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The Best-Laid Energy Plans. The feds bet $737 million on a salt tower for solar power. You’ll never guess the result.
Wall Street Journal ^ | January 16, 2020

Posted on 01/16/2020 5:56:18 PM PST by karpov

Government planning and subsidies will make America the world’s green-energy superpower, create millions of jobs, and supercharge the economy—or so we’re told. The reality is closer to Crescent Dunes, a Nevada solar-energy plant that has gone bust after receiving a $737 million federal loan guarantee.

An inconvenient truth is that the sun sets each day, but the Obama Administration’s green planners had an app for that. They decided to invest in the Crescent Dunes facility that would use molten salt to store heat from the sun, produce steam, and generate electricity even at night. The utility NV Energy had already agreed to buy the electricity. Government support would carry the project to sunny success.

In September 2011, the Energy Department described how the 110-megawatt facility would “be the first of its kind in the United States and the tallest molten salt tower in the world,” powering more than 43,000 homes a year. The precedent was Solar Two, a small pilot plant decommissioned in 1999 that had shown it was technically feasible to use molten salt to store and generate power. But in a 2006 report the Energy Department said the 10-megawatt facility “was never expected to be a viable commercial-scale plant and, in fact, did not validate economic feasibility.”

No worries. It’s only taxpayer money, and the feds jumped into Crescent Dunes anyway. The Department of Energy finalized its loan guarantee on Sept. 23, 2011, a week before the federal loan program expired. A month earlier Nevada had approved $119.3 million in tax abatements for Crescent Dunes over 20 years. The plant also received some $140 million in private investment.

Crescent Dunes began by missing the deadline established by its agreement with NV Energy, becoming operational months late.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Nevada
KEYWORDS: crescentdunes; energy; fraud; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; solar
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Related threads:

The Nevada Crescent Dunes Thermal Solar Plant: Another Expensive Solar Scheme Bites the Dust

A $1 Billion Solar Plant Was Obsolete Before It Ever Went Online (costing taxpayers $737 million)

Pelosi’s Brother-In-Law’s Company Received $737,000,000 From Obama’s Energy Department As “Loan ..

1 posted on 01/16/2020 5:56:18 PM PST by karpov
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To: karpov

More boondoggles from the Kenyanesian Usurpation.

NATURAL BORN CITIZEN ONLY!


2 posted on 01/16/2020 6:00:16 PM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: karpov

Is this a different plant than the one in California? they look the same.


3 posted on 01/16/2020 6:01:30 PM PST by Fungi
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To: karpov

That’s the one just west of Tonopah. I drove by it once...weird looking site. Massive array of mirrors pointed up at a tower. Seems like I remember reading it was hard on birds.


4 posted on 01/16/2020 6:03:10 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: karpov

So what IS the result?

It’s behind a paywall and I can’t read it.


5 posted on 01/16/2020 6:05:58 PM PST by Alas Babylon! (The prisons do not fill themselves. Get moving, Barr!)
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To: karpov; Lurkinanloomin; Fungi; Yardstick

“The Reign of Error of Æthelblack the Unready”


6 posted on 01/16/2020 6:06:48 PM PST by kiryandil (Chris Wallace: Because someone has to drive the Clown Car)
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To: karpov

Is that the one that turned out to be the world’s largest frying pan for birds?


7 posted on 01/16/2020 6:10:02 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Alas Babylon!
So what IS the result?

The plant was shuttered and the taxpayer is out $737 million.

8 posted on 01/16/2020 6:10:26 PM PST by karpov
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To: Yardstick

I flew over it a 30k ft.

I didn’t know what the hell it was and I used to live in Tonopah. (of course that was 30 yrs ago)


9 posted on 01/16/2020 6:10:59 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west))
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To: karpov

Yeah, we are aware. Lucky for we in NV now have a mandate to be 50% renewable by 2030. Or else! Or else what we’re (I’m) not sure but it probably won’t be cheap.


10 posted on 01/16/2020 6:11:23 PM PST by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: karpov

Wanna bet Harry Reed’s fingerprints were on that?


11 posted on 01/16/2020 6:12:39 PM PST by Don Corleone (The truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth)
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To: karpov

I’m not sold on the massive project plans these failed efforts represent. However, if a large corporation or even a private concern wants to go this route, I suggest they use their own money. Doing that would cause them to be a lot more sure of “the Plan”, than they seem to be when the government is pitching in.

Personally, I favor programs that make single family dwellings self-sufficient. Even then, there is a lot a private home owner can do without government funding of some sort.

Solar, wind, water,... if there’s a viable one of these to be tapped, tap it. If there isn’t, don’t.

If the driving force behind some of these projects happens to be a close relative of a Congressman or Senator, it should preclude any government funding.

Here a firm related to a relative of Nancy Pelosi, got over three/quarters of a billion out of the government, before the concern went legs up.

They got the money, and the taxpayer is the one that got laid, without permission.

Just stop this nonsense.

The federal government and some states are giving tax incentives for people to go electric with regard to their vehicle’s drive train. I think there’s a much more sound plan.

If a local utility wants to use part of the electricity that car can be a bank for, then the utility may want to sponsor the purchase of that car instead of build another power plant.

Electric cars can be charged during cheap hours, and their energy tapped back during peak hours.

If that concept isn’t sound, then forget supporting these cars. These cars should be sound enough, economically to withstand the pressures of the market place. If not, then let them die off.


12 posted on 01/16/2020 6:13:05 PM PST by DoughtyOne (The Leftistist media and particularly CNN NEWS should come with a ten day supply of Cipro.)
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To: karpov

Ron Pelosi’s Connection to Tonopah Solar Energy

..........


13 posted on 01/16/2020 6:18:45 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings)
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To: karpov

L8r


14 posted on 01/16/2020 6:22:29 PM PST by preacher ( Journalism no longer reports news, they use news to shape our society.)
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To: karpov

“No one is above the law” so sayeth Nancy Pelosi. (Unless you’re a relative of a Democrat)


15 posted on 01/16/2020 6:24:21 PM PST by griswold3 (Democratic Socialism is Slavery by Mob Rule)
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To: Yardstick

“Seems like I remember reading it was hard on birds.”

Assault tower.

Preferred weapon of drive by bird killing gang bangers. Probably has high capacity clips. Undetectable by avionic security personel.


16 posted on 01/16/2020 6:33:15 PM PST by Blue Collar Christian (I'm a nationalist.I'm white.Does that mean I'm racist?)
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To: rktman
Lucky for we in NV now have a mandate to be 50% renewable by 2030. Or else!

Go solar on your own or move. You will die by a tax of a thousand cuts otherwise.

17 posted on 01/16/2020 6:34:44 PM PST by BipolarBob (DNC: The party of pernicious knids, wangdoodles and hornswogglers.)
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To: DoughtyOne

“Personally, I favor programs that make single family dwellings self-sufficient.”

The govt and corporations can’t put a meter on that.


18 posted on 01/16/2020 6:36:52 PM PST by Blue Collar Christian (I'm a nationalist.I'm white.Does that mean I'm racist?)
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To: DoughtyOne

Hey, D1.
Check out the power plant google uses.
It’s called a bloom box
Uses water and propane for a hydrogen fuel cell
By product is electricity and hot water.


19 posted on 01/16/2020 6:41:32 PM PST by Keyhopper (Indians had bad immigration laws)
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To: Blue Collar Christian

Smile...

Yep!


20 posted on 01/16/2020 6:41:48 PM PST by DoughtyOne (The Leftistist media and particularly CNN NEWS should come with a ten day supply of Cipro.)
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