The agency has already approved 17 large-scale solar energy projects on public lands that are expected to produce nearly 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 1.8 million homes. The department estimated the resource potential of the newly identified development zones at 23,700 megawatts, enough to power seven million homes, by 2030.
Wow! 23,700 megawatts! That’s a lot of megawatts! Right?
No. It’s not…
If all 285,000 acres were covered with solar PV arrays, the “Hot Spots” could have a generating capacity of about 40,000 MW at a cost of about $252 billion.If the same 285,000 acres were covered with natural gas-fired power stations, the “Hot Spots” could have a generating capacity of about 1.8 million MW (1.8 Terawatts) at a cost of about $1.5 trillion.
To put this in a little better perspective…
US electric utilities added an average of 22,734 MW of generating capacity per year from 2001-2010. If the “Hot Spots” acreage was devoted to that annual capacity growth…
Solar PV would consume all 285,000 acres in 21 months at a cost of $143 billion per year.
It would take 80 years for natural gas-fired plants to cover the 285,000 acres at a cost of $19 billion per year.
If every acre of the newly designated Federal land was developed for solar power, it would cover less than two years of the average annual incremental growth in US generating capacity.
It really is ironic that President Obama thinks that, “Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil,” while his administration crows about setting aside 285,000 acres of public land for solar power development that can’t even match our average incremental generation capacity growth for two years.
I wonder if the people who oppose developing ANWR because, by itself, it might only cover a few years of our total oil consumption, are simply giddy about “Boot” Salazar’s latest boondoggle… 
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The radical environmentalists have sufficiently lost touch with reality that they do not realize that we are not going to power this country/world with solar/wind/biomass this century. They refuse to look at hard numbers.
Thanks for putting the Interior Department’s announcement in real world perspective.
Having stumbled through reams of government/PR-speak, the nearest I can figure is that these quoted values of power production are maximum values—you know, mid-day on June 21.
It’s a common trick played by these sorts. Quote the maximum power capacity (MW), not the actual energy production (MWh).
Solar power is intermittent, as is wind power, so they save fuel but they also greatly increase electricity costs. A traditional generating capacity equal to all renewable capacity is needed for those times when the renewables don’t generate ,at night and when no wind blows. Since renewable energy generating istallation cost are more than double tradition energy cost and adding that to the traditional cost we will see investment costs more than triple and rates more than double. Can people afford this? We see energy poverty starting already in Europe. The only technology that would prevent this cost increase is energy storage. But that’s not available yet nor is it likely for some time.
They are going to pave over 285,000 acres with solar cells?????
Don’t these projects require an environmental impact statement?
What is this paving over going to do to the local ecosystem? What will all these solar panels do to the local microclimate?
Where do the idiots who dream up these schemes come from?
Every time there is some article in the local newspaper talking about a school or some other public building getting solar, I ask:
What are the capital costs?
What are the operating costs?
How much energy is going to be produced each day/week/month/year?
What is the expected life expectancy of the equipment?
ROI?
I never get a response. I really believe the journalists covering these stories simply do not get engineering numbers.
All of these projects are defined in terms of capacity, not actual production.
Here’s an example right here in Denver, Colorado.
Obama was up on the roof of the museum with Joe Biden and the new solar arrays. It was extolled as the type of thing we could all enjoy with the new ‘green’ economy.
First, no one could get the basic numbers, as mentioned above. Finally, the numbers were obtained. Pay back in 110 years, with a life expectancy of 20 years on the panels.
Read all about it here:
http://slapstickpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/03/denver-museums-solar-panels-touted-as.html
They must really really really believe it’s going to work. I’m reminded of that planned arctic sea crossing where they figure they’ll run everything off a solar panel. They have no idea. Of course when it fails, they’ll blame the skeptics. They’ll say we planted weeds in the way or something, or that we’re wasting the energy or maybe using more than our “fair share” and therefore we’re undermining the whole thing. Seriously, watch them blame us when it doesn’t work. Same with wind power failure, that’ll be our fault too. It’s always our fault, in their view, it can’t possibly be their own. We will always be “evil” in their eyes, blocking them from successfully returning humankind to the wonderful Garden of Eden. Sigh.
They don’t consider opportunity cost. Or, from another perspective, they apparently haven’t considered the environmental impact on local wildlife. These lands are not empty sandlots. There are some very amazing a beautiful things living there. I guess our leaders would rather kill off some rodents, cactus, bats, birds, grasses, lizards, snakes, insects, and much more, for political gain. Here you have real environmental damage as opposed to drilling a hole and extracting a resource. I’d like them to demonstrate actual damage from drilling compared to placing PV arrays blocking the sun, and using large volumes of water to regularly clean them. There will be pipes, wires, vehicles, people, over thousands of acres. Do the materials exist to build them?
The EIA has traditionally projected negligible growth in solar and wind power compared with our actual consumption. I doubt the real numbers will turn out any different from the previous projections (far less than 1% of power from solar – 3 GW PV solar vs 1030 GW total in 2030 see http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=AEO2012&subject=6-AEO2012&table=9-AEO2012®ion=0-0&cases=ref2012-d020112c, and http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=AEO2012&subject=6-AEO2012&table=67-AEO2012®ion=3-0&cases=ref2012-d020112c).
It’s amazingly funny that the tables show a jump in PV generation from 1 GW now, to 3 GW in 2030, to 8 GW in 2035. OK, sure, it’s just a projection. Seems like politically-inspired BS to me.
Hey, I get first dibs on supplying lambs and kids to keep down the weeds and grass…
___________________________
Might as well get something useful from the project and my tax dollar that pays for it.
The numbers are grossly overstated. Let’s do a little approximation of actual energy produced.
1 acre = 4,046 square metres
So the entire 285,000 acre land alotment available is
4.046 x 2.85 x 10(8)
Now the amount of sunlight hitting the surface of our planet at this latitude is approximately 300 W/sq/m
So the theoretical amount of energy hitting this surface area is:
3 x 4.046 x 2.85 x 10(10) watts or
approximately 36,000 MW
However, only 12 per cent of photons can actually release an electron; the rest don’t have sufficient energy. So the actual energy production capacity out of this facility is only about 36,000 x 12% = 4320 MW (approximate).
In short, the government can’t even calculate the power capacity right, let alone the far more complex problem of actual energy production which is dependent upon hours of available direct sunlight. Indirect light by cloud overcast will reduce production by about 80 per cent.
So no, Dave, it doesn’t cover a couple of years of our incremental energy demand growth. It covers a couple of months at best. When you take the actual likely capacity factor of the solar installation into account, probably all you’re going to get is about six weeks worth, if that.
Now let’s go on with this piece of terminal silliness from the peerless (in their matchless stupidty) Department of the Interior. This is pretty much located in Nevada. Gets awful dusty there, doesn’t it? That creates two problems at least.
1. How do you expect to clean them off after a dust storm? Men with brooms? All 285,000 acres of them? You’re going to need every curler in the world for that job. Ah, wait for the occasional rainstorm, you say? Fine, how are you going to clean off the residue from the rain? Abrasion from the subsequent dust storm?
2. Even very light surface scratching, i.e. from the above-mentioned dust storms, reduces solar cell capacity by up to 75 per cent from reflection and refraction effects. In Nevada’s desert? Odds are the entire array will be worthless junk in less than three years.
Let’s put this into perspective: Each month, the tax ‘take’ into the US Treasury is about 200 Billion (Billion with a “B”) dollars …
Stating it another way, a project for 285,000 acres would cost over 1/12 (one twelfth) of what the US Govt takes-in in a year … and we would still be still paying (and/or borrowing) to pay for everything else Uncle Sugar has committed to ‘buying’ (the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coasties, all social ‘entitlements’ (outside of SS), congressional earmarks, numerous ‘grants’, Foreign Aid, Farm ‘payments’ for _not_ growing certain crops, USDA, FDA, NASA, NOAA, FAA, IRS etc etc etc)
.
Ah, but Mr. Middleton, how quickly we forget! The energy requirements of our elitist’s planned Agenda 21 “walkable/sustainable” stack-and-pack Ecopoli will supposedly be easily met with a few solar panels and a windmill or two. And even giving that, they will merely supplement our main sources of heat and light–the burning of peat and candles. Gaia’s recently divorced Ex reveals the true cause of their separation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jun/15/james-lovelock-fracking-greens-climate?newsfeed=true
Yet, we have hope:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/05/climate_change_conference_marks_progress_for_realists.html
“enough to power about 1.8 million homes”
for six hours provided the sun shines – what do they do for the remaining 18 hours??
I am utterly sick of these kind of statements that are complete lies!
how’s this? “ALL” power generated in Oz in 8 years’ time MUST come from renewables, says Babs at the ABC:
26 July: ABC Australia: Babs McHugh: Wind power more likely than solar to attract investment
Both the Federal Government and the Opposition have agreed on renewable energy targets (RET), so all power generated in Australia by 2020 must come from renewable sources…
However, she says renewables are still struggling to gain ground against fossil fuels and they still need public incentives…
Ms Mey says it’s expected that, within the next 20 years, renewables will provide six gigawatts of energy.
“But that depends on government commitment and investment activities,” she said…
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201207/s3554081.htm
the real figure!
Renewable Energy Target
In August 2009, the Government implemented the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme, which is designed to deliver on the Government’s commitment to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply will come from renewable sources by 2020
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/ret
and you wonder why CAGW zealots will never understand the CAGW science!
But, but, but… they mean well.
@Willhelm – couldn’t agree more. The large land footprint required for any renewables installation never seems to get a mention. Solar especially, seems to be installed in marginal areas, from an agricultural POV but those same marginal areas often contain a very diverse animal/plant home range. In Australia, if a dam project was proposed, all manner of ‘conservationists’ would be all over it defending plant and animal species affected. Perhaps they think deserts or arid lands are dead instead of being amazing places. I’m all for high density energy production and I believe that makes me a conservationist in the best sense.
Wow! You could power 19 Deloreans with 23,000 megawatts.
[REPLY: Uhhh… only those modified, special edition DeLoreans, and I think we were supposed to be dealing with gigawatts… so we couldn’t even power one. -REP]
same garbage all over. This is the same fairy tales promoted in soon to be bankrupt euroland. Never mind that 23,000 MW is rated nameplate power available at best for 4-5 hours per day, on sunny days (and not every day is sunny last time I checked). Someone has to explain to the idiots spending taxpayers’ money that there is a difference between MW and MWhrs., and the only thing pv’s can accomplish is to reduce peak demand on sunny days. Not bad as a concept if one is exceedingly rich.
23,000 solar “MW” cannot produce enough useful power to manufacture a single pv cell (or a single Delorean ball bearing).
How many conventional (meaning capable of full-time output) power stations will be shut down as a result? What is the cost/MW over 20 years? Where does the power go at night? Many of these hotspots get snow. Sometimes for long periods. Some of these places have hydro and can’t bank the water. What… oh screw it.
I quit – this is too stupid. Only the government could come up with this kind of idiocy.
Plus we can expect more clean gasoline and chemicals from booming natural gas supplies and new conversion processes. Here is news on one new firm: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2012/07/26/paul-allens-vulcan-backs-natural-gas-to-fuels-startup-siluria-technologies/
“The radical environmentalists have sufficiently lost touch with reality that they do not realize that we are not going to power this country/world with solar/wind/biomass this century. They refuse to look at hard numbers.”
Sorry, I don’t agree with this.
They do know the numbers, and they believe there numbers do stack up.. and the greenie numbers probably do stack up, even on a cloudy day, for one very simple reason…Their idea of ‘standard of living’, and our idea of standard of living are two very, very different things.
Take away all the street lighting, xboxes, plasma TV’s, mass production of x, y and z, airconditioning, cars, automated anything, medical research, materials research, international shipping and air travel etc etc etc… and hey presto, we can power what would be left of ‘modern’ society with a few solar farms.
What’s quite amazing to me, and appalling as well, is that the Greenies will shut down huge acres of agricultural land in CA and elsewhere to save some tiny critter, then ignore the loss of species and habitat that will inevitably result if their mad energy schemes were to come to fruition.
These are truly brain-dead people. It’s not fair to call enviro-mentalism a religion, because not even (modern) western religions behave as irrationally as these folks, in terms of forcing their beliefs down our gullets.
So: foie gras in out in CA, but wind farms are in!!
Anyone have the impression that the officials at the Department of the Interior have been staring deep into their own interiors to come up with crap like this?
[SNIP: If all you have to offer is school yard insult, then go away until you grow a brain. -REP]
cgh says: “So the theoretical amount of energy hitting this surface area is:
3 x 4.046 x 2.85 x 10(10) watts or
approximately 36,000 MW”
Shouldn’t that be 360,000 MW?
If so, then an efficiency of around 12% would yield the 40,000 MW mentioned in the post.
As for keeping the panels clean, I’ve always thought that must be a much bigger problem than most people realise.