From WSJ:
The financial pipeline was cut short before engineers could begin operating the Blythe Solar Power Project, a 1,000-megawatt system with capacity to power 300,000 homes, according to the company.
…
The company filed for Chapter 11 protection Monday, the day after it was scheduled to make a $1 million rent payment to the U.S. Department of Interior for the acreage. Company officials said that the bankruptcy case would also protect the transmission-rights agreements it made with utilities.
“Without the [agreements], the Blythe Project would be unable to deliver electricity to market and would be rendered near, if not completely, valueless,” said Chief Operating Officer Edward Kleinschmidt in documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
From Reuters,
April 2 (Reuters) – Solar Trust of America LLC, which holds the development rights for the world’s largest solar power project, on Monday filed for bankruptcy protection after its majority owner began insolvency proceedings in Germany.
The Oakland-based company has held rights for the 1,000-megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in the Southern California desert, which last April won $2.1 billion of conditional loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy. It is unclear how the bankruptcy will affect that project.
…
Solar Trust of America and several affiliates filed for protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware. It estimated to have as much as $10 million of assets, and between $50 million and $100 million of liabilities.
Blythe is about 220 miles (354 km) southeast of Los Angeles.
“We have been working with Solar Trust of America for a couple of years in getting this project going,” David Lane, Blythe’s city manager, said in an interview. “Although the project is not in the city limits, we are the only city within 100 miles. My sense is that with the large investment in what was to have been the world’s largest solar power plant, someone somewhere will buy it and build it.”
Here’s the big PR sheet for USDOI: doi_blythe_solar_power_project
The video says it all:
.
Both solar arrays and wind farms are a blight on our landscape and have to be heavily subsidized to even exist as an energy source.
And the crocked DEms get richer at the expense of the American people.
Another one bites the dust …
If solar power can’t be made to work there, just forget about it.
Was there ever any doubt?
RE: “Here’s the big PR sheet for USDOI: doi_blythe_solar_power_project”
It would be nice to that as a press release with the following updates:
1. Corrected to be in the past tense, including oucomes.
2. Model vs. Actual.
5,950 acres of desert habitat completely destroyed.
Solar is now and has always been an economic dog. The successful projects bleed the federal treasury for five years and and bleed ratepayers for the life of the projects. The federally guaranteed failed projects bleed the feds white right up front, but in most cases the utility rate payers escape (except when their income tax rates inevitably escalate to cover the federal bleeding).
Historians will look back on a country that ruined itself with such foolishness while awash in dirt-cheap natural gas and shake their heads in wonderment: “They did it because they believed WHAT????”
Blythe is about 220 miles (354 km) southeast of Los Angeles, and 180 miles (290 km) south of Las Vegas.
If they had moved the ‘investment’ a bit further north then at least the tax payers would have stood a chance.
I guess that they could have generated more electricity if they had just burned the money in a steam engine. So, what was the net carbon footprint of this debacle? (Not including the carbon footprint of actually printing the money)
Now you have more space for Algae tanks.
Madness, this stuff is madness. No rational human can endorse this insanity. If this isn’t madness, it’s intentional. That’s a bad choice. If it’s intentional it is evil. I hope for madness but fear it is evil. Bad choice, indeed.
If you start a bunch of projects, some projects will always fail. However, some projects will succeed and (could) make up for the ones that failed. It would be interesting to know which projects which receive a loan guarantee from Obama are successful or are on the right track, and how that compares to the ones that failed. Is such evaluation available?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Levelized_energy_cost_chart_1,_2011_DOE_report.gif
Pure genius, three to four times the capital costs vs. coal, up to ten times operation and maintenance cost. I wonder how much of the liability incurred was used for certain political contributions ? Who is John Galt ?
Another Obama taxpayer boondoggle, huh?
Your sources don’t say that any taxpayer money was spent.
If they have $50 million of liabilities, it sounds like the $2.1 in loan guarantees was never used.
Check out that chain they listed, too:
“…Solar Trust said it ran short of liquidity after Solar Millennium AG (S2MG.DE), which holds a 70 percent stake, sought court protection in December.
Solar Millennium then tried to sell that stake to solarhybrid AG (SHLG.DE), but that transaction collapsed when solarhybrid also sought court protection in Germany…”
The whole lot of them are going down.
Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood,
In your neighborhood, in your neighborhood.
Say who are the people in your neighborhood–
The people that you meet each day?
Why for the Blythe Boondoggle, that would be the cute desert critters… out in the wilderness.
http://i40.tinypic.com/2a6wft5.png
Wikipedia has this to say about the Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area:
Within the Palen-McCoy Wilderness are the Palen , Granite, Arica, Little Maria, and McCoy Mountains, which are five distinct mountain ranges separated by broad sloping Alluvial fans-baJadas. Because this large area incorporates so many major geological features, the diversity of vegetation and landforms is exceptional. The desert wash woodland found here provides food and cover for burro deer, coyote, bobcat, gray fox, and mountain lion. Desert pavement, bajadas, interior valleys, canyons, dense ironwood forests, canyons and rugged peaks form a constantly changing landscape pattern.
It’s nice to see all that FEDERALLY OWNED land being taken so well care of… in the interest of the environment… ya know. Since the rest of the area is either a designated wilderness area or soon to be designated as such… off limits to development and meddling by mankind.
Well, until a friend of a friend needs a place to put their cash cow so they can nestle up and suck that teat dry.
Duncan, try to pay attention. It was built on borrowed capital with a loan guarantee from DOE of up to $2 billion. The project folds so the creditors go to DOE to demand their money according to the terms of the guarantee up to the guarantee limit. The Feds will refuse, it will go to court, and 10 years later the Feds will lose with court costs.
From August 18, 2011
Lindsay Riddell, Reporter
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2011/08/solar-millennium-passes-on-doe-loan.html
Solar Millennium is giving up the $2.1 billion loan guarantee it was awarded from the U.S. Department of Energy to seek commercial financing for its large-scale solar project, according to this press release from the company and first reported by Todd Woody at Forbes.
The move comes as the solar plant developer has decided to switch technologies — from its proprietary solar trough technology to the more common solar photovoltaic panels to generate power at its solar sites.
I’ve spent about 20 minutes searching to see if anything other than a colored map and virtual images have been undertaken. This seems like a tangled web (over cooked glob of spaghetti) that will be years in the courts enriching lawyers, sucking money from useful activities, and producing no electricity at any cost. That sounds like a boondoggle to me.
“Golden shovel” — — — has anyone ever come up with a more fitting symbol and metaphor of a gummint-subsidized project?
The Genesis Solar Energy Project, also near Blythe, is in trouble, too. As reported in the LA times on February 11: The unexpected deaths of kit foxes and discovery of ancient human settlements threaten to delay or even cancel a $1-billion, 250-megawatt installation on federal land in the desert near Blythe.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/11/local/la-me-solar-foxes-20120211
Why does any government need to experiment with what an industry can do itself?
And this industry is the biggest ; its scope is world- wide. No to all interference…
Say this, as interference it is. The Energy industry has supplied us with cheap
electricity and gasoline for 70-90 years, always improving. Let it continue. Do not
use taxpayer money..! Prices are UP, so get governments out of it, and back
down they come.
I have no knowledge of what stray reflections would be coming from those acres of mirrors. I do know that I would not pilot an aircraft into that airport without very reliable knowledge concerning them. I doubt that I would trust information from the Blythe Chamber or Commerce. I might not even trust the FAA if Obama is still president.
The dominoes are falling faster and faster. From Germany to California. The Invisible Hand is landing fatal uppercuts.
The way they hold their shovels it looks like none of those blokes has ever done any hard work
Just checked Google Maps and in the area shown on the schematic drawing there is nothing on the ground except some levelling close to the airport. To the northeast of the airport there are some structures.
Donald Mitchell says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:38 pm
I have no knowledge of what stray reflections would be coming from those acres of mirrors. I do know that I would not pilot an aircraft into that airport without very reliable knowledge concerning them. I doubt that I would trust information from the Blythe Chamber or Commerce. I might not even trust the FAA if Obama is still president.
It should just be a momentary (but very *large*) bright spot.
That said, there’s no indication of any construction in that area on the latest Sectional Chart, and it would be there for landmark purposes, at the very least — so it sounds like the WSJ quote of “…cut short before engineers could begin operating…” is overly-optimistic about the project’s actual state-of-being.
Probably the Chinese fault, again…
/sarc
It’s amazing. Is this the only conflict in which the winning side is continuously made to feel bad all the time? They fail and declare bankruptcy, we mourn the wasted money. Earth’s temperature dips slightly, we fear the consequences because we know.
It seems these green jobs projects are not yet ready for prime time. By rushing these projects out too soon, they may have set green technology back for decades. Who will want to invest their money in future green projects with a track record like this?
Google Earth Location:
33°38’59.97″ N 114°45’33.86″ W
Most recent photo is 9/10/2009, nary a ROW, road nor solar panel.
It seems to be on the eastern flank of a NW trending ridge, not steep, but not flat either.
Now that got me thinking. Why isn’t a natural place to locate multi-square-mile solar farms at major airports near cities? What else are you using the land for? It’s flat. There is already plenty of access. People you employ on tarmacs are used to working around big fragile metal things. It’s a natural! There has to be a reason why they don’t put them there.
Answer: Too many people flying in and out of the airport can see what is going on.
REPLY: The GE imagery is from 2004 – Anthony
Taphonomic http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/11/local/la-me-solar-foxes-20120211
What a mess. A major project gets stalled because seven desert foxes died. (Let me guess the distemper infection came from the coyote piss they were spraying around everywhere) . The so-called burial site sounds more like a neolithic barbecue. Two stones for grinding grain and some ash: a site “too sacred to be disturbed”. OK give the indian reservists some free electricity from the plant and they’ll soon realise the ash was from the fire used to cook the grain. They’re almost certainly running on diesel generators, so giving them solar will save lots of “carbon”.
Belching millions of tons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico was only temporary barrier to deep sea drilling but 7 foxed dead and OMG ! Mind you they are “Kitty” foxes so they must be really cute and must be “protected” at all cost.
And how many ants have had their lives ruined by all this earth moving, does nobody care about the ants ??! They’re a unique species of desert ant only known to inhabit this area they will be lost forever. What about biodiversity ?
As J Peterson says above: “Both solar arrays and wind farms are a blight on our landscape” . Yeah, I was planning to spend the summer is the Nevada desert this year but will all these “ugly” constructions I’ve cancelled by reservations and I’m going to the Seychelles instead. Has anyone considered the impact this kind of madness will have on the desert tourism industry?
The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?
Stephen Rasey says:
April 2, 2012 at 11:45 pm
There has to be a reason why they don’t put them there.
The reason is usually because the area’s already pretty built-up. The reason we’ve lost a lot of smaller airports along the Atlantic seaboard is because of suburban sprawl.
Anyone round here want to make a quick 2 Billion, we’ll buy some cheap solar from China and then transfer the rest of the cash to some off shore account.
As the saying goes if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Do any of those pictured look like they have any idea whatsoever how to use a shovel?
And did they manufacture special golden turds to slide effortlessly onto the golden shovels?
..is this entire fiasco just another crock of golden shh… or what?
$2,100,000,000 conditional loan guarantees
÷ 300,000 homes
= $7000/home
Does that seem reasonable? Could they have wrung an average $7000 out of every home supplied, and that’s without including interest?
2,200,000,000,000 W-hrs
÷ 1,000,000,000 Watts peak production
= 2200 hrs peak production
÷ 365 days/yr
= 6.0 hrs/day peak production
Not outrageous for a good day with perfect conditions, but they’re expecting that every day of the year? And $7000/home for 6 hrs a day?
1,000,000,000 Watts peak production
÷ 300,000 homes
= 3,333 1/3 Watts/home at peak production
Better than some “homes served” figures I’ve seen for renewable projects. Figure in transmission losses, and when the skies are clear and the sun is high and generation has peaked, everyone can run a small room-sized window-mount air conditioner, an efficient mid-sized refrigerator, and… Well I suppose you could turn one of those off for a bit to run a microwave or coffee maker.
Still, it’s better than the average available electricity for the impoverished third world, both in amount of watts and duration during a day, so it’s all good, right?
These people keep attempting to generate electricity from all that daytime solar insolation. So how come they haven’t tried to generate electricity from all that BACKRADIATION that’s present 24/7? Heck, we even get more Wm2 on a cloudy day…….so they tell me. /sarc off
Are they digging Al Gore’s grave, ot merely starting the hole in whcih all the CO2 is going to be buried?
P. Solar:
At April 2, 2012 at 11:57 pm you assert and ask;
“The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?”
I answer that it must be either:
1. The US does not know how to make the Sun shine at night and the Spanish are keeping that secret to themselves.
Or
2. You are spouting nonsense.
Richard
It seems every day there’s news of a solar power company that simply fails to be competitive on the open market.
@richardscourtney says:
“..The US does not know how to make the Sun shine at night and the Spanish are keeping that secret to themselves…”
This is, in fact, the correct answer. http://blog.cleantechies.com/2008/12/01/allegations-of-fraud-in-spanish-pv/ refers
It appears that Solar Power can be sold to the Spanish grid for more than the cost of buying electricity from the grid. So the entrepreneurial Spanish used to hook up lights above the PV cells, and keep them generating even during the night. Later, they learned that you didn’t actually need any PV cells at all – all you needed was the paperwork and a grid connection. Once you had that, you could attach your house power to the grid input, and watch the profits roll in….
From P. Solar on April 2, 2012 at 11:57 pm:
http://www.the9billion.com/2011/06/30/worlds-first-247-baseload-solar-power-plant-now-fully-operational-in-spain/
“Use it or lose it” heat retention, it goes away in 24 hours, or you can tap it and get 15 hours of electricity. Doesn’t seem to be a very efficient storage scheme.
How can this be “24/7 Baseload”? Every day must be a sunny day that recharges the system, or the power runs out. Base load must be far more reliable and consistent than that.
19,900,000 Watts
÷ 25,000 homes
= 796 Watts/home
Wow, that’s stingy.
110,000,000,000 Watt hours per year
÷ 19,900,000 Watts
= 5528 hours/yr
÷ 365 days/yr
= 15.1 hrs/day
They don’t even have that stingy 796 Watts/home figured for a full 24 hours? Don’t Spaniards have refrigerators and other loads that just about everyone will have on for just about the entire day? Actually, since it’s supposed to be 24 hours a day, I’d go with 15.1/24=0.63, they only expect production 63% of the year.
5300 individual motors just on the mirrors, plus PLC’s, plus the pivots and mountings, and all that wiring, and then comes the servicing of the main stuff. Ouch.
Why didn’t they just design it for all-out electrical generation when the sun is out, and use the excess for pumped storage with hydroelectric generation? Seems likely it’d be more efficient, and there could be several days of reserve power.
I found an advanced article about the Gemasolar plant:
http://theenergycollective.com/nathan-wilson/58791/20mw-gemasolar-plant-elegant-pricey
Check out the article for the ground-level picture showing the wasted space. They could have installed Six Times the area in standard solar panels.
Ah, the joys of FREE ENERGY.
$419,000,000
÷ 25,000 homes
= $16,760/home
Wow. Referencing previous post, this one costs more than twice per home what the failed one might have cost, while providing less than a fourth of the wattage per home.
So the Spaniards have successfully done what the failed project didn’t do, at only roughly more than Eight Times the per Watt per home cost. Oh yeah, P. Solar, they got this groundbreaking technology down pat, we should hope the US can do as well someday. Go Spain!
This is just another pilfering of the U. S. taxpayer by a corrupt government. None of these companies are ever expected to produce anything but cash flow from the Treasury. This is the new way to redistribute wealth, stealing money right out in the open using climate change as the distraction.
P. Solar says:
April 2, 2012 at 11:57 pm
“The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?”
Yes, Spain did it and Spain is now bankrupt. While we were paying under 4-cents per Kwh for wholesale electric power in the U.S., Spain guaranteed as much as 58.5 cents for solar. When Spain abrogated those contracts and unilaterally dropped the price to 40-cents, many of its operating solar plants couldn’t service their bank loans.
Let me repeat: “Solar is an economic dog.”
In 2010, the median household income was $52,026, meaning that wasting $2.1 billion destroys the entire annual income of more than 40,000 households. Worse, government will borrow the money to make the good on its loan guarantees, but it never intends to pay off that debt. This leaves future taxpayers, and citizens liable to service it forever, effectively consigning them to a life of debt serfdom. What a foreign military power could not do, we have allowed our own government to do to us, with our own money.
P. Solar wrote: “The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?”
You do know, of course, that Spain now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe, and the huge amounts of money they spent on solar helped put the entire nation on the fast track to bankruptcy? Back in the good old days 2 years ago, the best way to make money was to install some solar cells and then shine a gasoline powered floodlight on them 24 hours a day, since the grid was forced to buy the power at a high multiple of what it cost to produce that way.
Well, all that fell apart and now Spain is bankrupt – may even take down the EU’s entire financial system when they go, but that’s a story for another time and place.
As far as the desert foxes, it does point out a sad irony of leftist governance as practiced today. Leftist governance has come to the point where *no* new initiatives can be implemented, because everything impacts some potential interest group that will be offended (no not foxes, the enviroweenies) And therefore liberalism can no longer even implement its own goals without obstructing itself.
Which is why it is dying, as a movement. But it still threatens to take a lot of us down with it as it goes.
George says:
April 2, 2012 at 8:50 pm
5,950 acres of desert habitat completely destroyed.
——————————-
George that’s “pristine desert habitat”
The real lesson from this and Solyndra and Spain and Holland is that the market (the invisible hand ) will always prevail over time. Always.
The political elite often seems to think that it can outguess the market and pick winners but it never works. The market is the big decider (pace GWB ) and it never gets it wrong for long.
The whole CAGW scare is being rejected by the market now. The market of ideas. This “renewables” nonsense is built on the huge lie of Anthropogenic CO2 as the enemy and you can’t build anything sustainable on a lie.
No doubt the big players have already left the table with their sizable winnings but lots of little guys are going to see their arses because of this nonsense they have been fed and they are going to be annoyed. Even those dear folk at the BBC who have had a big slice of their pension funds invested in this lie are going to get upset when they find that the normal caveats weren’t given or followed.
Today there is some maniac in Her Majesty’s Government stating that they will chuck in a quick billion pounds into Carbon Capture development who took great delight in the fact that over two hundred companies had attended a conference on the matter. He seemed unaware that they attended with one thing in mind, getting a slice of that green money. He also mentioned that the plan is to remove the carbon dioxide before combustion ! I mean really, how dumb can you get?
It seems to be a disease of the liberal/left to throw other people’s money at stuff that only helps their buddies rather than the population at large.
Makes you sick really.
The free pass Obama is getting on this obvious waste of tax payer resources is disgusting.
Look at the idiocratic defenses of the believers: they do not even understand that government funded solar is a boondoggle in places like Spain and Germany.
Perhaps part of being an envirocrat is to set aside one’s ability to think critically.
Attention Anthony:
Here’s the big PR sheet for USDOI: doi_blythe_solar_power_project
Newsflash: AFTER they got the $2.1 Billion in conditional loan guarantees, THEN they completely changed the project. The USDOI link is for when they got the agreement as an innovative Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project.
Then with contracts in hand, like the prominently-mentioned transmission rights agreements with the utilities, they switched to an ordinary PV installation:
http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-news/blythe-solar-project-converts-from-csp-to-pv-for-first-phase-082211/
Important Info: With the switch they lost those loan guarantees.
Confirmation:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/dark-day-for-solar-thermal-solar-trust-switches-500-mw-power-plant-to-pv
“The switch will mean the company has to walk away from a $2.1 billion federal loan guarantee.”
Also, at that link is much moaning about CSP being abandoned and unexplored, with 3 gigawatts of solar thermal projects going PV instead.
So to capitalize on the sucking, the authorities just authorized a massive CSP project in Colorado (bold added):
http://blog.cleantechies.com/2012/04/02/make-or-break-time-for-concentrating-solar/
There is also mention of a CSP project, the “…392 MW Ivanpah plant being built by BrightSource Energy.”
At which point, when faced with a cheaper proven technology, does an “innovative emerging technology” officially become a funding-sucking scam?
Between acres of decaying solar panels, and as far as the eye can see dead wind turbines, our future will be filled with monuments to our stupidity.
A new arena was built near me in our small town. They spent 1.8 million on solar panels on the roof. Fixed type. The best part is they screwed up the orientation. They are all facing south east, with the orientation of the building. In the morning the sun rises right in front of them. By 3PM the sun is off to the side.
The worse of this is we taxpayers has footing the bill.
Isn’t this somehow like the Solyndra debacle?
Its amazing that the USA has so much money to throw away at starry-eyed political projects like this, while their schools and roads fall apart.
I guess when you are printing money like the US Fed is printing money right now, there are wheel-barrows full of money available for anything.
It seems somebody has to clean up that mess, that could be more green jobs. Quite possibly, by building stuff we don’t need and then tearing it down, we could double the number of green jobs in this country.
Something to think about.
~More Soylent Green!
/sarc, duh!
Where is the Monkey Wrench Gang when we need them?
this was NOT taxpayer funded, they turned down the doe loan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/some-clean-energy-firms-found-us-loan-guarantee-program-a-bad-bet/2011/09/13/gIQA9n5J0K_story.html
But when the department offered him a $2.1 billion loan guarantee, Schmidt turned it down. It would have been one of the largest stimulus-funded clean-technology projects, and Solar Trust had been negotiating the deal for roughly a year. But Schmidt decided it was too risky.
ANWAR has a footprint of less than 2,000 acres and each 1 million barrels of daily oil production (could be substantially more than 1 mm bopd) will generate roughly 60 times the energy of the Blythe project.
That’s a great place for a bunch of mirrors, putting them next to an airport. My back-of-the-map calculation is that the solar reflectors on the west side can’t quite align to that runway. If they had ever been built, and were functioning properly, that is.
Tom in Florida said at 4:21 am
This is just another pilfering of the U. S. taxpayer by a corrupt government. … This is the new way to redistribute wealth, stealing money right out in the open using climate change as the distraction.
Yes Tom, that is/was the plan all along. And the Administration has actually gotten away with it. Why do you think the “stimulus” didn’t work in creating jobs? The money didn’t go to “workers” – it went to “contributors”!!
Keith Battye said at 5:23 am
… there is some maniac in Her Majesty’s Government (who) also mentioned that the plan is to remove the carbon dioxide before combustion ! I mean really, how dumb can you get?
ROTFLOL!! Seriously? Remove it before it exists… ?? THAT’S A FRIDAY FUNNY!
It seems to be a disease of the liberal/left to throw other people’s money at stuff that only helps their buddies rather than the population at large.
Well Keith, you hit that nail right on the head! And speaking of heads, in their heads, the liberal/progressive thinker doesn’t even need to justify that because they REALLY do not see it as other people’s money, they see it as their own.
hunter said at 5:25 am
… Perhaps part of being an envirocrat is to set aside one’s ability to think critically.
Not at all, Hunter. Just – follow the money. The ones that do not, (like the Occupy Wall Street pawns) are the ones who have set aside (or never had it at all) their ability to think – – period. Most “envirocrats” (as well as others) know who fills the trough. And unfortunately, here in the US, we are at about 40% of the population that are feeding at the trough, one way or another. What the vast majority of these people have no clue about, is the billions of dollars that is going into foreign (non US) “troughs” and I do not mean (or include in that number) foreign aide – dollars that go to foreign governments. I talking about money that goes out (under the table?) almost unseen as grant money for projects or studies that are really no more than (as Keith said above) a way to throw US tax dollars to somebody’s buddies somewhere else in the world. And it is billions! Here is one example:
Funding Instrument Type: Cooperative Agreement Grant
Category Explanation: Funding is available for projects that increase the scope, capacity, and participation of civil society in building up the media and communications sectors in Pakistan, that support and develop Pakistani voices and new leaders capable of increasing community engagement, and that support civil society and boost institutional capacity. Grant proposals should aim to create or extend the community of reform-minded individuals and groups and should meet one or more of the following U.S. embassy public affairs priorities: 1. Expanding Media Outreach. 2. Strengthening People-to-People Ties. 3. Increase community engagement.
Estimated Total Program Funding:
Award Ceiling: $500,000
CFDA Number(s): 19.501 — Public Diplomacy Programs for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: No
http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=114273
That plus UN funds, real foreign Gov. aide to buy “loyalty” (which works about as well as trying to buy Love), the cost of our military that protects most of the world (and I’m not saying we shouldn’t) and, and, and – – one doesn’t need the ability to think critically as to why we are not only broke, but also why our infrastructure (like bridges & roads & electrical grid/system) isn’t being fixed or upgraded – – BECAUSE WE’RE GIVING HALF A MILLION TO SOMEONE IN PAKISTAN TO “Increase community engagement”! If this isn’t idiotic, then I do not know what is….
To Kadaka:
“How can this be “24/7 Baseload”? Every day must be a sunny day that recharges the system, or the power runs out. Base load must be far more reliable and consistent than that.”
There are numerous technical challenges for these liquid salt systems. Some of them include: Difficulty of the supply chain for the salts themselves, since they must be replaced after a given number of use cycles. What to do with waste salts. Heat stress on the mechanical systems. Corrosive effects on mechanical systems. The salt must be kept liquid inside the mechanical systems or you end up tearing the whole thing apart to get it going again (which means that the salt system must have a grid power feed to keep it warm when the sun isn’t shining for more than 24 hours.) The whole darn system has to be taken off line for regular maintenance due to the above. There are several industries that have used liquid salt heat transfer systems for years, but the people in those industries always balk when you ask them about the feasibility of using a liquid salt system on this scale. The maintenance costs and safety issues are huge.
From powerlineblog.com
A Narrow Escape For Taxpayers
The collapse of the “green” energy industry continued today, as Solar Trust of America LLC filed for bankruptcy. Solar Trust was, it claimed, carrying out the world’s largest solar energy project in California. Two things make Solar Trust’s bankruptcy especially newsworthy: first, Barack Obama’s Department of Energy offered the company a $2.1 billion loan guarantee just last year. Fortunately, Solar Trust turned it down:
It would have been one of the largest stimulus-funded clean-technology projects, and Solar Trust had been negotiating the deal for roughly a year. But [Solar Trust’s CEO Uwe] Schmidt decided it was too risky. …
The Obama administration’s vaunted initiative to catalyze the U.S. clean-energy industry — under attack for betting half a billion dollars on the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra, which closed last month — has become a case study of what can go wrong when a rigid government bureaucracy tries to play venture capitalist and jump-start a nascent, fast-changing market.
Schmidt concluded in early 2011 that the influx of inexpensive flat solar panels was undercutting his company’s year-old proposal to use a field of parabolic mirrors that focus the sun’s energy to heat liquid-containing tubes. Despite market changes, however, the terms of the federal loan guarantee wouldn’t let Solar Trust switch in midstream to flat panels. So Solar Trust sought private financing.
So the Obama administration’s proposed loan guarantee was so dumb that the prospective borrower decided not to take it! That tells you all you need to know about the Obama administration’s ability–actually, the ability of any administration–to execute an industrial policy that doesn’t fleece the taxpayers.
more here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/04/a-narrow-escape-for-taxpayers.php
LOL…. From the picture, it looks like they are hastily burying the body….
I hope someone, somewhere is keeping a running tally of lost and wasted treasure. GK
Lets hope that Southern Cal Edison (SCE) didn’t build the Transmission infrastructure to this now defunct facility. If they did then someone is going to pick up the costs. The only question is who picks up the costs 1) SCE ratepayers with an allocation on their bills (under transmission). 2) CASIO allocation for use of the grid which then roles up under all ratepayers who use the grid. In any case it will be interesting to see how the sunk costs are allocated.
The theoretical output of the facility was for generation at the plant. During the summer months it gets kind of hot out in the desert. Transmission and distribution line losses go up with heat . I wonder what line loss value(s) was used when figuring out what the actual output of the facility was going to be- was the loss estimated at 5%, 7%, 10%, 15%?
perhaps california plans on buying their electric power from enron again since it worked out so well the last time.
i never thought there could be so many, so crazy at one time…
apparently it doesn’t hurt enough to stop. or maybe they just love pain.
Well,
didn’t I say it?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/fracking-for-gas-is-okok
(before)
Obtaining corresponding commercial capital and competition from China are major factors.
The Reality of China’s Billions in Solar Loans
“Capital flows for cleantech in China are not well understood.”
China has provided some where between billions and tens of billions of dollars to solar companies, with uncertainty as to actual loans vs lines of credit etc.
The far greater waste of precious taxpayer resources is the extraordinary US Federal budget deficit which is approaching 10 trillion dollars. ie 5,000 times larger than this Blythe solar project. At least the Blythe project would have been a revenue generator.
Most of the Federal deficit is NOT going into productive investment but is being squandered on Washington bureaucrats and lawyers etc. Budget deficits per administration. This is imposing enormous debt on each taxpayer.
Call your legislator!
I am shocked, shocked, that there is so much gambling going on with public funds!! And it was such a great idea with all of the potential socially responsible, politically correct goals! Plus, it could be funded by taking the tax incentives away from those filthy oil companies. Oh, wait, more costs for oil companies might mean higher gasoline prices? No, that will never happen, just cheaper, clean solar power to charge those electric cars that no one wants. Hard to believe people still want to vote for these folks. But many do.
@ P. Solar:
The Spanish can produce base-load Solar power??? Wow, that must be precisely why their entire country is bankrupt!
And in related news:
Mitsubishi To ‘Mothball’ $100 Million Fort Smith Wind Turbine Factory
At least this is with private money.
gnomish says:
April 3, 2012 at 8:51 am “perhaps california plans on buying their electric power from enron again since it worked out so well the last time.”
Gnomish, we are still paying for the long term contracts that former Governor Davis had the Department of Water and Power secure for us during the peak of our energy crisis (partly caused by Enron’s market manipulations). My cost allocations from PG&E (as delineated in my yearly 2011 True up bill) for the electrical energy I used looked like this:
1) Generation- 24.7%
2) Transmission- 22.3%
3) Public Purpose- 23.9%
4) DWR Bond – 8.95%
5) Ongoing CTC-12.7%
6) Energy cost recovery- 6.2%
7) Distribution- a credit as I send electrons to the grid at peak time from my little PV system. PG&E applies the economic benefit from the 1200 +/- kwh I send to the grid at peak times to distribution. In my case this equated to a reduction in my total cost (charge from PG&E) of $117.50. The dollar total of items 1-6 above (plus a few small allocated charges not noted
above) = $518.
Last year was a good year for PG&E’s generation costs overall as it was very wet last year (lots of hydro) and their natural gas costs have dropped a bunch. My generation allocation charge was just a tad over 36% the two years earlier
to Jim G:
“I am shocked, shocked, that there is so much gambling going on with public funds!! And it was such a great idea with all of the potential socially responsible, politically correct goals!”
Is this really so different from the concept of DARPA? I actually like the idea of doing prototypes and feasibility studies on a whole array of different ideas and only moving forward with the ones that look like winners. The problem with the Obama administration’s approach to the energy problem is clearly demonstrated in the above story though. DARPA would never approve a project of this size with unproven technologies. Solar energy plants are still in the early-adopter stage of R&D. They should be doing small to mid-sized pilot projects and technology demonstrations, rather than the “world’s largest solar plant”. Obama is a headline hawk though, and pilot projects don’t make the headlines. Unfortunately for him, when those big projects fail, the headlines are equally large but negative.
You know, I just can’t figure out the political strategy in regard to Obama’s energy policies. Releasing the new EPA co2 rules on an election year? That seems wreckless, unless you seriously doubt your re-election chances, and you’re trying to rush things in before you get kicked out of office.
Gary Swift says:
” You know, I just can’t figure out the political strategy in regard to Obama’s energy policies. Releasing the new EPA co2 rules on an election year? That seems wreckless, unless you seriously doubt your re-election chances, and you’re trying to rush things in before you get kicked out of office.”
One can only hope. They rushed obamacare through and it rushed their demise in the 2010 elections. No one ever accused these folks of being smart. Look at Joe Biden, for instance. But they have always been considered politically astute, at least much more so than the Republicans. But even that is in doubt, in my opinion, as I believe they are just much more able to keep their people in line and get them to march to their tune. After all, the poorest places in the US have been that way for 60 years and for 60 years they have continued to vote Democrat. Dha! My smart dog is the one that is less likely to obey my commands, my dumb one obeys quickly but needs to be reminded often of what we are doing as she forgets quickly. Of course they are Chessies and very, very stubborn as well, while being almost immune to pain of any kind. I guess they are Republicans.
Nice move, they are trying these types of electricity supply types in my country, but it will fail as the demand for electricity is so high, bigger coal powered stations are being build.
richardscourtney says:
April 3, 2012 at 2:31 am
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
Further to the point made by Richard.
There is a scandal going on in Spain.
The feed in subsidies are so generous that some use diesel generators to produce electrity at night and claim the ‘solar’ feed in tarriff 24 hrs a day!!
And the hits just keep on comin’…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-03/q-cells-files-for-insolvency-as-solar-bankrupcties-rise.html
Peter says:
April 2, 2012 at 9:13 pm
If you start a bunch of projects, some projects will always fail. However, some projects will succeed…
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Fine I am all for capitalism but sucking down tax payer dollars is not capitalism it is a scam. The rule of thumb is 80% of start-ups fail. Why should I have to risk my capital when I start a small business but these jokers do not.
Speaking of Earth Day and scams, Al Gore celebrated the first Earth Day by promoting Maurice Strong’s Molten Metals Technology Inc (another scam) The stock went up in value Strong sold out and made a bundle. The stock then nose dived and the remaining stockholders sued.
From what I can tell they never tested the idea in a pilot plant but instead build a full scale plant. That alone would tell any chemist it was a scam from the get go. You never ever go from lab bench to building a full size plant. Things can blow up if you do that. (Personal experience as an industrial chemist)
Now the case is even used as a class room study on what NOT to do.
http://special.equisearch.com/downloads/articles/EQMay08MudKnot.pdf
The Campaign Financing Scandal:
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/04/us/panel-to-quiz-clinton-s-96-campaign-chief-on-stock-gift.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
The Lawsuit by investors:
http://securities.stanford.edu/1008/AxlervMoltenMeta/001.html
A House Committee investigation was conducted but the PDF seems to have been removed
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20040830154236-07181.pdf
Louis says:
April 2, 2012 at 11:41 pm
It seems these green jobs projects are not yet ready for prime time. By rushing these projects out too soon, they may have set green technology back for decades. Who will want to invest their money in future green projects with a track record like this?
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Who the heck is going to be willing to trust scientists again period. Not the American public and not me and I am a chemist. At this point after reading a listing of grants I want to shut down ALL grants by the US government.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
April 3, 2012 at 1:24 am
….Not outrageous for a good day with perfect conditions, but they’re expecting that every day of the year? And $7000/home for 6 hrs a day?
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If you are going to spend $7000/home this Geothermal heat pump (underground) heating and cooling system makes a heck of a lot more sense. It is the only “green” technology outside of nuclear that does.
Pump: http://www.energyguide.com/library/EnergyLibraryTopic.asp?bid=tva&prd=10&TID=25703&SubjectID=10168
Plans: http://mb-soft.com/solar/saving.html
P. Solar:
“The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?
__________________________________
Your data is a bit old pal.
P. Solar wrote: “The Spanish can manage to produce base-load solar why can’t the US get its act together?”
———————–
Spain: Solar constituted 3 percent of 2010 electricity generation
Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/spain–solar-constituted-3-percent-of-2010-electricity-generation_100002075/#ixzz1r23uZBUP
Even with solars meager contribution it has still been an economic disaster.
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men. Gang aft agley,”
Wag;
And the worst-laid ones almost always!