A Huge Solar Plant Opens, Facing Doubts About Its Future

New York Times ^ | February 13, 2014 | DIANE CARDWELL and MATTHEW L. WALD

[Izzy Dunne]

I wonder what would happen to a bird or insect if it flew into the beam?

Oh come on now - you can figure that out.

[Rio]

It's OK. They'll SOLAR cook them...

[Oldeconomybuyer]

This is what happens when elite liberal “climate scientists” run the DOE. Another $1.6 billion cluster-blank.

[DBrow]

“These damn fools.”

Government subsidy, government guaranteed loan, high salaries. You buy and pay for your nice house, buy gold, get a really nice car, then when the project goes bankrupt, which it will if they set things up correctly, the folks at the top keep the car, house, gold, land, personal investments.

Maybe not set for life, but very comfortable after only a few years work.

Rest assured that the guys at Solyndra and A123 Batteries are not working at Wal Mart to make ends meet.

Looking at the construction cost and expected power output, I doubt they’ll power at any commercially acceptable rate, which is the bankruptcy guarantee.

[Steve_Seattle]

"They still haven’t declared their annual consumption of Windex or who has the mirror cleaning concession."

That's actually an interesting question. An open-air field of mirrors will rather quickly accumulate a lot of dirt, dust, dead insects, organic material, and - it seems - dead birds. It seems that maintenance might be a major expense, at the least, and maybe a very serious issue.

[Steve_Seattle]

“The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project”

It doesn't seem like the best way to fight global warming, does it? You essentially have a five-square-mile outdoor oven creating temps as high as 1,000 degrees. Yeah, let's build 10,000 more of those. So far, "green" energy has the following track record:

1. Killing hundreds of thousands of birds, including endangered species.

2. Emitting excessive heat into the atmosphere.

3. Doubling energy prices.

4. Visual blight in areas that would otherwise be considered off-limits to development.

5. Bankruptcies and shutdowns despite huge taxpayer subsidies.

[lbryce]

As soon as I read your post I immediately went to Google Earth and tried to make a video of it hoping to post it here but was having too many technical difficulties and gave up. But I will tell you that what you said about my jaw dropping was absolutely, positively all that you said.

It was positively mind-boggling! The size of the facility, the enormous acreage that it covers in which every available bit of space is covered with solar panels in two separate enormous circular configurations, with the control operations in the center of the circles is indeed jaw dropping, a facility that must be seen to be believed, especially as you drop in on it from the very edges of the atmosphere.

I want to express my utmost appreciation for having informed us of it because it is like nothing ever seen. Thanks again very much.

[BuffaloJack]

If a bird is killed in flight and plummets crashing into one of the mirrors, how much will it cost? How often will this happen?

[woodbutcher1963]

Meanwhile here in Cow Hampshire we have a fight going on to bring Hydro Electric power down from Quebec into NH and southern New England. It is billion dollar project that will create hundreds of jobs called the Northern Pass. The power comes from the dams on the St. Lawrence seaway and other hydro electric projects in Quebec. It does not add any CO2 to the atmosphere and can be produced 24/7 for about $.001/KW. However, because the people up in northern NH do not want high tension power lines in their backyard(I can’t blame them)the project has been a big fight backed by the environmental groups. They will probably have to bury some of the lines to get it approved. There is only about 30 miles of right of way they are fighting over. In most of the state it will travel over existing right of ways. Also, there are absolutely no endangered birds, frogs, bats, grasshoppers or fish that will be hurt in any way.

[DBrow]

Environmentalists protest anything that impedes the flow of Arab oil.

[catnipman]

“Hey, you’re quite good at figurin’ all that stuff out. You do that all by yourself?”

Naw. I got a herd of Lesbian Dance Theorists to do the calculations for me.

[TurboZamboni]

No gubbamint program is ever a failure-it’s just ‘underfunded’ !

[catnipman]

“it would take a mere 3400 hundred such plants, covering 17,000 square miles”

Probably increase by 50% if all transportation were to be converted to electric.

[Steve_Seattle]

I have the feeling that if solar power has a future it will not be in the form of these huge plants, but more likely via solar panels installed in individual buildings. Even then, it might only be supplementary power that needs to be augmented by traditional power sources. Maybe somebody here knows what the life-cycle cost of such an arrangement would be compared to current practice. So far, many of the highly-touted experimental “green” buildings are enormously expensive.

[Steve_Seattle]

"No gubbamint program is ever a failure-it’s just ‘underfunded’!"

That's a good one - I'll have to use it sometime. But I would say, "According to liberals, no government program is ever a failure, it is just underfunded." And - unlike many snarky comments - it is pretty much true. Libs have been saying that about education for years.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

You mentioned above ground versus buried power lines. I never could understand why in areas that are prone to strong winds and tornadoes etc., why they persisted in having above ground lines that had to be continuously replaced after bad weather. My neighbor who was an engineer for the power company told me the cost of continuously replacing downed above ground power lines was much cheaper on a 10-20 year expense basis than to bury the lines. Result is, the users are inconvenienced by a power outage for days because the power companies save money by not burying the lines. Same old story...”FOLLOW THE MONEY”. I guess I am just cynical.

[DBrow]

Godzilla movies would not be the same if they had underground cables. Gamera movies, too.