Atlas Shrugged....they sure are IN it!!!!!
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This news release apparently missed the BIG STORY. The House of Representatives is holding up approving any Feed In Tariffs (subsidies) for solar or wind projects which means green power developers can’t get loans. So the Obama Administration is stepping in to end run the House and provide loan guarantees. That’s is the real apparent story here.
Very interesting.
I wonder how they think they can “guarantee” something when they don’t control the funds for it.
Update:
It’s apparently the third *in a week* that the Dept. of Energy has done this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2707146/posts
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