Posted on 10/14/2025 11:02:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Trump administration’s cancellation of the largest solar project in the United States has sparked confusion and concern among Republicans and Democrats alike.
Known as the Esmerelda 7, the collection of seven solar projects in rural Nevada was set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy when complete, enough to power 2 million homes. That’s an eye-popping amount of power to add to an electrical grid that desperately needs more of it, due to the insatiable demand from AI-related data centers and increasing residential needs.
Under former President Joe Biden, the federal government was moving the sprawling project through the federal permitting process as one proposal. Developers had planned to use 118,000 acres of federal land in Nevada’s desert as the home for solar arrays and batteries to store the sun’s energy.
Last week, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management quietly changed the project’s status to “canceled” on its federal permitting webpage. An Interior Department spokesperson said the status change was unrelated to the ongoing government shutdown and that project developers and the federal government had agreed to “change their approach” as part of “routine discussions” about the project.
There may still be a path forward for the Esmerelda 7; the Interior spokesperson said developers “will now have the option to submit individual project proposals to the BLM” for approval. However, environmental impact analyses can drag on for months or years, making the approval process much longer. And the federal government can also cancel individual projects again.
The project’s cancellation was first reported by Heatmap News.
(Excerpt) Read more at lite.cnn.com ...
> set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy <
And the key phrase there is “up to”. Kinda like how I can win up to $1 billion if I buy a Powerball ticket.
That doesn’t make a Powerball ticket a good investment.
6.2 gigawatts divided by 2 million homes = 3.1 kW per home. Not enough to run your A/C, or your electric water heater (unless it's a 380W hybrid water heater, but very few of us have one of those), or charge your EV at level 2 charging, or run your stove and oven (if both electric), etc.
Yeah, no thanks. There are enough blights on view sheds in Nevada already. The cluster near Tonopah didn’t work out real good.
I think this is the boondoggle “reflected solar to steam turbines to generate steam system”, not even regular panels. It doesn’t work very well. Rube Goodberg type contraption.
—early in its life operators complained that the “sun doesn’t shine enough”—in southern Nevada—
ESMERALDA COUNTY IS IN SW NEVADA——
THE BATTLE MOUNTAIN BLM OFFICE WAS IN CHARGE....
BATTLE MOUNTAIN IS A LONG SIDE I-80 BETWEEN RENO & ELKO.
A LOOOOONG WAY DISTANT
WHAT LAND WAS INVOLVED?
PRIVATE LAND BEING CONFISCATED???
“”Trump administration quietly canceled the nation’s largest solar project””
Trump administration canceled one of the nation’s largest green scams, grifter scams, so-called solar projects that would have destroyed a pristine, natural part of our precious planet.
There, fixed it
but only during daylight hours, they don’t produce anything at night
They said it was ‘Federal’ land.................
There may still be a path forward for the Esmerelda 7.
All that kickback money paid for nothing Joey not answering phone.
Having some diversity in energy production may have its value but a safe bet is that this is just another revenue source for the deep state and friends.
Even if the intent was good, the effect was grift............
She can’t/wont read the article, hell her caps lock has been stuck for years and she can’t figure that out.
Anything that’s not oil coal or gas is “gay”
Perfect response! 👍
It was based on a system in Spain....that also failed.
“””the collection of seven solar projects in rural Nevada was set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy when complete, enough to power 2 million homes.”””
I’m not sure about that. It takes 1.21 gigawatts just to activate the flux capacitor on a DeLorean.
Quietly cancelled on CNN? That don’t compute.
“6.2 gigawatts divided by 2 million homes = 3.1 kW per home. Not enough to run your A/C, or your electric water heater (unless it’s a 380W hybrid water heater, but very few of us have one of those), or charge your EV at level 2 charging, or run your stove and oven (if both electric), etc.“
The 3.1kw is average not peak. 3.1x24 is about 74kwh per day. I hardly ever go over 24kwh per day. 74kwh/day is huge. Check your electric bill and see what your daily usage is - I doubt very much it’s even close to that. I await your answer.
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