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New California solar farm could be major step in solar energy's future
The Blythe Solar Power Project.
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Steve Chiotakis: The solar power industry will be marking a significant moment-in-the-sun today. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected for the groundbreaking of a major solar-and-steam power plant being built near the California-Arizona border. It's the biggest of its kind.
And Marketplace's Bob Moon reports it's taking solar to a new level.
Bob Moon: Picture a sea of long, slightly-curved mirrors, lined up row-after-row in the wide-open Mojave Desert of Southern California -- all of them focusing sunlight onto pipes, and creating steam to power electrical turbines.
Edward Sullivan: When it's all finished, it's going to be over 1,000 megawatts of capacity, which means it could power over 300,000 homes. That's the size of many small- to medium-size American cities.
Solar Trust of America's Edward Sullivan is billing this as the world's largest solar facility, with an output that'll match other power-generating methods.
Sullivan: It's entering into the realm of coal-fired power plants and nuclear plants, and that's the first time solar energy has ever entered into that scale.
The facility is biggest of four projects being fast-tracked in the same area, roughly midway between Palm Springs and Phoenix. Sullivan says there's the rub: it's limited to areas that get intense sunlight.
Sullivan: We need very, very high energy from the sun, and you really only get that in the American Southwest.
The project is being backed by federal recovery funds. Sullivan says it's expected to create 1,000 direct construction jobs, and employ 200 permanently.
In Los Angeles, I'm Bob Moon for Marketplace.
Missed the story here, BADLY. It's California: report on water, and report on money. Don't repeat industrial propaganda.
--There's ~15% more solar energy in the desert than on the California coast. The transmission losses going from desert to coast are ~15%. Ergo, factoring in transmission losses, you might as well put solar on the coast.
--The farm reported here needs to wash it's mirrors regularly. That water evaporates. Where's that water coming from? Wells? The Colorado? That water is all spoken for already, and well water may not last for more than a decade or two.
--Last report I saw said the plant would take 10-20 years to break even financially. The water *might* run out first. It's unclear whether the plant will run long enough to make money.
--To keep costs down, these plants are typically sited on wilderness, due apparently to the Homestead Act (it's cheaper than lands with rights attached), but that land is plowed flat and destroyed biologically.
--Who profits here? The people *building* the plants, who are (or were) multi-national conglomerates. Not the communities in which they are sited, not the consumers of the power. And the plants are being fast-tracked, because of the feds, and because they appear to be good tax payers for small desert communities.
I'm disappointed that this story was so superficial. Please do a better job next time, and actually check the numbers.
The wrong way to start the whole concept of solar. This concept only secures the position for Big Corporate, Big Build projects when we have the opportunity to democratized a lot of the solar generation. Second, there is no SMART grid even begun. The generations station in 200 miles from Civilization, so there will be enormous loss enroute. But, somebody's getting some matching $$. Another half-baked waste of taxpayer and rate payer's monies.
I always recommend to clients that wind plants be located where there is wind and that solar plants should be located where there is solar energy. There is no "rub", it is just the operating requirement for solar plants. Is there any overnight storage with this plant? You did not mention any. 1,000 MW that is very impressive. What is the capital cost of the plant? That was also not mentioned. Overall a very impressive plant.
