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