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World's Largest Solar Plants Planned In California
Pickens writes "Two photovoltaic solar power plants will be built in San Luis Obispo County in California, covering 12.5 square miles, that together will generate about 800 megawatts of power, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale. 'If you're going to make a difference, you've got to do it big,' said Randy Goldstein, the chief executive of OptiSolar. OptiSolar will employ enough of its amorphous silicon thin-film solar panels at its Topaz Solar Farm project to generate 550 MW. Meanwhile, SunPower will install mechanical tracking for its more expensive 250 MW-worth of crystalline silicon photovoltaics at High Plains Ranch II in a bid to boost their efficiency by 30 percent from following the sun across the sky. The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants. 'These landmark agreements signal the arrival of utility-scale PV solar power that may be cost-competitive with solar thermal and wind energy,' said Jack Keenan, chief operating officer and senior vice president for PG&E."
Reader thefickler notes some related news that researchers have developed a method of collecting infrared rays at night to supplement day-time solar power.
Sometimes I wonder why the most aggressive, arrogant and most stupid posts get modded up.
Then I remember they are pro-nuclear and this is slashdot, where nuclear energy is good and no number or facts will ever change that.
After all, you can still call people hippies and
cults and think yourself to be so brave to be politically incorrect. You are not brave when you are an asshole, you are simply an asshole.
Their actions only make sense if nuclear weapons are their goal.
Precisely. That's why nuclear power is not a viable answer to the world's energy needs.
Iran is not a special case. Regimes are constantly coming and going all over the world, and some of them are dangerously nationalistic. This will be a continual problem until we eliminate fission-based nuclear power technology.
You can't eliminate technology any more than you can erase knowledge.
Maybe not, but one nice thing about nuclear technology is that you can make it *really* hard to hide by sniffing trace isotopes in the air. Eliminating nuclear power generation would help make it much harder to mask clandestine programs.
We must learn to deal with nuclear proliferation
A good way to deal with it is make it very hard to hide, and take away any excuses to be playing around with it. If there were no civilian nuclear power, then there wouldn't be much argument in the world community about taking out Iran's program, because it would be an undeniably belligerent activity. Under that scenario, they would have been much less likely to start their activities in the first place, and we probably wouldn't have this problem at all.
Maintaining the status quo with various countries goofing around with "peaceful research" under the guise of power generation is the real "ostrich approach".
Why would anyone put capitol at risk in the people republic of California? The State Legislature may confiscate the investmet and use the money to buy votes. It has already done this to power distribution companies by requiring them to sell power at less than cost, putting them into bankruptcy.
It makes absolutely no sense for anyone to put capitol at risk in California. If you make a profit you are rich and therefore a suitable target for confiscation.
California is a third world country that does not know it yet.
Because we want to rape and pillage Iran just as we have to Iraq.
Iraq was unjustified after you take away the rhetoric and lies, why should Iran get special treatment?
It's been a long time.