World’s Largest Solar Deal Signed in California
In what is purported to be the world’s largest solar deal, Southern California Edison and BrightSource Energy signed a series of contracts yesterday to give California 1,300 MW of solar energy— enough power for 845,000 homes. The project will produce 3.7 billion KWH of power and avoid over two million tons of CO2 emissions each year.
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As part of the proposal, BrightSource will install its Luz Power Tower 550 (LPT 550) at each power plant. The LPT uses thousands of small mirrors, or heliostats, to reflect sunlight onto a steam-producing boiler placed on top of a tower. The steam is then sent to a conventional turbine to generate electricity.
Seven solar power plants will be built in order to generate the full 1,300 MW, with the first expected to be in operation by 2013. The rest of the projects will likely be completed six to seven years later.
SCE and BrightSource Energy are currently negotiating approval for the power plants with the California Public Utilities Commission. Construction may begin as early as 2010.
Photo Credit: NREL
BrightSource Energy is Solar Thermal
So why do you have a picture of Solar PV panels accompanying the article ?
Those “1300″ fictitious megawatts turns out to be an average output of 420 actual megawatts. Not very impressive - a single nuclear reactor is far more reliable , last three times longer and produces 4 times more power. On demand, when needed. And cloudy weather never stop s ractor from working. Solar power sucks.
I don’t know if they have changed the picture but the picture up now is definitely solar thermal. I agree about nuclear power as well. Maybe if we get rid of all the farms we would have enough acres for solar. Of course we would have nothing to eat.
Its fun to throw aspersions around, but without references these claims just sound like astro turfing to me. I looked around and could not find any reference (from a credible source or otherwise) that this projects 1300 MWs is “fictitious”. Again, without references this crap is just a lot of hot air that smells of shilling.
BTW, nuclear is not a renewable energy. Uranium is a finite resource. “At current usage, this is equal to about seventy years of supply.” [http://www.cfr.org/publication/14705/global_uranium_supply_and_demand.html#2]
Astro-turfing Exhibit A:
http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2009/2/12/152824/755?show_comments=yes
Same story, different blog. Almost the exact same comment shilling for nuclear, and making the 420 MW claim. Amazing how this poster seems to be the first on multiple story comment threads… just saying.
People… take everything you read from commenters with a HUGE grain of salt. There’s a lot of organized misinformation out there.
Nice negativity Kerry and Steve.
The idea is not to replace nuclear power, it is to replace coal power.
I have worked at a coal fired power station. Dirty, labor intensive, prone to spontaneous coal pile combustion, dusty and with a life span of about 30 years. They require constant shutdowns to repair boilers, conveyor belts, rotors and piping. Oh, and lets not forget the mountains of fly ash that are produced.
There is enough roof space in the USA to power every home and industry without requiring huge (additional) plots of land.
Hey B Dobbs, great research finding that other site with the same post. You’re absolutely right about organized misinformation, we all need to watch out. For it.
Would be nice if the articles posted on Cleantechnica contained references to the original source. They’re only 3 paragraphs long and I rarely see a link to where the info came from!
@Adam - We *always* put in a link to the original source - in this case, it’s in the first sentence of the post.
Just for the record, I was implying that Cleantechnica had anything to do with this shill in the comments.
I found this same comment “template” (same basic argument and “facts”) on multiple blogs, so this does seem to be some type of concerted effort.
What I think Cleantechnica *could* do to counter some of this, is run a regular (weekly? daily?) column debunking some of the attempts at disinformation. “Clean” coal and ethanol are two subjects that come to mind. The problem with just running occasional stories is that the people who are working to muddy the debate are well funded, and they’re arguments are constantly evolving.
[EDIT]
“Just for the record, I was implying that Cleantechnica had anything to do with this shill in the comments.”
Should read:
“Just for the record, I was NOT implying that Cleantechnica had anything to do with this shill in the comments.”
Sorry…