Comments on: Local Community Benefits From Large Solar Power Plants

By: Cris Pond

Cris Pond — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The LA Times is shite. It’s no surprise they bolloxed the story…

By: Kompulsa

Kompulsa — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Apart from that. It is much better than coal, because it does not degrade public health. Even if it is only a little cheaper than coal (initially), it is still much more acceptable because it is far cleaner.

Public health is too serious an issue to choose to continue to degrade it with coal because solar doesn’t pay for itself as quickly as one would want it to.

What matters is that it does pay for itself, even if it just about breaks even, it is still better.

Human life is too important.

By: Kompulsa

Kompulsa — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:26:00 +0000

It looks like the Ivanpah project would (barely) pay for itself, although, when estimated in a more realistic manner, in which electricity prices would increase as they usually do in reality, the savings would be much greater.

By: Ecopolitidae

Ecopolitidae — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 00:21:00 +0000

I posted the second report we did on this issue. Here’s the first report that includes our analysis of what Tessera Solar’s 200 MW project would cost the county: http://www.renewablecommunities.org/2010/12/big-solars-promise.html

By: Ecopolitidae

Ecopolitidae — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 23:19:00 +0000

As a former resident of Saguache County, CO where several industrial solar projects have been proposed (including Solar Reserve’s 200 MW solar power tower on ~ 6,000 acres of PRIME agricultural land) I can personally testify that the LAT report is closer to the truth than BrightSource’s propaganda above. Big Solar companies make Big Promises to get permit approvals no differently than Big Oil companies — by luring locals into thinking they are going to get jobs and revenue when in fact they will be forced to absorb many negative impacts.

We were suspicious and so we did our own calculations (with the help of the Secretary of State office), here is what we found: http://www.renewablecommunities.org/2012/02/industrial-solar-costs-counties.html

Many long time solar advocates in our high elevation valley opposed an earlier proposal by Tessera Solar because the negative environmental, social and economic impacts were too great and would ultimately hurt the county and our communities.

Shame on CleanTechnica for not reporting on this important issue independently. YOu just lost a big chunk of credibility with this reader.