Senior officials in Obama’s administration had very high hopes for the Blythe project. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar attended the groundbreaking ceremony, which he described as “a historic moment in America’s new energy frontier” and “another important step in making America’s clean energy future a reality.” Chu trumpeted at the time that Solar Trust would prove that “when we rev up the great American innovation machine, we can out-compete any other nation.”
More – …while one could say that the company’s epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE’s Stephen Chu.
Wind and solar are nowhere near the energy yields of hydro-electric and nuclear power plants and won’t be for the forseeable future. Ask any engineer…
Windmills and solar panels are interesting from an experimental point of view and should be funded as scientific endeavours.
Hydroelectric and nuclear power plants give a far greater yield and are ready proven technologies for power generation on a mass scale.
Comparing the cost per kilowatt/hour for each generation method will tell you why every solar ‘business’ will be broke without taxpayer subsidies. But then maybe wealth distribution is the objective with the “Obama-Nation(tm)”. Business sense doesn’t seem to be a high priority….
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Nobody could have predicted this.
Erm, STA was offered a $2billion loan – and turned it down. They had been developing a system of parabolic mirrors focused on a boiler, but developments in the flat-solar-panel photovoltaic industry made those cheaper and STA wanted to switch: the Federal loan was conditional on their staying with the solar-furnace model.
And it never will be, Hans. 400 W/sq/km. That’s all the sun deposits on the surface of the planet, and nearly 90 per cent of the photons can’t be used for electricity generation.
Now with respect to the Chu debacles, we can understand if some pilot projects in whatever field of activity go wrong. That’s the normal price of technology development. But what does it say about an administration where everything they’ve done in energy has gone tilt?
It means they really haven’t done their homework.
Eventually science beats ideology every time.
I can’t believe the election is a horse race considering all of these bankruptcies and the solution from Obama is more of the same. What is wrong with the US?
Mankind walks on its feet…not its hands.
There’s a reason for this.
The wizard of obalm doesn’t understand this simple truth.
Efficiency should always trump all, in the quest for viable energy sources.
The wizard…affirmative action at its highest…rationale at its lowest.
One can declare the $2.1 billion loan as crooked on general considerations. These are, simply, that while small amounts of money, even from government, can be helpful in the early stages of a project (in Canada we have programs such as IRAP and ACOA), after that the stock market will do the rest. It is insane for a goverment to lend $2.1 billion, or even $5 million, for a project that looks as though it might be successful; insane, or, more probably, there was an understanding if not an explicit agreement that these moneys would flow back to the donors.
It also needs to be said, again and again, oil is clean.
You know, crude oil is not necessarily even black. Hibernia crude is a pleasant lemon pie filling.
Oil spills on soil are quickly biodegraded. This is not of much consequence in areas with good topsoil, but on the Rock, an oil spill can be helpful for a garden.
What would we do without all these Nobel Prize winners running our government?
but who’s going to replace all those birdshredders that spontaneously combust ?
http://talkbusiness.net/2012/04/mitsubishi-to-mothball-fort-smith-wind-turbine-factory/
Mitsubishi has decided to “mothball” its Fort Smith wind-turbine manufacturing that was expected to employ 400 at full production.
Officials with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said the demand for wind turbines in North America had stagnated, with new contracts difficult to obtain.
A good friend of mine, a true Liberal, and I were discussing the public money wasted on this but he simply refuses to believe governments would be this stupid. No matter what figures he is shown his mind is closed. By the way his wife, a teacher, went to Obummer’s inauguration.
On Saturday I was again discussing this with another Liberal friend’s son, an engineer. He believes government must fund these “new” technologies because private industry can’t afford to. When I emphasised that this is our taxpayer money that is wasted as McGuinty did with Samsung it made no impression.
Liberal truly are a different species.
Judging by their record so far , we just know the end result will be this:
http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/04/weed-covered-solar-park-20-acres-11-million-only-one-and-half-years-old/
all attributeable to liebral logic…
where effect = whatever cause you want
(Greenbelt, Maryland) A new sensor on a NASA Earth-orbiting satellite has for the first time observed a global-scale die off of vegetation, a new article in Science magazine reports this week.
“We were amazed at the continental scale that this die off occupied”, said Dr. John Jorgenson of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The relatively rapid change in vegetation characteristics was observed from late summer through the fall, when the multi-million dollar NASA instrument recorded a distinct change in vegetation color from green to various shades of yellow, brown, orange, and red.
“While there have been anecdotal reports for many years of this die-off phenomenon, those reports have been restricted to local regions. We have, for the first time, documented the global scale of the event, which covers much of the Northern Hemisphere during the months of September and October”, said Dr. Jorgenson.
While the exact mechanism for the phenomenon is unclear, the researchers believe that it is related to increasing fossil fuel use, especially home heating oil, during the fall when temperatures turn cooler. “We know that particulate pollution from the burning of fuel oil can have a negative effect on healthy vegetation, and so the correlation between heating fuel use and vegetation die-off constitutes ‘smoking gun’ evidence for this association”, Jorgenson said.
Bolstering this theory, Jorgenson claimed, is the observed return of vegetation health in the spring as temperatures warm and heating oil use drops to near zero.
The new findings will likely help fuel increasing calls for restrictions on the widespread and indiscriminant use of fossil fuels, due to their proven connection to uncontrollable climate changes, such as tsunamis and killer hurricanes.
When contacted for comment on the new results, discredited global warming skeptic Dr. John Michaels told this reporter, “I think the NASA scientists should investigate the possibility that this die-off is directly related to decreasing levels of sunlight and the resulting cold temperatures as winter approachers”. When told of Dr. Michaels’ theory, Jorgeson replied, “Well of course he would say that…everyone knows he is in the pocket of ‘big oil’. Besides, how else would you explain the fact that the die-off does not occur in tropical locations, where heating oil use is virtually unheard of?”
@ Bemused at April 3, 2012 3:29 PM
Joke….right? Too funny not to be. If it came from Steven Chu , that would be serious.
dave, you might explain to your friend’s son how capitalism works – capitalism as in “capital formation”.
A company going public can raise millions of dollars. Large banks can raise billions of dollars – I admit, $2.1 billion is a large chunk of change
and it would be a large banking operation. But substantially larger sums have been raised – e.g. for the Hibernia project on the Grand Banks,
or will be raised, as for the Muskrat Falls project (but the Greens are winning that one – they are opposed to hydroelectric energy when proposed by Conservatives).
For such large projects banking consortia do seek government guarantees; which cost little or nothing if all goes well. Due diligence is needed.
Not all engineers are shrewd conservatives. My bloody stepson in Ontario supports Dalton McGuinty for the love of God!
As I’ve said above, the evidence prima facie indicates corruption, projects which were never intended to succeed.
Bambi wanted a billion dollar campaign fund; now he’s got it.
Just keep Shoveling that Money to California, Pelosi will make it disappear..
Warren Buffet: “First Solar Inc” PNL guy, but not his own Money..Why do you think he loves Obama?
G Soros: Windmills & neat Communications like “Lightsquared”… No need to bribe the FCC!
But without stinking giant mirrors, how will I shave?
I use a straight razor, which I’ll call rusty…