Spain has the dubious distinction of having the HIGHEST unemployment rate among industrial countries.
Posted on 07/13/2010 9:27:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Spain has opened the world's largest solar power station, meaning that it overtakes the US as the biggest solar generator in the world. The nation's total solar power production is now equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station.
Spain is a world leader in renewable energies and has long been a producer of hydro-electricity (only China and the US have built more dams). It also has a highly developed wind power sector which, like solar power, has received generous government subsidies.
The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US output of 422MW. The plant, at Alvarado, Badajoz, in the west of the country, is a parabolic trough. With this method of collecting solar energy, sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror on to a fluid-filled tube. The heated liquid is then used to heat steam to run the turbines. The mirror rotates during the day to follow the sun's movement. The solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 football pitches) and produces 50MW of power.
Protermosolar, the association that represents the solar energy sector, says that within a year another 600MW will have come on-stream and projects that by 2013 solar capacity will have reached 2,500MW.
The northern, though thinly populated, region of Navarra is already producing 75% of its energy from a range of renewables, including wind, solar, hydro and biomass. Spain's windfarms now produce around 20,000MW of electricity and on one day in November they accounted for 53% of demand. Last year, solar energy met 2.8% of demand out a total of 12.9% for all renewables. In March, the government announced a plan to increase the renewable share to 22.7% by 2020, slightly ahead of EU targets.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Unemployment in SPain is what again?
Sovereign debt of Spain is what again?
Cap and Trade/Tax has done what in Spain again?
Congratulations, Spain....=.=
MORE HERE :
http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=6477
Spain is now the country with the world’s largest Concentrating Solar Power (432 MW)
13 de julio de 2010
The solar thermal sector in Spain has been mobilized 2,500 million in investments and in 2013, will operate a total of 60 solar thermal power plants of different technologies and sizes.
Spain has become the country with the largest solar thermal power installed with 432 megawatts (MW) and thereby surpass the United States, whose concentrating solar power is at 422 MW, announced today the leading business association of sector, Protermosolar.
Spain has managed to jump through connection, this weekend the 50 MW solar thermal central Florida, located in the municipality of Alvarado (Badajoz) and owned by Renewable SAMCA.
The concentrating solar power has developed new technology for parabolic trough and has a thermal storage system using molten salts.
In addition, it’s a milestone in the field by the solar field size, with 550,000 square m2 of catchment area, and has become the largest in the world between the concentrating solar power in operation.
Protermosolar said that in addition to plants already in operation in Spain, there are others already under construction and that in less than a year could be connected to the network with an additional power of about 600 MW.
The set of solar thermal power plants included in the register of pre-allocation of pay in 2013 will achieve a capacity close to 2,500 MW spread over 60 facilities.
The investment made by companies for the operation of solar thermal power plants now totals about 2,500 million euros and will be around EUR 15,000 million accumulated in 2013.
The Association stressed that Spain is a leader in solar thermal technology and domestic firms are beginning to participate in ambitious projects in many regions of the world (USA, North Africa, Middle East, China, India or Australia).
Protermosolar recalled one of its main strengths are differentials in the solar thermal management and storage capacity, essential for ensuring stability in the Spanish electricity system.
Besides Florida, solar thermal power plants operating in Spain are PS10 (11 MW), PS 20 (20 MW), Andasol 1 (50 MW), Puertollano (50 MW), Puerto Errado (1.4 MW) and La Risca (50 MW), Andasol 2 (50 MW), Solnova 1 (50 MW), Extresol 1 (50 MW), Solnova 3 (50 MW) and Florida (50 MW).
How much has and does Spain pay for the equivalent of 1 nuke plant?
So what happens when the sun doesn’t shine?
How much will this solar plant produce after the sun goes down or during those long winter nights?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iNQSIn1cUpgJrGdfvnCKQLkP0dag
Spain to cut subsidies to renewable energy producers
(AFP) – Jul 3, 2010
MADRID — The government of Spain, a world leader in the renewable energy, said it has reached agreements with producers to slash subsidies for wind and solar power.
The premiums for wind energy will be cut by 35 percent from January 1, 2013, when the current scheme expires, the industry ministry said in a statement late on Friday.
Thermosolar plants will also give up an advantageous rate they receive for the first year they are in operation.
The two deals also envisage a limit on the number of hours in which wind and thermosolar plants will have the right to collect rates that are above market prices.
“The agreements include short-term measures that will reduce the impact on electricity prices of these technologies, as well as long-term measures that will ensure future stability for both sectors,” the statement said.
It said the measures will “not compromise the profitability of existing facilities and will “benefit consumers.”
Spain’s socialist government last month announced a freeze in electricity prices, suspending a 4.0-percent hike scheduled for July, in order to help households and businesses cope better with the country’s economic crisis.
Spain, along with Germany and Denmark, is among the three biggest producers of wind power in the European Union through companies such Iberdrola Renovables and Gamesa.
Here comes the rub. I've heard that these solar and wind projects are soo expensive to run and upkeep on the equipment, that not only did the Spanish government heavily subsidize their construction, they actually pay the companies huge subsides on the electricity generated. Thus some Spanish utilities to juice revenues installed diesel generators and made a killing by selling the power they were generating at the massively higher prices the government was paying for solar power generated electricity.
But don’t they have to have 422MW of backup for cloudy days?
If such a thing came online here, the left would find some excuse to get it shut down.
They are pro-green energy, they are anti-energy in general.
They do not want us to use energy to have a nice lifestyle equivalent to what the elites have.
I also heard that these solar power plants are so heavily subsidized that it is actually “profitable” for the plant to run diesel generators to power lights to shine on the panels to produce electricity.
Don't worry, Spain will pass us as we destroy dams to protect the three-fin jumping bass.
How much energy does one nuclear power site produce by comparison? Could one nuke plant provide the same energy as 10 to 15 of these farms? Seems like a much better investment to me.
Just the usual editorial quality and fact checking from the Guardian...
Every US nuclear power reactor produces more than 432 MW of electricity. Roughly half of the US nuclear fleet produces over 1000 MW of electricy each.
Hey, the Guardian has never let facts get in its way.
A recent study in Australia on this exact scenario (solar farm vs. a nuclear plant) had the solar farm electricity 25xs more expensive to produce.
Plus you had to deal with all the other factors including:
Dependancy on days of sunshine a year and intensity. You also only get peak output a couple hours a day. There is about 0 power generated at night. You also have to invest in expensive capture technology so power can be stored for transmission during nighttime/cloudy days, etc..
Where as a nuclear plant can run 24/7 and isn’t dependant on weather conditions, etc...
One nuclear reactor typically produces more than 500MW of electricty.
Spain’s green industries are not profitable and have created the highest electricity rates in Europe.
Isn’t this one of the reasons that Spain is about to go bankrupt? I’m sure I read about it.
Well, well, well! The nuclear station at Palo Verde, AZ = 3 Nuclear Units -— Total of 3900 MW.
A tad bit larger than La Florida!
Note: Wind is typically only ~ 25 % available. Wind energy does NOT work at night, nor typically on a hot summer day.
Texas has more installed wind capacity than any other State ~ 9,000 MW. But on a hot summer day, the 9,000 MW capacity often can only produce ~ 100MW’s. That = 1.1%
FACT: Neither wind nor solar can “stand on their own 2 legs” without Government subsidies!
RE: A recent study in Australia on this exact scenario (solar farm vs. a nuclear plant) had the solar farm electricity 25xs more expensive to produce.
It makes me wonder where Spain is getting the money to support this very expensive Solar project...
Both fundamental and speculative evidence is becoming overwhelming that Spain will not last long without foreign aid.
First, Spain’s economy is arguably in terminal decline without significant aid on a pure fundamental basis.
Spain’s economy is about 5x as large as Greece’s, comprising 11.5% of EU GDP and is the 10th largest economy in the world. If a mere Greek default threatened to destabilize European banking, a Spanish default would likely destabilize even Europe’s largest banks.
CONSIDER:
* Over 20% of the workforce is unemployed: Even before this most recent crisis, unemployment in Spain was approaching Great Depression levels. Spain now has the highest unemployment rate in the entire European Union. More than 20 percent of working age Spaniards were unemployed during the first quarter of 2010. If people aren’t working they can’t pay taxes and they can’t provide for their families.
* Deficit equal to 12 percent of GDP: In an effort to stimulate the economy, Spain’s socialist government has been spending unprecedented amounts of money and that skyrocketed the government budget deficit to a stunning 11.4 percent of GDP in 2009. That is completely unsustainable by any definition.
* Total debt equals 270 percent of GDP: The total of all public and private debt in Spain has now reached 270 percent of GDP.
* Rampant credit downgrades: The Spanish government has accumulated way more debt than it can possibly handle, and this has forced two international ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, to lower Spain’s long-term sovereign credit rating. These downgrades are making it much more expensive for Spain to finance its debt at a time when they simply can’t afford to pay more interest.
* Unsold housing inventory levels SIX TIMES WORSE than America: There are 1.6 million unsold properties in Spain. That is six times the level per capita in the United States. Considering how bad the U.S. real estate market is, that statistic is incredibly alarming.
* Caught between austere misery and a credit downgrade: Spain’s national debt is so onerous that they are now caught in a debt spiral where anything they do will harm the economy. If they cut government expenditures in an effort to get debt under control it will devastate economic growth and crush badly needed tax revenues. But if the Spanish government keeps borrowing money their credit rating will continue to decline and they will almost certainly default. The truth is that the Spanish government is caught.
* IMF forecasts NO POSITIVE GROWTH until 2011: But even now the IMF is projecting that the Spanish economy is going nowhere fast. The International Monetary Fund says there will be no positive GDP growth in Spain until 2011, at which point it will still be below one percent. As bleak as that forecast is, many analysts believe that it is way too optimistic considering the fact that Spain’s economy declined by about 3.6 percent in 2009 and things are rapidly getting worse.
* The strikes and protests are just getting started: The Spanish population has gotten used to socialist handouts and they are not going to accept public sector pay cuts, budget cuts to social programs and hefty tax increases easily…The truth is that financial shock therapy does not go down very well in highly socialized nations such as Greece and Spain. In fact, the austerity measures that Spain has been pressured to implement by the IMF have proven so unpopular that many are now projecting that Spain’s socialist government will be forced to call early elections.Even if we somehow ignore these gruesome fundamentals, it’s clear that the recent build in speculative fever alone may push Spain to seek aid regardless of whether it might have otherwise been needed.
RE: Isn’t this one of the reasons that Spain is about to go bankrupt? I’m sure I read about it.
Read Post #24 of this thread.
Right. Generally, each reactor produces in the neighbourhood of 900MWe. Most nuclear power stations house two reactors. New reactors being pursued by, eg. Dominion Power are rated at >1500MWe.
That's pretty amazing. I knew that solar was incredibly inefficient, but that quote really puts a number to it. It uses an order of magnitude more space than a coal-fired plant, to produce a fraction of the amount of electricity.
Just imagine the effort involved in keeping 100-odd acres of solar collectors clean. Wonder if they put out poison bait for all the local birds?
Well, "night" and "cloudy" certainly are weather conditions.
Wonder what a hailstorm would do to a plant like this?
A key point seldom noted about solar/wind generation: the electical grid needs a fairly steady input of juice to balance a fairly steady output due to use of electricity, and since you can never be sure when the sun is going to be blocked by clouds or overcast, or when the wind is going to die down, you’ve got to have conventional source (read fossil fuel) back-up for these sources to keep the grid from crashing.
Since you can’t fire up boilers instantaneously, there’s a certain amount of waste involved in keeping the back-up sources ready for when they’re needed.
"If something applied on a small scale works well, then obviously, it easily can be scaled up to a large scale".
This foolishness isn't limited to Libs or Conservatives. Really, it applies to just about anyone who has no idea of how things work. For instance, a solar water heater for your house is a fantastic idea. It saves energy, doesn't require a steady, well-defined output (do you care if your hot water is 120 or 122 degrees?), and has a massive built-in battery for storing all of that heat energy (the water tank).
But, if a single solar water tank works well, does this mean that converting all of the houses in your city over to solar is an equally good idea? Maybe to a politician, but not so much to the engineer who needs to implement it. :-)
I heard the Spanish government has actually shutdown some of these highly subsidized solar projects because they don’t have the money to support them right now.
They are based on massive subsides for the electricity because the facilities are soo expensive to maintain and replace.
So what’s he standard deviation of happiness in Spain?
Average may be highest, but that’s because so many people are paid to not work, while a few miserable ones are taxed to death to support them.
Having worked in the Nuclear industry, I know the main buildings can survive tornados, Hurricanes and to some degree earthquakes. I wonder how much damage a tornado would do to a facility like this? How about some radical climate change like volcanoes that darken the atmosphere? A nuke plant would keep chugging along and keeping the lights on, after the atmospheres light has been dimmed or shut out.
But: nuclear works at night. Solar does not.
Most commercial US plants produce about 1,000 MWe 24/7/365 per unit. Rain, shine, night, day.
Most installations have two reactors, combining for ~2,000 MWe total.
To say that a 50 MWe solar plant is in any way equal to a commercial reactor plant is, to say the least, risible.
To say the most, it’s criminal.
These leftards are assuming that that most people are pathetically ignorant and can’t perform simple arithmetic.
But then, maybe they have a point. Look at the lottery...
The lottery is a social experiment and an ancient form of gambling. I couldn’t agree more.
That being said, it’s downright criminal for numbers like these to escape the powers that be. I’m no longer convinced that they’re just blissfully ignorant. Our political representatives drink the same KoolAid of greed doled out in DC. What happened to the Washingtons among them?
One nuke plant at 1,000 MWe would be equal to the THEORETICAL output of 200 of these solar plants.
Given that the solar plant doesn’t produce elctricity at night, and in most temperate climes won’t produce at anywhere near full output on most days, the factor becomes exponential.
So how many nuke plants could they put in that 550,000 square meters? I’m betting a lot more than 1.
Well, at least they are using solar power in the right way, instead of the stupid solar panels. Using a Parabolic mirror to generate heat for steam is very workable, but still the plant must shut down at night. I didn’t read if they had battery Back up or not, even so it will basically only be working in the day.
Wind farm near Big Springs Texas
And at night the panels collect darkness and convert it to power.
LOL, the anti-American Guardian UK again with their stories: Spain can have that title if they want.
They're trying. The secret is to get the socialists on board in advance.
In Boulder City, Nevada, our congressional representatives (two Rs) did a deal with that Commie Harry Reid.
The Bureau of land management sold us about 200,000 acres for a couple of million bucks. The land was deeded only for recreation, conservation, and energy production. Also, the contract stipulated that all environmental studies for those uses were "deemed" completed.
We lease thousands of acres for big recurring bucks to natural gas electricity generating plants and solar generators. Yes, the state and fed subsidises them but mostly California suffers the rates.
We built a gun range. The city runs offroad races (recreation) for more revenue.
Not bad for a town of 15,000.
yitbos
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