Posted on 08/15/2008 4:58:41 PM PDT by Iron Munro
Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.
The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.
Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Installations like this are not economically competitive with other technology and require subsidies, tax breaks and government mandates to use alternative power.
And what (if any) impact will we see from intercepting so much solar energy before it striked the ground?
Not to worry. Does anyone think the leftist environuts won’t stall this 12 sq mile array with environmental impact studies of its effect on some presently undiscovered spider or frog.
Then will come the lawsuits.
If we’re lucky, It may get off the ground in the year that the mythical Capt. Kirk got his starship launched into space.
“The shining city” NOT on a hill.
also....notice how the actual cost is not even known yet. The economies of scale will probably mean huge cost over runs and higher electric rates. Just like wind, these plants are great at producing power for PART of the day, but unless you build batteries the size of Mount Everest, you will still need good old nukes, coal, or nat gas plants to produce when the sun ain’t shining, or the wind ain’t blowin. No amount of gov’t subsidies of enviro wacko lunacy can change that fact.
That's a pretty big footprint.
Not to mention the amount of actual land it takes to build one. 12.5 square miles, did I read that right? To build a truly large installation that would generate what we actually need in this country would require huge amounts of land that should be used in growing crops and trees for timber. What a waste. Even the dessert would be a waste because if we build nuke desalinization plants we could irrigate most of the dessert and grow crops there. Drill, drill here, drill now and build nukes. F*** the left wing idiots who want to ruin our country and turn us into slaves.
Thanks. I was hoping for further confirmation on that point. Even to me, the 9 square miles thing sounded exagerated. Now I see it wasn’t exagerated a bit.
You might want to check your math on that one:
1 sq. mile = 640 acres.
12.5 sq. miles = 8,000 acres
ANWR = 8,000,000 acres = 12,500 sq miles.
Is this NYT's way of dumbing it down for the hay seed hicks?
What is the output on a cloudy day.......I love it. CA without power....bring on the clowns....clouds.
Nevada Solar One lies some 20 miles south of Las Vegas and is one of two prototype plants to utilise the technology that recently opened in the US. Another 10 such plants are in advanced stages of planning in California, Arizona and Nevada.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/07/eanevada107.xml
If the feds have any part in it the cost will double halfway through the project and then triple by the end.
Correction to my post above. The 8,000,00 acres is just the designated “wilderness section” section of ANWR. The entire ANWR reserve is actually much larger, more then double that size.
12.5 square miles, about twice the footprint of ANWR drilling. Are the Greenies in an uproar?
That's the total area of ANWR. I think he was thinking of the footprint for oil and gas drilling and production, or about 2,000 acres in ANWR. The difference (12.5 sq. miles vs. 2,000 acres) for fossil energy extraction is stunning! And, yes that surface area is disturbed, but you don't put the solar panels over the entire surface.
Hey, don't rain on the solar parade!
Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.
Also, since this is Central Cali, don’t forget about all those Tule fogs.
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