According to the New York Times, a major solar power project in California has been canceled. It seems that even creating solar power in the middle of nowhere in a desert can’t get past California environmentalists these days. If not here, where then on earth will be acceptable? Don’t hold your breath.
Excerpt:
BrightSource Energy Inc. had planned a 5,130-acre solar power farm in a remote part of the Mojave Desert, on land previously intended for conservation. The company, based in Oakland, Calif., said Thursday that it was instead seeking an alternative site for the project.
The Wildlands Conservancy, a California environmental group, had tried to block the solar development, as had Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who proposed that the area become a national monument.
The land was donated by Wildlands to the Interior Department during the Clinton administration, with assurances from President Bill Clinton himself, the group says, that it would be protected in perpetuity. But the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a Bush administration initiative, opened the land to the development of solar projects.
Here’s the details on the project from the company website:
BrightSource is currently developing its first solar power complex in California’s Mojave Desert. The Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will be located in Ivanpah, approximately 50 miles northwest of Needles, California, and about five miles from the California-Nevada border. The complex will be a 6-square mile facility (4065 acres) within the 25,000-square mile Mojave Desert and will generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 450,000 tons per year.
Fast facts
* Location: Ivanpah, California
* Output: Up to 440 megawatts
* The Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will power 150,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 450,000 tons per year.
* The Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced today in the US.
* Ivanpah will create 1,000 jobs at the peak of construction.
Project details
The 440 megawatt Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will be built in three phases – two 110 megawatt facilities and one 220 megawatt facility. The first phase (110 megawatts) is scheduled to begin construction in early 2010 and completed by 2012. The second phase will begin construction roughly six months after the start of the first phase in early 2010.
A 100 megawatt solar thermal plant utilizes approximately 50,000 heliostats.
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Mr. Smith, one could get a rough estimate if one know what the blade length is. To the naked eye, the tips appear to move at roughly 40-50 mph, give or take a little. Fortunately birds automatically know how to land in branches and avoid other branches during a strong wind.
I agree that the wind turbines are not useful as a base power supply. To provide peak load margin, to power ethanol distilleries, there I think they might be useful. They almost never stop.
A house isn’t going to support a wind turbine. Do you have any idea how tall those things are?
There aren’t neighbors for a quarter of a mile. Which is actually kind of close for around here.
I have never, ever seen a bird or flock of birds fly through the rotor sweep ever. Wild birds aren’t typically stupid, and as I’ve noted, they have an instinct for this kind of thing. Raptors can do things like dive at 230 mph, and just catch a rodent off the ground without crashing. That is far tougher than avoiding a rotor blade.
Mr. Shaw,
a) we aren’t turning food into fuel.
b) we no longer feed the world.
c) we have massive amounts of excess grain.
d) for 2009, Minnesota hoped to raise its conversion of excess corn into ethanol from 6% of the crop to 8% of the crop.
e) After the fermentation process (we -are- talking whiskey here), a high-protein mash is the result. Probably better feed than it was prior to fermentation.
No one, absolutely no one at all is starving due to ethanol production in the US.
But the question is, why use ethanol at all?
The 10/06 issue of Consumer Reports, which I still have, has a cover story on ethanol. Its conclusion: ethanol has less energy than gasoline, so it takes more to move a vehicle the same distance. IIRC, it takes about 1.5 gallons of ethanol to go the same distance as on 1 gallon of gasoline.
That means that for every mile you drive using ethanol, your car puts 50% more emissions into the air. No getting around that.
The most environmentally sound fuel is the most energy efficient fuel. Otherwise we could use a row of hamsters running in a wheel and call it green [Oops, I don’t want to give them any ideas…]
Gasoline: The Green Fuel!
And it doesn’t need MTBE.
Windmills killing birds:
From http://www.klimabedrag.dk/indlen/44-windmills-are-killing-our-birds
“A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.
Altamont’s turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon’s tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.
The number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.”
Steve,
I have watched the huge windmills outside Atlantic city quite a number of times. They are generally idle since there is either too much or insufficient wind. My eyes are not calibrated to determine the tip speed but I think I can accurately calculate the tip speed given the rotar diameter and rpm. For the 300 ft diameter and your 7 rpm, I calculate 75 mph not the 45-50 mph you quote. Did I make a mistake somewhere?
Smokey,
You raise an excellent point. Bob Dole explained the ethanol mandate years ago when he noted that there are 21 farm states: therefore 42 senators to vote for it. No further explaination needed. Ethanol (for motor fuel) from corn makes zero sense since it takes as much energy to produce as it yields., Ethanol from sugar cane probably is justifable. To extend the life of Ethanol (and get votes for the outrageous Waxman/Malarkey bill), the latest bills in congress exempt ethanol although the EPA was supposed to consider the entire impact cycle.
I have to say that putting the turbines in a mountain pass sounds like something that might result in a higher incidence of bird traffic than on the open prairie. On the open prairie a dead calm is an extremely rare thing.
Sounds like the Altamont problem is due to bad location and obsolete technology that has nothing to do with the wind farms covering the upper midwest.
Steve Schaper (18:13:12),
Do you know why birds fly into windows? It’s because they’re not adapted to them. Windmills are worse, because they didn’t exist 15 – 20 years ago like they do now.
Windmills killed these birds:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
Now, imagine if Exxon-Mobil had caused these birds to be chopped up. It would be like a small nuclear explosion in the blogosphere. The demands to stop the carnage would be deafening.
But since it’s touchy-feely ‘green’ windmills, they get a free pass. Tough luck for the expendable eagles, hawks and owls. It’s all in a good cause, right? Not like some nasty old power plant that gives us cheap energy.
Also, according to an Economist article, the newest, biggest windmills are so large that the blade speed must be tuned to keep the tips below the speed of sound. That’s a little faster than 40 – 50 MPH.
The real issue here is the difference between conservationists and warmies. Being a bit of a conservationist myself, I see where these people are coming from. Destroying 5000 acres of wilderness to help save the world from a fictitous problem seems rather silly.
That said, 5000 acres in a 25000 sq mile (16 000 000 acres) wilderness area is realy nothing. And lest face it, it is a desert.
“”” Jeff in Ctown (08:58:14) :
The real issue here is the difference between conservationists and warmies. Being a bit of a conservationist myself, I see where these people are coming from. Destroying 5000 acres of wilderness to help save the world from a fictitous problem seems rather silly.
That said, 5000 acres in a 25000 sq mile (16 000 000 acres) wilderness area is realy nothing. And lest face it, it is a desert. “””
So Jeff in Crown; what would you say to “investing” 2400 acres out of 19.2 million acres of desert; and all located where nobody in full possession of their faculties would ever want to set foot.
It can be realized out of sight of anybody in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up in Alaska.
Have you ever been to ANWR; or do you know anybody who has ever been to ANWR; or perhaps you know somebody who knows of somebody who has been to ANWR. The most important fact to know about ANWR, is that there are 12 different places in ANWR where you can put the entire State of Delaware; from whence cometh our Vice President; without any overlap at all.
“”” Steve Schaper (18:13:12),
Do you know why birds fly into windows? It’s because they’re not adapted to them. Windmills are worse, because they didn’t exist 15 – 20 years ago like they do now.
Windmills killed these birds “””
Steve, the wind fan farm over in the East Bay of Northern California; so-called Altamont Pass, is one of the highest density habitats for Golden Eagles in the world.
I doubt that any of the modern versions of installed fans run anywhere near Mach 1 tip speeds. Some of the bigger ones are 300 feet diameter, and at six seconds per rev which is about as fast as I have seen any going, that is about 1/7 of sound velocity. But they are plenty fast enough to destroy birds; remember that in order to extract energy from the winds, those blades have to create major disturbances of the air flow, and that is why the soaring birds get fouled up in them; and a whole farm of them makes the local air flows quite untenable.
Besides those things are ugly beyond all belief; the thought that environmentally conscious people would tolerate either wind or PV farms in pristine areas is anathema to me. I have no problem with PV roofs in urban areas.
“”” Steve Schaper (18:13:12) :
Mr. Smith, one could get a rough estimate if one know what the blade length is. To the naked eye, the tips appear to move at roughly 40-50 mph, give or take a little. Fortunately birds automatically know how to land in branches and avoid other branches during a strong wind.
I agree that the wind turbines are not useful as a base power supply. To provide peak load margin, to power ethanol distilleries, there I think they might be useful. They almost never stop.
A house isn’t going to support a wind turbine. Do you have any idea how tall those things are? “””
Well my house doen’t need any five megaWatts of electricity.
A typical modern good size home may have a 200 Amp at 240 Volts (two phase) main breaker box. That is 48 kW full load peak capacity. How many people ever run 48 KW of electricity in their house ?
So houses used to carry towers that supplied energy to the house; but those heavy towers were built on the ground so the house didn’t have to support the weight. They have generally been outlawed now; or at least you are allowed to have them but you can’t use them for anything but show and style; I think they are called chimneys; or something like that.
So simply replace the chimney with a fan tower; my guess is that 10-15 KW is more than enough electricity to run your LED lighting, and your iPod.
Most energy in the home is consumed in the form of heat; so natural gas is the way to go for that; it should be a Federal felony offence to consume electricity to generate heat or hot water in a HOUSE; that is a totally wasteful enterprise.
George E. Smith (11:13:07) :
“Most energy in the home is consumed in the form of heat; so natural gas is the way to go for that; it should be a Federal felony offence to consume electricity to generate heat or hot water in a HOUSE; that is a totally wasteful enterprise.”
George, many country folk enjoy a good hot shower too. Natural gas utilities may be ubiquitous in the city but rare in the hills beyond. That’s the problem with federal regulations; the one-size-fits-all approach from congress rarely fits this old hillbilly.
Well Maurice I wouldn’t want any hillbillies to not get a good hot shower. maybe if you manufacture some hooch up in them thar hills, you could make do without natural gas; well it would still be natural clean green renewable; but also drinkable; how about that ?
This blog cites the wrong project as being canceled. The project that was slated for the Broadwell Dry Lake was the one abandoned — not Ivanpah.
Considering what Gaians have done planting lynx and pictures of lynx, I’m skeptical about the birds. Windows are unlike anything in their experience. Wind charger rotors are like something they know – branches moving in the wind.
If the complaints could be stuck with where they are being built these days, the upper midwestern prairie where the wind seldom dies down completely, would be more helpful than an obsolete installation in a poor location.
Desert bighorn would likely not be on the flats like that. As others have noted, it would be -good- for the wildlife.
ANWR was about payoff to the Indonesian oil magnate who contributed to the Clinton campaign.
As to ugly, they are pure white. I do wish that they’d maybe paint the towers brown and the rotors green, like giant trees. 😉 But they aren’t always ugly. see http://www.flickr.com/photos/sschaper_iowa/
Three blades moving that slowly sure don’t fit the word ‘fan’ very well.
As to heat, and making it a felony, I take it you live in a southern clime. Many of us don’t. If your ideas were followed, millions of people would free to death.
I don’t much care for your anti-rural bias, unless of course you were being sarcastic.
I was in the solar energy business in the 70s and 80s. The idea that solar power can meet even a fraction of the electricity demand of ANY modern country is pure fantasy.
There are two ways to harness solar power on the earth, and a different (and better) way to harness solar power in outer space. I’ll talk about how you can do it on earth.
The first way is direct solar gain, also called solar thermal, another name is concentrating solar power (CSP). This approach is the most efficient because the solar energy is being used directly to heat a heat store like water, oil, or air. Electricity can be produced by concentrating the solar energy to create steam from water or other fluids. Cummings diesel tested the idea of using concentrated solar energy to drive a Stirling cycle engine directly, that project was a miserable failure.
There have been several pretty serious R&D efforts on CSP going back over 100 years. Several demonstration projects have been built in the United States, Israel, Australia, India, and other places. All of these projects have the same conclusion. CSP is not currently ready for prime time. The actual results do not meet the theoretical expectations. The cost of the electricity produced is greater than other means of creating electricity.
In order for CSP to become a viable technology, many more demonstration projects have to be built and the lessons learned have to be applied to the next generation of design. This will require billions of $ of R&D money. Currently the United States government does not provide such funding.
There are several practical problems to large scale CSP adoption by the electrical power generation industry.
First, these plants require a lot of land. Fortunately, the places that have the best solar gain tend to be barren desert.
Second, these plants require a lot of water or some other fluid. Unfortunately, the places that have the best solar gain tend to be barren desert. The CSP operators get their water from OUR water table. But they don’t pay for it. OUCH.
Third, these plants only work in areas that receive above a required threshold of solar gain. Locations like this are referred to as “hot spots”. There aren’t very many of these “hot spots” in the world. In the United States there is 1 in Florida, a handful in westernmost Texas, a handful in southern California, a handful in southernmost Utah and Colorado, and the rest are in New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. So, if you want to use this power where people actually live and work you need an efficient transmission grid. Unfortunately, the US does not have an efficient transmission grid.
Fourth, the local governments almost always grant these plants tax exempt status for the property taxes for the land that the plants sit on. This means the local taxpayers are subsidizing the electricity cost.
Fifth, the capital costs are quite high. The land cost is enormous. Most governments are giving the land that CSP plants sit on tax free status, so the electricity cost is being subsidized by the LOCAL taxpayers. The water used is not being given a cost factor because it is pumped out of the water table it is viewed as “free”. Tell that to the farmers in southern California. The cost of one of these plants is as much as 6 times a nuclear power plant and the produced electricity is up to 4 times as high. The cost figures that the green movement puts out for this technology come from fantasy land. They ignore huge cost factors like the tax subsidy, the water cost, the land cost, etc. They also use the RATED capacity for the equipment, not the INTERMITTENT PEAK capacity. Intermittent peak is the only capacity number that matters for variable technologies like solar and wind. The number that you really need to know is the cost per unit (Kwh) of electricity produced by the plant over its lifetime including the intermittent load factor, the life span of the facility, the initial capital costs including land, the value of the water, direct and indirect subsidies, decommissioning, and side effect costs. Rated capacity is meaningless. You can easily get the actual numbers for electricity production cost from one of the existing commercial CSP plants in the US, Israel, or Australia and compare that number to the fantasy land numbers the green movement puts out.
CSP is cheap in theory but so far is very expensive in practice. Here are some cost figures which do NOT include subsidies, the true cost of the water, decommissioning, and side effect costs.
Solar thermal may be cheap in theory, but — thus far — it’s expensive in practice:
Andasol 1 (Spain) — 50 MW, 180 GW·h/yr (41% c.f.), €300 million; 14.6 €/W(average) =20.4 US$/Wa; “271 €/MW·h” =0.38 US$/kW·h
http://social.csptoday.com/content/lower-cost-production-actually-product-andasol-1s-energy-storage
Puertollano (Spain) — 50 MW, 100 GW·h/yr (23% c.f.), €200 million; 17.5 €/W(average) = 24.5 US$/W(average)
http://www.iberdrolarenovables.es/wcren/corporativa/iberdrola?IDPAG=ENMODULOPRENSA&URLPAG=/gc/en/comunicacion/notasprensa/090508_NP_primera_termosolar.html
Nevada Solar One — 75 MW, 134 GW·h/yr (20% c.f.), $266 million; 17.4 $/W(average)
Martin (Florida) — 75 MW, 155 GW·h/yr (24% c.f.), $476 million; 27 $/W(average)
Look on the bright side. The eco-wackos saved us from subsiding another solar facility that can never make enough power to pay for itself.
[snip – just a bit over the top, ad hom on Lovelock ]
Curiousgeorge (05:54:45) :
YinYang. Everything from bacteria to people eats something else to survive and propagate. That’s the fundamental truth that many econuts cannot come to grips with. Life and the universe is messy and violent, and they just cannot deal with it.
Hmm. Reminds me of “Disgustipated”, by Tool:
And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber.
And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself.
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest.
And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil.
One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear.
And terror possesed me then.
And I begged,
“Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?”
And the angel said unto me,
“These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust.”
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared,
“Hear me now, I have seen the light!
They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!
Damn you!
Let the rabbits wear glasses!
Save our brothers!”
Can I get an amen?
Can I get a hallelujah?
Thank you Jesus.
[to the sound and rhythm of a rifle being loaded and shot repeatedly]
This. is. necessary.
Life. feeds on life. feeds on life. feeds on life. feeds on–
This. is. necessary.
This. is. necessary.
Life. feeds on life. feeds on life. feeds on life. feeds on……..
(repeats on itself over and over again)
Steve Schaper:
The notion that ethanol is turning food into fuel, and causing starvation is exceptionally nonsensical. Do you really want me to point out all of the ways?
Okay. Interesting. Can we agree though that ethanol is not a good solution given that it requires more energy to create it than it produces? I think I’ve even heard that on a per unit basis it requires more gasoline to produce it than just using oil as the primary fuel source. Even energy analysts who are concerned about carbon emissions say that ethanol is a terrible solution, as it causes more CO2 to be emitted, again on a unit basis, than just using gasoline.
George E. Smith:
Besides those things are ugly beyond all belief; the thought that environmentally conscious people would tolerate either wind or PV farms in pristine areas is anathema to me. I have no problem with PV roofs in urban areas.
You make a good point. The thing that makes no sense to me is the “greenies” insisting (nay, requiring) that we switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs. True, CFLs use much less energy, but my memory of what environmentalism used to worry about is toxic pollution that affects our environment. Every CFL contains anywhere from 5-25mg of mercury in a dust/gaseous form. If you break one in your home you have a serious situation on your hands (where are the consumer safety advocates on this???). We worry about lead paint and asbestos in old buildings, and yet we’re supposed to tolerate this potential hazard? Something’s wrong with this picture. Secondly, even though recycling services are readily available for them, let’s be realistic. Most people are going to throw spent CFLs, unwrapped, in the trash, and they’ll go to the landfill. Is this anyone’s idea of an eco-friendly future? Not mine.
It seems to me that the advocacy around solutions that you and I are talking about here wraps itself in the cloak of “green” when in fact it’s serving particular industrial interests, and has little to do with environmental protection. You gotta admire it. It’s one of the greatest PR campaigns in history.
(sigh) This isn’t related to any of the discussion threads on here. Just thought I’d include this. I sometimes feel this way arguing with people about environmentalism’s priorities these days, especially that it’s become a fashion statement to some people…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hPcPEeB_Ok&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]
Ironically this was produced by “Current TV”, which was co-created by Al Gore.
Interesting debate on the solar power projects. I really enjoyed reading your article and the comments following, thanks!