BrightSource Energy and Abengoa Solar withdrew their application for the Palen solar project Friday afternoon, a shocking turn of events following the project’s preliminary approval by state regulators just two weeks ago.
The developers could eventually propose another solar project at the same site, which is about 60 miles east of Indio. But their decision to withdraw the controversial Palen proposal — which drew fire from environmental and Native American groups — ends any chance of development in the foreseeable future.
BrightSource senior vice president Joe Desmond said the developers chose to withdraw their application in part because the project was unlikely to be completed by December 2016, meaning it wouldn’t qualify for a 30 percent investment tax credit that expires at the end of that year.
[…]
Whether BrightSource and Abengoa eventually propose another project could depend on whether Congress extends or modifies the 30 percent investment tax credit for renewable energy projects, which is slated to drop to 10 percent starting in 2017. The solar industry has been pushing Congress to modify the language of the tax credit, so that solar projects with some electricity online by the end of 2016 qualify — rather than just projects that are fully online.
“Right now, the solar energy industry and others are working hard to change that,” Desmond said.
I’ll bet.
h/t Kevin B
We have a lot of these phony-baloney bullshit solar plants
here in the People’s Republic of California. Notice that
thirty percent of this unnecessary boondoggle is coming
out of the pockets of the taxpayers. Want to bet that
there are also large state and federal subsidies as well?
That is the hallmark of kind of crony capitalism that is
right out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged. (That was a
book by Ayn Rand North of 60)
And speaking of North of 60, he recently responded to
a post of mine that reference North of 60 using his
new identity: “Thanks Lennie, I’m always pleased
when you acknowledge that you read my messages”
It was so easy, I never even worked up a sweat!
This is what the left’s energy policies lead to:
–Britain may be forced to use “last resort” measures to avert blackouts in coming winters, Ed Davey, the energy secretary, will say on Tuesday.
Factories will be paid to switch off at times of peak demand in order to keep households’ lights on, if Britain’s dwindling power plants are unable to provide enough electricity, under the backstop measures from National Grid.
The Grid is expected to announce that it will begin recruiting businesses that will be paid tens of thousands of pounds each simply to agree to take part in its scheme. They will receive further payments if they are called upon to stop drawing power from the grid.
It is also expected to press ahead with plans to pay mothballed gas power plants to ready themselves to be fired up when needed.
“Both the new demand and supply balancing services will be used only as a last resort – and are a safety net to protect households in difficult circumstances, such as a hard winter or very high surges in demand,” Mr Davey will say.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10888078/Britain-readies-last-resort-measures-to-keep-the-lights-on.html
When I hear them talk about “mothballed gas power plants”, I just laugh. Who will run these plants? Are they going to mothball operators and maintenance people too? Conventional electricity producers are being run out of business by the government’s coddling of “green” producers, but the morons think that industry will come back to life to save their rickety grid? No way. The UK also has a system of back-up diesel generators to try to keep the power flowing under high usage. Coal and gas are bad but diesel is okay?
Thank god coal, natural gas and nuclear power don’t get any subsidies or tax breaks…oh well…
Obama’s team of grifters are already set up to keep this scam going.
Also, the Canadian scene is still sucking tax dollars and set to grow.
No end in sight!
I thought it would be a good idea to share some information with
North of 60. It is a rare case where I will cut and paste
information off the Internet, and in this case, I’m going to
provide a few excerpts from a book that I am going to have to
transcribe the old fashioned way.
Source: Dr. Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, 1990
On solar plants:
“Such a solar plant has been built, largely with taxpayers’
dollars, of course, by Southern California Edison at Barstow
California. Called Solar One, it covers 75 acres with one
million square feet of mirrors, 11,818 mirrors in all, each
computer driven to reflect sunlight onto a water tower 300 feet
tall. With some storage devices, Solar One can generate ten
megawatts at a cost of $14,000 per installed kilowatt. This is
about five times more costly than the most expensive nuclear
plant.
On cloudless days, Solar One can generate at full power for eight
hours a day in the summer, four hours a day in the winter.
Assuming nothing goes wrong and the mirrors remain clean, that
means Solar One has the availability of somewhere between 17
percent and 33 percent; nuclear power plants and conventionally
fueled energy plants have an availability of about 65 to 70
percent. In other words, Solar One produces about one percent
of the amount of electricity of a nuclear or coal-fired plant
on five times the space and is available only a quarter of the
day. And the total cost? About eight times more expensive.”
So, solar energy is both less efficient and more expensive than
the conventional power sources. She goes on to list the massive
amounts of materials to build these monstrosities compared to the
materials necessary to build a coal or nuclear plant per kw of
output. The difference is staggering!
I am sure someone will tell me (The usual suspect of course) that
1990 is ancient history. Sorry, I just calculated that the energy
densities of solar and PV plants are nearly identical and that
they are the same today as they were in 1990. Can anybody tell me
why there has not been a breakthrough in solar or PV output in 24
years? Bueller? Bueller? Sorry, North of 60? North of 60?
The answer is that solar power is too diffuse to be a viable
alternative. Does anybody remember the law of inverse squares?
There is only so much energy that falls on one square foot of
area. They are already getting as much squeal out of this pig
as they are ever going to get.
Dr Ray was one very smart broad! She held a PHD in Marine
Biology and was picked by President Eisenhower to head the
old Atomic Energy Commission. She was picked because Ike
recognized she had a razor sharp intellect. Within months,
she could hold her own in conversions with the nuclear
physicists that worked under her.
PS Excluding boiler and utilities, a 10mw steam turbine
driven generator can sit in the area of a suburban home.
I know, I used to work on them!
Mkelly, they have the same obscene system here in the Peoples
Republic of California. I worked in a paper mill with a
4mw load not counting a natural gas driven 1mw V-16 “CoGen.”
In the Summer, it is not unusual to get a call from the ISO (Independent System Operator)telling us to shut down for
several hours.
In this version of crony capitalism, companies are paid tens
of thousands of dollars an hour to “Conserve” energy by shutting
down their plants. The problem is that it is all paid for by
reaching into the pockets of the taxpayer. The bitter irony
is that we used to have a good system in place in this state.
California “Deregulated” energy by allowing people to trade
electricity futures and encouraged companies to install Co-
Generation systems in hospitals, refineries, dairies, paper
mills, etc. There was genuine competition. But the friggen
idiots in Sacramento put an absolute cap on the price that
could be charged for electricity.
Untold hundreds of these systems were built and there was
genuine competition. The private sector was building
REAL decentralized plants and increasing supply. Then
there was a spike in natural gas prices and it cost more
to produce the power than they could sell it for. In some
cases, tens of times more. Everyone went down for “Repairs.”
The liberals used this to kill off all the CoGen operations!
I have worked in two paper mills, each of which had a 747
turbofan engine driving a 30mw generator. They made a
profit selling the power and the steam that was generated
(Which was vital to the operation of the mill) was icing
on the cake.
Dear BrightSource Energy and Abengoa Solar,
Do not give up hope. Please think about coming to Ontario, which has the perfect environment for solar panel profits: a population that is dumb and gullible.
Yours truly,…..
Thanks Lennie, I’m always pleased when you acknowledge that you read my messages, even though you obviously misinterpret them to fit your agenda. That’s OK, everyone else who can read and comprehend knows better than your interpretation of what anyone states. It’s called a “Straw man Argument”; it’s a logical fallacy that educated people refrain from using. If it brings pleasure to some crazy old coot in Califoricatia, then what’s the harm, eh? The important thing is that reading my messages challenges your mind with new and unfamiliar concepts, even if you don’t understand them. The main thing is that you’re reading and learning new stuff. As a senior you should now how important that is to slow the onset of dementia beyond the level it’s at now. Best of luck with that.
Funny how this young man uses terms like “Straw man” yet does not
understand the meaning of the term. And like all Internet trolls
he cannot refute a single fact or figure I have presented.
I never expected him know a Watt from an Amp but I did expect him
to understand basic math. As a product of modern education I
fear I was expecting too much.
Dealing with Internet trolls Part 1
I am having more fun than a barrel of monkeys! First, I
returned to this Blog after an absence of a few months.
I found someone was missing: My old friend North of 60.
After I returned, I (As well as other posters,) began
to notice a striking similarity between someone posting
with a different identity and our old friend North of 60.
I decided to wait until I could arrange to debate him on
the subject of PV panels, to be sure. Holy crap! In less
than 24 hours, he responded to someone who disagreed with
him by using North of 60’s trademark: Sierra Tango Foxtrot
Uniform. Not very smart if one is trying to disguise his
identity!
I then issued a series of posts referring to North of 60.
He responded to one of them. This was easier than shooting
fish in a barrel! The great thing about these cut and paste
Internet trolls is that they are as predictable as the
weather in Antarctica.
Since I made it clear that I am not about to be bothered by
his usual STFU, I managed to steer him into a more civil
tone. So, his standard response went from outright insults
to the old Kindergarten standby: “But you’re stupid!” If you
even bother to read this North of 60, this is still not an
example of a straw man argument in that it is an accurate
description of your latest rounds of rebuttals.
For the record,I spent more than 40 years as an air and gas
compressor mechanic, single and three phase motor control
specialist, Millwright, maintenance mechanic, industrial
electrician and instrumentation technician. I have actually
done work on and in power plants and CoGeneration plants.
His response was basically to call me an old geezer who
was suffering from early onset senile dementia. (This was
the part about the “But you’re stupid!” response) Since
I basically called him a young man with a lot to learn,
he responded by calling himself a person born in the “Atomic
Age,” to make himself sound older. Way to narrow it down dude,
that could be anyone born between 1942 and someone depositing
mustard stains their diapers today!
To be continued
Jump through the hoop Lennie, roll over, go fetch the ball. ROTFL
Enough fun, it’s too easy.
You have a nice day now, were done here.
Dealing with Internet trolls Part 2
Today I transcribed a few paragraphs from Dr. Dixie Lee Ray’s
book Trashing The Planet. It included a large number of facts
and figures, that I was hoping North of 60 would attempt to
rebut. He did not. He responded with the “But you’re stupid”
reply.
God, this is too easy! Let me try again using his favorite
subject: PV panels. Again from Dr. Ray’s book, which unlike
cut and paste Internet trolls, I actually read. Bear in mind
the figures she cites are in 1990 dollars:
“Suppose the eight million people of New York City were to be
served by photo-voltaic solar power. To supply 7,000 megawatts
of electricity, New York City would need at least 350 square
miles of solar cells, an area larger than the city itself.
Although the cost for photo-voltaic cells has come down from
$10 per peak watt in the early 80s to $5 per peak watt today,
that is still high. The cost of a solar powered home unit
offered by Photocomm, Inc, that provides 4 kilowatts is $7,377.
A 5 kilowatt gasoline powered generator is sold by Honda for
$650 and has the advantage of running ALL the time.”
So, advance to the present. You can spend some $20,000+ dollars
to place a 500 square foot PV panel on your roof that will power
a handful of light bulbs, charge your cell phone and run a
a Japanese Transistor Radio (A reference to an old Alan Sherman
song.) Forget your AC unit, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, and the
1-1/2 HP Craftsman single stage compressor in your garage.
It will take you 20+ years to realize a ROI. (For the sake of
North of 60, this means Return On Investment)
As predicted by Ayn Rand in 1957, railroads have emerged as the
most efficient way to move freight today. You have chosen to
assume the name John Galt in an attempt to sound both educated
and conservative. You have failed on both counts! Ayn Rand
was not a conservative, she was an Objectvist. This is
something you could not possibly understand if you have never
bothered to read her books, as I have!
Let me get back to Dr. Ray:
“In 1979, the Southern Railway installed solar cells on the
roof of a caboose to power the trains tail lights. But it was
found that the added weight required more energy to pull the
caboose than the solar cells could generate, even in bright sunlight.”
So, a few hundred pounds of added weight were consuming more
energy from a modern diesel electric locomotive pulling tens
of thousands of tons of freight than the handful of watts
it took to power a few tail lights!
Young man, I am issuing you this challenge: As someone who
understands electricity, I want you to refute a single fact
or figure I have presented here. If you can, I will leave this
Blog never to return again.
I am betting I will be here for a long time!
No rebuttal of my facts, how disappointing young man!