This article was orginally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is re-published here with permission.
Back in the late 1970s there was a popular wine commercial with the film director Orson Welles reminding us that “some things can’t be rushed,” and concluding with what became a famous catchphrase: “We will sell no wine before its time.”
One of the biggest yet least discussed problems with the race to establish the solar industry before the subsidies run out is that the product has arguably been rushed to market before it is perfected. The construction is getting ahead of the expertise – meaning that billions of dollars could be invested in solar devices that are soon to become outdated.
The haste to establish solar fields across more than a million acres of U.S. farmland – along with countless more installations around the world – has seemed to come with relatively little long-term planning as to deployment, functionality with existing electric grids and eventual decommissioning and disposal.
Modern solar devices are relatively new creations, in many cases still being studied and upgraded. And yet, giant arrays of solar panels mounted on posts – replacing acres of corn, wheat and soybean fields – are being established as though the technology is finalized and the form complete.
A stark example of the folly of rushing solar products to market was recently provided. The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert, built from 2010-14 at a cost of $2.2 billion – including $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees from the Obama Energy Department – is now “set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy,” according to a recent story in the New York Post.
“The facility’s 5 square miles of desert were covered with some 173,500 heliostats, adjusted via computer to catch maximum rays,” the story noted. “The computer-controlled mirrors can reflect light from the sun at temperatures that can reach 1,000 degrees in part of the installment.”
“The idea was that you could use the sun to produce a heat source,” alternative energy consultant Edward Smeloff told the Post. “The mirrors reflect heat from the sun up to a receiver, which is mounted on top of the tower. That heats a fluid. It creates steam [that spins] a conventional steam turbine. It is complicated.”
But as the technology rapidly evolved, the Ivanpah facility “couldn’t compete with newer and less expensive forms of creating solar power,” the Post reported. The result? The reckless hurry to “go green” once again ended up with a project deep in the red.
Modern solar technology is so emergent that it’s a long way from being perfected. For instance, new research at the Autonomous University of Querétaroin in Mexico is studying “a new thin-film solar cell design capable of converting more than twice the standard percentage of sunlight into usable electricity,” according to Metal Tech News.
The technology is designed to utilize “only Earth-abundant, non-toxic materials in a breakthrough that could help reshape the solar industry” and have applications “both environmentally friendly and suitable for large-scale manufacturing.”
“Higher efficiency means a solar panel will produce more electricity for a given amount of sunlight, which can be crucial in applications with limited available space or where maximizing energy output is essential,” the story noted.
Another innovation involves “bifacial” solar panels, which operate by “capturing sunlight from both the front and back of the module,” allowing them to “utilize reflected sunlight from various surfaces, such as the ground, water, or nearby structures, resulting in increased electricity yield,” according to an industry report.
Left unsaid is that such breakthroughs would mean that many existing solar installations are operating with outdated technology generating less electricity than would have been likely if patience, continued research and a more complete product had been brought to market.
Yes, technology is always evolving and improvements are constantly being made on everything from automobiles to microwave ovens to cell phones to laptop computers. But in few areas – none to the extent to which taxpayers have propped up solar– have billions of dollars in subsidies been allocated to rush such a still-evolving product into production, installation and implementation.
Even more concerning is the fact that there is no need for such urgency. Our traditional, affordable hydrocarbons, especially natural gas, are sufficiently abundant to last at least through the remainder of this century. With more time and continued research, solar energy might someday be deployed more efficiently and cost-effectively, possibly requiring a fraction of the footprint currently required. Such foresight could preserve more farmland for agricultural use and minimize potential brownfield damage when solar fields reach their decommissioning stage.
The solar industry should only launch validated, fully realized products that are economically viable without government subsidies. As Steven Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, said in regard to the Ivanpah solar debacle, “No green project relying on taxpayer subsidies has ever made any economic or environmental sense.”
The “renewables” sector should learn a lesson from the wine-making industry and promise to install no solar before its time.
Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Empowerment Alliance.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Charles did a story on this on 2025/02/01, with 84 comments.
Ric Werme’s comment is worth following.
Yes he did.
Searching for “wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/01” in my browser’s “History” sub-menu gave me the following link :
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/01/ivanpah-solar-plant-the-flaming-failure-thats-finally-being-put-out-of-our-misery/
.
Ric actually posted two comments under that article.
Both the “Margaret Hamilton” and the “Crescent Dunes” comments led to information that I would put into the “interesting (and amusing)” category.
Which comment [ singular ] was the one that you considered “worth following” ?
There is only one question that needs to be asked, can solar power support the grid and a modern society? If the answer is yes build more of them, if the answer is no stop wasting our time, money and resources on them. It is that simple.
If the answer is NO, building more won’t make the answer YES.
Solar is really only good for …
Running Calculators
Running a DC powered Off Grid SMALL home
Recharging batteries between 10am and 2pm
My deck lights (except at this time of year north of Seattle).
It does according to Ed Minibrain in the UK – more wind, more solar to overcome their inability to sustain a supply to the grid to match varying demand. And more batteries, and carbon capture, and “green” hydrogen, oh and SMRs, more HT transmission lines to join up stranded wind installations in Scotland and out at sea.
It is a well thought-out, integrated plan which will reduce our electricity bills, not now, but in the future, delivering “renewable” power 9 times, not 8, not 10, but 9 times cheaper than fossil fuels.
The ONLY thing that made sense in that Minibrain statement was SMR. They could provide uninterrupted carbon free power far cheaper than Wind and Solar (separate or combined). In fact SMRs make Wind and Solar obsolete as the Last Century Tech that they are.
The russian have made a new rocket based on a SMR. Very small. That rocket can hover, stay, move at various speeds and obviously….deliver destruction.
There are of course SMRs in nuclear submarines. There is no good reason not to expect developments there, hopefully less militarily focused..
The one thing that Submarines and Navy Surface Vessels have with respect to Modular Nuclear is their Ample supply of water for cooling
There are other nuclear power systems that do not rely on water cooling.
Minibrain is not able to cope with the reality that unreliable wind and solar generating an output so low it barely registers will not power the grid even if there hundreds or thousands more panels and windmills just as fitting a massive fuel tank to your car will not help when it is empty.
Where I am they can only charge batteries on good days four months of the year. Two months of half output and six months of practically nothing. Worse than you say.
Well any Solar figures Are “Latitude Dependent”. Scott Base Antarctica might be 70% for 100 – 24hr periods (2400 hours) but raise from/drop to 30% for 1500 hours, then practically zero for 500 hours then finally be zero for the next 4400 hours. Now They would need lotsa batteries for 100% power from March 15 until October when their sunny day begins (provided it IS SUNNY and not blizzard conditions.
Certainly in the UK, the answer is an emphatic . . . NO!!!
Over the last 12 months, from the UK installed solar generation capacity of 20.99GW, these facilities have provided . . . 2GW.
So they operated at a load factor – efficiency – of 9.5%.
And this means, if you need 1GW . . . you have to install >10GW – that’s an over-build factor of >10x !!!
Any Engineer of integrity would be both utterly disgusted and highly amused at such outright stupidity.
Sorry but you seem to think it is a technical issue. That is soooo far right thinking!!!😝
It is in the sense that something either works or it doesn’t. Wind and solar don’t work, they can’t support the grid or a modern society, so stop building them and remove what we have from the grid.
Caring whether something works is so right wing.
Ahh, nothing like justifying a solution looking for a problem.
A solution that doesn’t work, for a problem that doesn’t exist.
I guess it’s asking too much for anyone here to read and comprehend First Solar’s quarterly earnings report and earnings call transcript on Thursday and the huge stock run up today from analyst upgrades. There is even a bonus there comparing short term Wall Street thinking from quarterly results vs upgrades today citing longer term prospects post incentives. The low cost leader with expanding US mfg capacity is effectively separating from the Obama/Biden tax credit losers. The European project developers are also hitting the exits in the US. Hint: Green tax credit elimination and tariff policy promoting US mfg is in high gear for the best of breed entities with wider moats.
Without 45X production tax credits and government mandates, First Solar would be out of business
Mandates?
Requirements to buy, whether power companies need the power or not.
Europe erased its solar industry in order to go fully with the forced labor solar supply chain in western China. That allows them to focus subsidies and trade walls on farm products.
This will only happen if government subsidies are abolished. Incentives can be given – for example the British government offered a substantial cash prize in 1714 for a clock which had a rate accurate enough to determine longitude. John Harrison spent decades developing such a chronometer, but the Government took quite a while to actually pay up. Delayed subsidy, if you will.
Current subsidy schemes of all types are based on dreams and fantasies being promoted to the ignorant and gullible, who unfortunately don’t feel any guilt about disbursing other peoples’ cash – often in vast amounts.
But that’s life in many countries. Assuming that the people running countries are not as clever as they think is probably a good starting point, if your desire is to lead a quiet life. Then you don’t bother getting upset when your government does things which you think are incredibly stupid.
Abolish ALL subsidies.
You are missing the point. The project are designed to enrich specific groups and individual of the political donor class. Donors pay for elections and votes. In return politicians rob taxpayer and send that money to the donors so they can profit from paying for politicians. It has been this way for a long time but the taxpayer do not catch on. We tend to live in a political tribal structure as we do with college football and basketball. Please wake up America.
We see what we want to see and we hear what we want to hear.Don Miguel Ruiz
Abolish all political-cause-aligned NGOs for a start.
Environmental NGOs & Foundations should have disbandment targets pinned on them.
And the American Federation Of Teachers could disappear tomorrow and the country would be significantly more intelligent & informed by Monday.
Who exactly is going to abolish ‘political- cause-aligned NGOs’? The political establishment that is affiliated with them? And who are bankrolled by the (international)financiers who set up the system in the first place?
These things don’t drop out of the sky..
There were plenty of clocks that were accurate enough to determine longitude in 1714. The problem was that none of them would work on a an unstable platform, such as a board a ship. The challenge was to invent an accurate clock for ships.
Story tip – Lawfare as a way to increase costs of fossil fuel usage:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/lawyer-behind-colorado-climate-suit-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-litigation-is-a-tax-on-oil-companies-and-consumers/
First thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers…
And have a lottery to determine who has the right to pull the trigger.
Just remember: those lawyers have powerful international friends.
The real breakthrough with solar generated electricity will come when the energy can be created from sun roofs on cars, and transmitted by wi-fi satellites to subscribers all around the world.
It’s not far off.
Call this number now to register for your pre-listing stock options package –
1-100-SCAMERS-R-US
Here is another hint (for Gary): The rush to market explanation should not be confused with bad public policy employing lack of due diligence on a massive scale.
All that more efficient panels will do require slightly less land area. They still aren’t going to produce power at night. 100% reliable – zero at night.
Had a cloudy day the other day, got 10% of sunny day yield from rooftop panels. This is all crazy.
10% on a cloudy day?
Climate nut jobs here in Wokeachusetts claim you get almost as much as on a sunny day. Of course I knew they were lying. They also claim you get almost as much when the panels have a foot of snow on them. 🙂
The architects of projects like this do not measure success in the rational way. If all the money was spent and the right political donors benefited, it was a success.
Up to 28% efficient. Be still my beating heart.
And 28% efficiency in transforming absolut 0% sunlight at night is especially exiting…
sarc
Efficiency matters not when productive generation time is only 4 hours a day
Up to 28% efficient (energy conversion of a commercially-available solar cell) . . . when:
— sunlight is within 10 degrees of being normal to the face of a solar cell,
— the slant range to TOA along the vector to the Sun is no more than about 10% greater than when the Sun is at zenith over the solar cell,
— the solar cell face does not have any dust, dirt, snow or blown debris
— it isn’t raining onto the solar cells surface.
And the 28% maximum conversion efficiency of sunlight-to-DC electricity of a solar cell gets knocked down considerably in the process of running the electrical output through wiring to DC-DC voltage step-up converters then to conditioning/storage batteries and from these to DC-AC inverters where it is finally converted to 120/240 VAC which must match the tightly-controlled grid voltage and frequency limitations before being put to practical use (excluding the rare use of DC-DC converters for direct charging of an EV).
The “technology” will never solve solar’s fatal flaw – intermittency. Let us know when they invent one that works 24/7.
Or electricity storage is free.
Solar really is only good for recharging storage as it’s only productive when demand is lower and completely unproductive when demand is at peak.
and safe
Check out solar arrays as used on interplanetary spacecraft and orbiting satellites such as the ISS.
The extension cords are problematic.
Satellite engineers are smart enough to size the solar arrays for the specific power needs of the satellites themselves, and don’t have the
hubrisstupidity to even image they would route power to Earth’s surface.Did you really need to identify a problem with “extension cords”??? Especially given my specific mention of interplanetary spacecraft?
ROTFL.
Rubbish. Nothing is ever perfected before it hits the market. Existing solar makes sense to reduce draw down of perched water in hydro systems with limited storage. Lots of farms in Australia have saved substantially on using solar plus battery to power all manner of things around the farm. Some use solar/battery now to power the farmhouse.
The error was connecting solar to the grid and ruining the economic of coal fired power.
Attached shows South A=ustralia usage today. That big yellow chasm is the rooftop solar. The purple is lignite fired coal being imported; essential for grid stability and reliability when there is no wind or sun but economics destroyed by the intermittency of WDGs.
The existing grid upgraded every 30 to 40 years with new and improved technology. Was the Model “T” the perfect motor vehicle? An absolute workhorse but far from perfect.
Let the market decide what has value and what doesn’t – not governments or the UN or EU.
In other words… Billions wasted … transferred to China for useless, short lived solar technology containing communication devices that could be used to covertly switch off the panels
Just a thought: Ivanpah used natural gas to “pre-warm” the entire heat cycle before there was enough sun to run the system. And then sometimes they would use NG to supplement the solar output so they could fulfill their contractual obligations. What a scam, made up to garner government funds.
What I remember, and stands out about Ivanpah for me, is the environmental damage done in the name of the environmental gods – the same gods that send people to riot against law enforcement, but not against “Renewable” habitat destruction. We had tortoise displacement and subsequent kills, we had birds being cooked in mid-flight – called “streamers” – for the streaming smoke of their burning feathers as they passed thru the intense concentrated sun beams (remember cremating ants using magnifying glasses?). Won’t even mention the allowed Wind Turbine bird kill-offs – OT. Oops, just mentioned it.
Pilots of commercial aircraft, and other, had to learn to account for the blinding, errant, light from Ivanpah grounds. Gary mentioned Ivanpah’s 5 square mile facility – acreage that was cleared of most of its natural habitat and taken out of natural habitat use.
Tortoises: https://heartland.org/opinion/mojave-solar-project-killing-threatened-desert-tortoises/
Streamers: https://www.sciencealert.com/this-solar-plant-accidentally-incinerates-up-to-6-000-birds-a-year
Solar; It’s the grift that keeps on grifting.
Typical of new things especially politically hot ones, rushed into production.
(A related case was a Very Light Jet business aircraft developed in a suburb of Des Moines IA, IIRC a university there.
Actually flew but that showed some refinement was necessary – no investors found to finish development let alone start production, probably lacking confidence in the company owners.
(Very few of the VLJ wannabes got far, one that did found little market for its by-then costly product.
One forecast market was ‘air taxi’ operations to zip you to another city, but they did not do well.)
“The “renewables” sector should learn a lesson from the wine-making industry…”
Oh but it has – the French wine industry. The more unsellable wine that is produced, the more the taxpayer subsidies flow, the more wine simply tipped down the drain – the wine producers and their profits must at all costs be protected, in order to secure electoral support.
That’s just utter bollox.
You clearly don’t live in FRANCE
From the above article:
“Another innovation involves ‘bifacial’ solar panels, which operate by ‘capturing sunlight from both the front and back of the module,’ allowing them to ‘utilize reflected sunlight from various surfaces, such as the ground, water, or nearby structures, resulting in increased electricity yield,’ according to an industry report.”
Yeah right . . . I don’t even need the back of an envelope for this rebuttal:
The albedo of those various “reflective” surfaces is most likely to 0.3 or less under the best condition of a given solar cell facing normal to their surface. However, that is not possible since sunlight could not get around the front surface of the solar cell(s). This means the back of the module will always have a slated view to whatever directly sunlit surfaces are in the background, leading to “cosine losses” that probably average to be 50% or more (and this doesn’t even account for the typical decrease in albedo at off-normal reflection angles). Finally, one needs to account for the shadowing of the structure(s) supporting the solar modules. If on the sides of the modules, the structures block sunlight passing around the modules to illuminate surfaces visible to the back of the module, and if on the back of the modules the structures block the module’s back-side view rearward.
Bottom line: I SWAG the realized efficiency “improvement” of bifacial solar panels will be at most 10% of the normal front surface efficiency, with the attendant cost being a DOUBLING of the cost of the solar cell’s semiconductor surface and cover glass, the most expensive parts of any solar panel.
Why am I not surprised that an outfit calling itself “The Empowerment Alliance” could not see this?
Bifacial sounds like two solar cells glued back to back.
Twice the cost for a few percent more power. Not a bargain.
Well, translate bifacial to two faced and another word added comes to mind..
The only way to create a bifaced solar cell would be to a new layer onto what is currently the back side of the cell.
I recently installed bifacials on my parents house to heat water. I created already 3 systems for heating water, one electrical system on my house, which works already more than 3 years. So I can compare.
Bifacials have simply higher efficiency, you don’t need to care from where light is coming. And yes this overall higher efficiency is around 10%.
Most common point of failure in solar panels is back paint which cracks over time and cell connections are oxidized.
Bifacials have glass from both sides, preventing this. So they should last longer.
They are heavy. Similar classic are 23kg each, bifacials are 30kg each.
They are not using 2 semiconductor cells from each side, but same cell is visible from front and back.
So you need only more glass on panels, which looks is cheapest part of panel.
Ones I used were extremely cheap, much cheaper than any previous non bifacials I used. One 585W panel 70Euros.
Really???
The typical design of a solar cell (see attached figure) does NOT allow light to illuminate the backside of the top-junction/absorber layer//bottom junction semiconductor structure that generates electrical energy from sunlight. Sunlight is blocked from illuminating the bottom semiconductor surface by the opaque back electrical contact layer.
If that wasn’t enough, n-type silicon has a higher surface quality than p-type silicon so it is placed at the front of the cell where the light is absorbed. Thus the top surface of a normal solar cell is the negative terminal and the rear of the cell is the positive terminal. If such a fixed triplex-layer solar cell was illuminated from the backside, the semiconductor arrangement would appear to be reversed in that configuration. That appears to be, uh, problematic.
Yesterday we drove by a small solar farm installed on the grounds of a VA center in north suburbs of Los Angeles, and I told my family to take a good look at the wasted resources. The installation comprises PV panels with solar tracking motors to keep the panels facing the sun all day. But the panels were in myriad directions, at least 2/3 were simply flat to the sky, about half of the remaining were pointed opposite to the sun at that time of day, leaving about 1/6 pointing in the direction of the sun, yet not even all of those were angled properly.
It would seem the idea behind this installation was good, but there is scarcely any maintenance that I’ve ever observed, which likely indicates the motors are broken. As well, the panels are covered in a very apparent film of grey dust, which probably reduces sun light penetration markedly.
This is a small installation, just a couple acres on a street corner part of the VA campus. We all know the problems at Ivanpah, and I wonder how much maintenance those massive solar farms all along the I-15 freeway get, I’ll bet they rarely wash the desert dust off the panels.
Another problem with solar tracking, is that as the sun gets much past vertical, the panels start to cast shadows on the next panel. Only the most sunward panel gets full sun. As a result, you really don’t get much additional power for a huge investment in motors and maintenance.
You could move the rows further apart, but then you get fewer panels per acre and a corresponding drop in power produced at all times.
Another problem with solar tracking, is that as the sun gets much past vertical, the panels start to cast shadows on the next panel. Only the most sunward panel gets full sun. As a result, you really don’t get much additional power for a huge investment in motors and maintenance.
They will never stop looking for clicks.
But as the technology rapidly evolved, the Ivanpah facility “couldn’t compete with newer and less expensive forms of creating solar power,” the Post reported.
No, wrong. Ivanpah did not fail cause it could not compete. Ivanpah never worked. Ivanpah was a complete engineering failure that eneded up burning natural gas.
Ivanpah burns so much natural gas Californis could not claim it was green energy.
Ivanpah kept breaking down, catching on fire, and killing birds.
Failed to compete? No, the author is telling us a lie in order to sell tomorrow’s “better,” solar.
I have never figured out why so many people get so excited about new technologies that are still nothing more than laboratory curiosities.
I’ve lost track of the new, wonder technologies that never make it out of the lab and into full production.
Not only true for green tech but also for manufacturing arms.
Here in Europe everyone talks about re- arming si that in 5 to 10 years we’ll be able to fight..well..whomever.
Thing is, technology moves so fast nowadays it is hard to predict what kind of weapons one would need in say 5 years.
The conflict in Ukraine has shown how fast it can go. It started with tanks. Now it’s a combination of drones, artillary, and rockets. In 5 years time w AI..who knows. That’s a lot of waste w NO return of ‘investment’. However, here in Europe our great leaders want to have a commitment in both Green Tech AND weaponry. And keep their industrial capacity going. With NO money ( or economy)
No cars but tanks, likely no longer needed after production. You can imagine the landscape: rusty tanks under rusty wind turbines. Proper ‘stranded assets’, stripped by local gangs. You know, the usual 3d world stuff..
To be fair, Ivanpah and many other solar projects were initiated in the 2010’s when oil was expected to become increasingly scarce and to continuously rise in price. Fracking changed all that and in 2014, oil per barrel dropped from $100 to the 40s. The economics of renewables collapsed but their lobby had become well entrenched and kept the subsidies flowing.