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Large Scale 24/7 Solar Power Plant To Be Built in Nevada
RayTomes writes "The Obama administration has provided a loan guarantee of $737 million to construct the first large-scale solar power plant that stores energy and provides electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
This solar power project, a heliostat rather than a photovoltaic system, with a molten salt system to store power as heat for times when the sun isn't shining, will be constructed in Nevada and, says the article, is expected to create "600 construction jobs and 45 permanent positions."
So is a metal spoon.
It all depends on context.
So when Lake Mead dries up in the next few years and the dam can no longer provide electricity, WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO BENEFIT FROM THIS when basically most of Southern Nevada that does not have well water has to pack up and get the fuck out.
Only $16.3 million per job. baaaaaaaaah.
I think I blew this place up...
They should totally name this the HELIOS One.
Doing a little math:
That's nearly ten thousand dollars per home it's suppling electricity to. How much are average electricity bills in Nevada?
Yeah, but when metal spoons explodes (like they do all the time)....you can just walk over and pick up the pieces.....right then, no need to evacuate for 500 years.
The initial cost is much higher than a fossil fuel plant. But without trains full of coal running in for a twenty year typical operating life that still could make it practical. What they don't talk about, because they probably can't, is what the annual operating costs will look like. Since they have never tried this molten salt thing on a commercial scale they likely just don't know.
I'm normally against pissing away money on hopeless green projects but this one might be worth trying since the math isn't totally hopeless.
Of course the second it actually works the greens will be dead set against it. Gotta be some obscure critter living out in that desert ya know,
Democrat delenda est
1st, the loan is 737m. That's not the total cost.
2nd, you are looking at capital costs. What is going to be the running costs and lifespan of the project? Drop that into a spreadsheet to calculate the IRR and cost per Watt. [and what the heck - one could be generous and throw in some type of carbon credit / R&D thing too.]
Ok great, yey another way to blow away a billlion dollars which could have been better spent on the usual "non headline worthy" things such as education, health and policing. When will society learn?
Joseph, Internet marketing
Those two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact they're pretty commonly used together. Summary should read "a solar thermal plant rather than photovoltaic, using a molten salt system to store power as heat for times when the sun isn't shining".
I'm not seeing how it would cost so much to build this.
right then, no need to evacuate for 500 years.
No nuclear plant has yet caused a 500 year evacuation.
Or did you forget about that?
You DO know you can "sell" this electricity and make money off it, don't you?
just so you know, we genuine native 'americans' were never "savages". now you'll learn where that word, & the genocidal behavior behind, came from. cavemen. you'll get some first hand at that too
That's no spoon, it's a knife.
Another round of spoony knifey anyone?
Las Vegas might become environmentally sustainable!
When calculating the jobs is that net jobs, or gross jobs? Because the $737 million has to come from somewhere. Did they remember to subtract that jobs that could have been created if the money stayed in the hands of the private sector?
Metal spoons don't create radioactive waste with a half life of centuries.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
How much water is it going to take to keep 17,400 mirrors clean in a dusty, windy desert?
$9826 sounds like a lot of money. . . until you realize that the cost is amortized over some period of time. I don't know what the actual life of the facility will be, but I would think 50 years sounds reasonable. So, if we divide by 50 years, that comes to about $200 per house per year.
However, we also have to factor in that on top of construction costs, there are ongoing maintenance an operation costs, so maybe it comes to about $250/house/yr. That still doesn't sound outrageous to me. I think I pay like $400/year for electricity on my 1-bedroom apartment - and I'm not a large electricity consumer. I have a fridge, stove, microwave (and the stove and microwave I only use maybe 2-4 times a week), a computer, a WiFi router, a cell phone I charge at night, a couple ham radio batteries (1500mAh and 1800mAh) I occasionally charge, and lights (most of my lights are efficient CFLs). In the summer, I run a window A/C unit sometimes - but I'm only cooling a small space.
I don't know what their actual maint/ops costs will be, but $10k per household, if the plant lasts 40-50 years, just doesn't sound particularly expensive.
This solar power project, a heliostat rather than a photovoltaic system, with a molten salt system to store power as heat for times when the sun isn't shining,
Power is the rate at which energy is provided. It will store energy, not power. Since it is planned to be a 110 MW plant, it should store roughly 1300 MWh (i.e. 4.8 terajoules) for the nighttime use.
an hydro dam is a dangerous thing: more dangerous than a nuclear plant looking at history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
a coal plant is a dangerous thing but it's a sort of low level constant danger.
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/cleanair.htm
drilling a hole for gas or geothermal is a dangerous thing
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Locals_Block_Work_At_Indonesian_Mud_Volcano_999.html
etc etc
Every energy source has dangers and problems.
So it makes sense to simply pick the ones which kill the fewest people overall.
So the plant is suppose to produce 480,000 MWh per year which works out to an average capacity of 55 MW. So we get 0.8 permanent employees per MW. http://www.tonopahsolar.com/
At slashdot's favorite nuclear power plant Vermont Yankee, there are more that 650 employees for a plant that does not manage to run at 620 MW all that well. Let's give them 80% up time. That is 1.3 employees per MW.
Nuclear power seems less efficient than solar power by this measure. Maybe nuclear power is just a "make work" type jobs program which actually hurts the economy overall.
I 'm not certain about the numbers involved, but I'm happy to see the government doing what I believe it should: promoting things that are good for us that we wouldn't otherwise get. By that I mean buffering the long-term payoff on things that cost too much for the market to provide now.
Yes, but what has that to do with solar energy?
Reading the original post again, I must correct myself. Fission power has been shown to be safe, but fusion is radically dangerous. For example, someone has let fusion fuel pile up in the center of the Solar System, resulting in uncontrolled fusion! It is likely that we won't be able to live there for billions if not trillions of years.
The earth is a dangerous thing, and must be destroyed before it destroys us
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Because you say earlier:
"I'm normally against pissing away money on hopeless green projects"
seems to indicate that you don't care about hopeless non-green projects, but YOU insist that the greens will start going against it when it works...
Yeah. That's called "projection", kid.
Exactly. Reactor size is important. A relatively small reactor, like the one recently hit by a Tsunami, may cause problems to a few tens, maybe hundreds, of square kilometres, if it explodes. A reactor the size of the Sun, however, will cause devastation in a sphere several AUs in diameter. Even in normal operation, it is likely to leak dangerous radiation over almost half of the planet, causing skin cancer. The Sun is therefore obviously too dangerous to use for power generation, and should be decommissioned as soon as possible.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah, but when metal spoons explodes (like they do all the time)....you can just walk over and pick up the pieces.....right then, no need to evacuate for 500 years.
And when this explodes, we'll have to clean up salt, glass, and water. I highly doubt that any of those things will force a 500 year evac.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
No nuclear plant has yet caused a 500 year evacuation.
And should a nuclear disaster happen yesterday, there won't be a 500-year evacuation caused by that particular nuclear disaster for about... oh... say, another 500 years.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm waiting for when some mad scientist decides to try to take over the facility and reverse its power in attempt to blot out the sun and take over the world, adding maniacal laughter as he goes until some ragtag band of heroes puts a stop to him...
We aren't spending that money, just co-signing the loan. If you want a good ration of money spent to people getting paychecks we should just put everyone on welfare.
How do you plan on reducing the cost of mirrors? Because those are the only panels in a molten-salt plant like this.
Then can we please finish iterating through all possible forms of government so that the tribulation can start?
It is a loan guarantee. While I strongly support nuclear and loan guarantees for that program, I am just fine with renewable receiving the same loan guarantees that nuclear would receive. What I am against is subsidizing solar/wind/whatever with feed-in levies - that's a waste considering technology is mature for both (PV solar is semiconductor, and if semiconductor industry is not mature, I don't know what is).
Nevada is a great place for this type of project. It will provide base power and there is tons of sun around.
Nuclear power makes great sense in places where there is less sun, line any non-desert area and especially places like UK. But I was always against building nuclear power plants in deserts, like Saudi Arabia or Nevada. These places receive lots of sun, every day. Use that energy. Solar-thermal solutions are 100% efficient at converting energy into heat. 25-35% final efficiency is very reachable and it is base load capable. Something that we can't say for PV solar.
Don't let the NCR take hold it
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Fusion in a star like Sol is hardly uncontrolled. The weight of the fuel balances out the pressure that the fusion creates, just as the engineer intended.
What effect does a massive solar farm have on the environment? Consider large swaths of dessert covered in solar panels. Light is no longer reaching the deserts surface which (presumably) will cause it to cool. Also, wont morning dew hang around longer, saturating the earth? What could the environmental impact (if any) be?
Also consider wind farms. If you drive through the Mid-West you will see farmland with rows of trees. The Army Corp. of Engineers planted them in the 1930's dust-bowl era to slow the wind down. It worked very well, restoring the environment. Now back to wind farms. Drive through the middle of Iowa sometime, a wind farm can stretch for hours of driving down the interstate. Would these not also slow down the wind causing man made environmental changes over time?
Don't get me wrong on this, I am not a tree hugger sounding an alarm. These are honest questions that I am curious about.
Personally I am hoping the national ignition facility works out, but that might be a little off topic.
Thanks,
The one the only AC.
Exactly - everything has a cost associated with it. Why do I not like nuclear? A few reasons. First, it still relies on mining and shipping of feedstock. Second, there is a long term cost associated with storing its waste products. Third, the US has made it abundantly clear that this is not a global solution - we will actively block many nations from obtaining this source of power. Fourth, the last numbers I heard were if all the power generated across the globe was replaced by nuclear power, we could mine enough to last the world about 3 years (I do need to redo the research, as I don't recall the original sources - and I know many will not take what I learned in a college course as a reliable source). I often wonder what our wind and solar technology would be like in the US if they didn't pull the Production Tax Credit every few years (which causes the industry to collapse after a period of strong growth), and wonder if other energy production systems lost their government backing what would have happened to their viability in terms of cost....
As noted several times already, this is a joke if you look at it merely as jobs created. If you look at it in terms of power generation, it is still unimpressive. The plant will generate something like 100MW of power (enough to power 75k US homes). So that's a cost of $7 per watt of solar. Even modest generation of power outside of peak solar (which I might add is also times of low power demand) won't help very much. It's generally considered that competitive solar will happen when solar power hits $1 per watt. So this is far short.
Second, the loan guarantee is a gimmick. Given the cost per watt, there's no way the power plant will be as valuable as the money being laid out for it and I don't see the power producer paying off the loan. This means that the startup will likely go bankrupt and the loan guarantee will be called. Then the loan guarantee, which incidentally doesn't appear as money spent in the federal budget, becomes so in practice.
Who knows how many of these obligations the US (and other countries!) have of this sort, but it's worth remembering that a good portion of the US's TARP bailout for bankers was actually a payout of a US guarantee on two vast, real estate investment corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In all, this is a remarkably poor investment for the US by any standard that makes fiscal sense. But it "buys civilization", right?
I'm sure there is enough hot air in those two heads to power a friggin' universe for eons. Stupid Idea from a Stupid President ...to help a stupid lap dog named Harry Reid for his asshole loyalty.
You're right - we should decommission the sun before a Tsunami or Earthquake on the planet Earth damages it and causes a risk of explosion....
Moreover, even if one could justify putting the sun there, putting it there without appropriate shielding clearly isn't responsible. The sun emits so much light that you can go blind if you look directly into it. Certainly the earth should be protected from the sun by some sort of shield which blocks the light of the sun, or at least dims it enough that you can look into it without danger.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This will use a combined solar thermal collector/salt storage, powering a thermal engine. Not a problem. However, what that does is use the solar thermal to heat the storage and then power it all nightlong. So, for example, if you want a 100 MW output 24x7, you will need 300-400 MW tower (a lot more money). Not an issue. BUT, the storage is what is important. It would be better for the companies going into this, to split out the storage portion and make it distributed. In particular, America has a large number of OLD coal-based power plants that are going to go away over the next 20-30 years. Many of these are currently inside of cities. They are typically 50-100 MW in size (which was large monsters in the day). They have power lines that emanate from them. They also have cooling plants (typically, water), combined with steam engines/generators. But all that is really needed to be changed is that piping re-upped, and the coal boiler dropped. Instead, put in a high temp salt storage system, and use electricity to bring the temp up. With this approach, you can have a large CHEAP battery. The argument against it will be the inefficiency of it. There will be a loss of energy of roughly 50%. However, current tech with CASE, Hydro, batteries, etc. all have losses of 20-40% or so, but have many drawbacks. Hydro and Case can only be used in certain areas and are expensive. Batteries are VERY expensive to install, though they have the advantage of going anywhere.
In the end, the question should not be how efficient it is, but how economical it is. A thermal storage that has little costs to set-up, but will last for 20-30 years (within 10-15 years, ultra-caps will become the dominant form of new storage, and would then replace this). That approach extends this equipment for very little costs. More importantly, it would enable ALL FORMS of Alternative Energy to provide power as they can, since the salt storage would act as a buffer for demand systems. Right now, America loses something like 12 GW yearly because they have to feather wind generators at night. Likewise, we have gas turbine generator that are built to handle the demand, esp. when AE falls. With a thermal storage, it provide our demand system, while allowing AE to run at full power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
One thing that bothers me about this design - what happens if the molten salt cools, say due to some event that causes a plant shutdown (earthquake perhaps?). Is the whole thing trashed because the pipes are all full of solidified salt? Or is there some mechanism to liquify the salt in that event?
What again powers the sun?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I skimmed the article pretty carefully. Where do you get nuclear from it? This looks like the perfect alternative to nuclear.
Nuclear reactors don't make radioactive waste. The depleted fuel was radioactive prior to use in the reactor, otherwise they wouldn't be using it as fuel. The main difference is that unlike the radioactive waste from a coal plant, the nuclear plant's waste is bundle up for disposal rather than being spread all over the planet.
Absolutelly. They would lose less money to pay 50 guys walking in circles or just standing there. The greens have absolutely no common sense.
Loan guarantee, not subsidy. It can create those jobs for 0$ in government money spend, or it can waste the full amount in government money or anything in between (if the company goes bankrupt but government wants to see it finished rather than just paying of the debt and forgetting about it, it could chose to pay for the cost overruns to finish it to recoup some losses).
But it could hurt anyway, the article says they store the energy where the sun doesn't shine.
Education needs power to keep the school's lights on and run information technology. Hospitals need power to run the machines that keep people alive. Policing needs power to run cop cars.
You Have to blame the Japanese government and power plant management for not replacing the Fukushima power reactors. We simply can not expect solar and wind to fill our power needs.
Even if we do all that is possible to conserve power. and switch to electric power cars. we will need to at least double the electric power plants to keep everything running. The last thing we want is more coal and gas plants. This defeats many of the advantages of getting off the petroleum in our cars.
Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium
Heliostat efficiency is strongly affected by clouds so this type of plant is much much better in the desert. Not to worry about storage for solar PV though. Electrification of transportation produces a lot of cast off but still useful batteries. About half a day of our electric energy consumption can be stored in old batteries once transportation is converted.
(slightly) more realistically, the heliostats could be aimed at overhead flying objects to destroy them. (at least during the day)
What's the danger of solar power tower?
Because they are scared of what might happen if they try to turn them off.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Where do you get nuclear from it?
From the sun. WOOOOOOSHHH...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
I know why... check who the senator from Nevada is.
As long as the Federal government is spending money it doesn't have, it might as well spend it in politically connected places. Sure, Nevada has plenty of sunshine, but so does, say Arizona - and they have 2.5x as many people.
Right next door, California is full of electricity users too, but there is quite the NIMBY barrier to overcome.
My plutonium spoons certainly do. They also keep food warm, they glow in the dark, and you can't put too many of them in the same drawer. They are superior to all other types of spoon.
I remember reading about plants like this on Slashdot a while ago. A lot of people said that was a good idea, and we should start building them!
Well now that we're actually doing it, suddenly it's a bad idea. Why is that?
Poseidon energy? Can I get my ARCHII target designator and charges there? C'mon Archimedes project!
You seem to have thought this out a lot though your point 4 I'd challenge.
Professors can be wrong sometimes or simply misleading.
16% of the worlds energy already comes from nuclear.
There is apparently a 230-year estimate supply extractable at today's consumption rate with current technologyat current market prices at current rates of use.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last
36.8 years if tomorrow every single plant was replaced with nuclear if you don't use breeder reactors.
With breeder reactors you could multiply that by something like 50-100
Long enough that it's not a significant worry.
Current market prices is also important: if you increase the price, say double it, then that dramatically increases while not significantly increasing the price of running a nuclear plant as the fuel is very cheap compared to building the reactor.
Now there's claims that it is possible to extract uranium from seawater for about 5 or 6 times the current market price which effectively sets an upper limit on the price of uranium and would supply it forever but I'll wait till I see any kind of large scale operation.
point 2 is valid though it's also true of most industry, hazardous waste can be a serious long term issue even if it's not radioactive, it just doesn't get the same media attention.
point 3 is the most significant one for much of the human race and extremely valid.
What's the danger of solar power tower?
The can, on occasion, turn into Eye of Sauron towers, and fry nearby hobbits.
That it's a potentially less-efficient mode of generating power. It's like an RTS, if you invest in the wrong tech trees early on, you'll lose, even though it doesn't actually kill you directly. It may be cheaper/just as safe to do something else entirely. This makes technologies pursued simply due to buzzwords like "renewable" inherently dangerous. Plus, renewable is a misleading term, since you still have maintenance costs. Just because those costs aren't defined under the heading "fuel" doesn't mean they don't exist, or that they're necessarily lower than maintenance costs for other systems. That's the danger of a solar power tower.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
get back to me in 50 years after a lot have been built.
I'm sure something will have happened by then, one will have fallen over and crushed a school or something.
They seem fairly safe if a bit on the expensive and land hungry side.
It should be stated that 36.8 years is only using currently open and operating mines. Estimated uranium and thorium reserves are 3+ orders of magnitude higher. Breeder reactors put it into the 250,000+ year range, AKA the "We are likely to have moved off the planet or killed everyone on it already" time-scale. Some estimates have it in the millions of years.
Even if this plant isn't the most efficient way to generate kilowatt hours or jobs, many pragmatic questions can be answered. By test-driving these new technologies on a large enough scale, we are investing in research and educating a new workforce that will help generate more efficient solar power plants in the future.
Got it - thanks. :)
Recently their up time has been poor and of course you need to count what they did prior to 2003. 80% seems reasonable.
now now, renewable is a fair term: you can recycle the old broken components from a plant but you can't get coal back from fly ash.
If they called it "free energy" but renewable is fair.
Also I take it you never played hearts of iron: it had a realistic tech tree, much like in real life trying to extend one area of research far ahead of everything else is insanely expensive while a low bushy tech tree can be cheaper and leave you better off.
First, the $737M loan is not from the government, it's from private investors. The Feds are just insuring the debt. They will only pay out if the project fails.
Second, yes, $737M/75,000 houses is $9826. Assuming the facility lasts for 15 years (which seems exceptionally short), it would take $54 per month per household to pay off the principal. No feedstock to purchase, but the article mentions 60 jobs and likely some materials for maintenance. so if you figure it has a $5M-10M annual opperating budget (assuming staffing costs average 40-80k per head and having money for maintenance) you'd have to add on another $5-11 to the customers' monthly bill.
So yeah, $737M sounds like a lot, but it means the median power bill can be right around $100/month for 75k consumers, and it'll be turning a nice profit.
My local power is primarily coal with a smidge of wind, and I pay roughly $100 per MWh (last bill was ~$65 for ~700KWh). So this really doesn't seem to out of the realm of possible. Especially if they keep opperating costs low.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Almost a billion for a 110MW plant, that won't provide power if there's cloud cover.
You get an almost gigawatt state of the art, passive safe with all bells and whistles nuclear reactor for that money.
And almost EVERYONE HERE, applauding like a bunch of Stockholm-afflicted fools. Ayn Rand's exasperatingly long novel was never as current, I gotta say.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I'm seeing a lot of comments on this story where people make up measurements where the # of employees is a factor. These are all bogus. Comparing dollars per year to power, or total cost to total energy, makes sense. Factoring in employee count doesn't make sense at all.
Suppose someone comes in and replaces a person with a robot (or vice-versa) which just happens to cost about the same $. The economic efficiency would be completely unchanged, but your weirdo made-up metric would have changed.
Or say the amount of a payroll tax changes. The efficiency would change but your measurement won't show that.
Yes, there's a correlation: the more people you hire, the more it costs. But quit throwing in this extra layer of indirection. The very best possible case you can hope for, is that you don't introduce too much error, and there's no upside which justifies that error.
Except that it needs 17,000 mirrors for ~75 MW of power.
Each of the fukishma reactors is several thousand MW's each.
when we get to 1000 MW solar salt reactors we might stand a chance. the problem then becomes land area. Those mirrors take up an awful lot of it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
No you're doing the multiplying thing, that was already including mines which aren't currently being used.
It did ignore thorium.
that was however assuming no breeders and assuming no increase in the price of uranium.
There's enough uranium that unless we're very stupid about how we use it we could supply all our power needs for thousands of years but I'd be very dubious about your claim of 250K.
That assumes perfect use of fuel, no increase in demand and perfect extraction of fuel.
Whoosh. I think.
3 - Proliferation - Ya, we're clearly stopping openly-hostile, fundamentalist Iran from building nuclear power plants. That's totally happening. If you call Stuxnet on this, you're crazier than Ahmadinejad.
Not entirely true. We don't have a problem with them having nuclear plants. We have a problem with them refining nuclear fuel. There is a huge difference. The US, Russia, and France, have all offered extremely cost effective fuel delivery and disposal solutions to Iran. They don't want it because it means they can't refine nuclear weapon grade fuels.
Nuclear power isn't a problem. Nuclear fuel is. It just so happens, the details of Iran's fuel refine is also the best path for nuclear weapons grade fuel. This is why everyone is sure, contrary to Iran's objections, they absolutely intend to develop nuclear weapons....if they are not already doing so.
That gives us only 20 years more to hold out until we solve the fusion break-even problem.
The problem with fusion, we are hundreds of years from having a viable solution, short of many, massive breakthroughs. Breakeven is one of five or six required breakthroughs of even technological significance. It is pure fantasy to say we are anywhere near twenty years from fusion power. And likely, its fantasy to say we are twenty years from breakeven.
If we have fusion power in less than two hundred years, several technological miracles have occurred. That's reality. Anyone who says otherwise is looking for a grant or hoping to sell you a bridge.
5 - Solar and wind production in the US - At the APPA conference in Nashville this spring, one of the foremost investors in "renewable" energy in the country outright stated that they would have put absolutely nothing into solar/wind/geothermal if they didn't receive federal grants for it. It'd've simply've been a waste of time and money. Federal support is the only reason we have anything like this project.
That's not surprising at all considering the US tax payers have been paying for infrastructure support and maintenance and have received little to none of what has already been paid for. The seem companies are now waiting in line for a second handout, in the neighborhood of a hundreds of billions of dollars, to fix everything they've already been paid for.
There are literally cities in the US who have less power quality than many second world countries. Power reliability and general availability has been on a steady decline since the early 80's with *every* indication things will continue to decline. The power companies are literally, at tax payer and utility payer expense, paid to destroy power infrastructure while concurrently paid to do the exact opposite.
If the government does not hold these companies accountable, literally, in the next forty to sixty years, the US will become a second world country. Or more likely, the US tax payer will be charged a second time to bail out these companies, for perform the work we've all already paid for.
There's a huge field of reflectors surrounding such a tower. The only way it would fall over and crush a school would be if the school were for some strange reason built in the field of reflectors.
Our taxes aren't paying for this. It is a group of private investors and private developers working out a loan. The feds have an interest in seeing it go through, so the insure the loan, so that if the private developers bail, the private investors don't get completely hosed. It's quite common and it costs us taxpayers nothing.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
737 million bucks / 45 permanent jobs = $16,377,778 per job.
16 dollars to create jobs that pay on average, what, maybe $60,000 per year? Now that is government efficiency.
Of course, with the usual government contract cost overruns, the actual cost per job will probably work out to more than 50 million per job.
Geez, another carnal cluster maneuver by government fools being heralded as some grand success before the first shovel of dirt has even been thrown. This is a boondoggle.
In Vermont, where rooftop solar is the appropriate technology, there are no permanent employees per MW. It is only in the desert where people have forgotten to build roofs that we have to resort to heliostats ;-)
"The Obama administration has provided a loan guarantee..." So if it fails, is Obama going to personally take the financial hit?
I see some people have problems recognizing a joke.
Try reading the sentence I ended on.
Exactly. Reactor size is important.
It's not the size of your reactor that matters, it's how you use it.
It will make the spotted horny lizard go extinct.
Yes, that's why it's been safely operated on every major long term deployment warship, aircraft carrier, and submarine the US operates. Because it's SO dangerous. You're probably right, coward, we should switch them all back to oil based fuels, and let them pull an exxon Valdez behind them instead.
Listen folks. Make up your minds. Every single source of fuel has a major environmental impact. Choose one, then please, STFU about it! Enough solar panels to power the world is going to completely cover (and kill) resources. Hydro-electric screws with fish and their breeding habits. Nuclear has waste that needs stored somwhere safe after use. Fossil fuels pollute the environment and are running short.
Your miracle fuel isn't coming. Wake the hell up already. It "may" come. But actually planning on it coming is not only foolish, it's the most dangerous thing to count on of all the options.
So, as I said, make a choice, or make several. I don't care, but please. PLEASE. STFU.
I8-D
My plutonium spoons certainly do. They also keep food warm, they glow in the dark, and you can't put too many of them in the same drawer. They are superior to all other types of spoon.
Ignoring the obvious radiation points, plutonium is also chemically poisonous.
Well I don't think this is going to be the solution, but I'm glad government money is getting spent on positive science instead of just blowing things up. Now give me high speed rail and we'll be getting somewhere (pun not intended).
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Yeah, but when metal spoons explodes (like they do all the time)....you can just walk over and pick up the pieces.....right then, no need to evacuate for 500 years.
You'd think so, but the real reason Area 51 was classified didn't have anything to do with the misinformation posted today. What really happened is that they decided to see the full extent of what Chuck Norris could do with a spoon (because the knife or fork were too unsporting). Let's just say it'll be quite a while before they can pick up the pieces and open that museum.
It also makes the occasional strawman go up into flames.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Insightful, and the point can be taken further.
Lack of energy has risks. Electricity is not just a luxury, it provides safety and supports health. Dwelling heat can be the difference between life and death in many climates. Energy-intensive industrial societies have longer life expectancies than low-tech ones.
The US has enough Hydro dams to take up the slack at night. Storing heat is not necessary.
Maybe nuclear power is just a "make work" type jobs program which actually hurts the economy overall.
Another propaganda from mdsolar? What surprise!
While I support this project and Nevada could use 100s of these (if they prove viable), your sir, are an idiot. Picking on one of the smallest, least efficient nuclear generators. How about picking on something like Darlington Power station?
http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/darlington/
2,500 eployees. 3,500MW. 0.71 employee/MW. Looks like this project is "inefficient" even when comparing to slightly less efficient and old, CANDU reactors. But then making this comparison is retarded, isn't it? Maybe the final, producing cost per MW is what is important?
Furthermore, your understanding of load capacity is bewildering. 80% is not small. Try 17% load capacity for PV solar in Ontario with 25% daily average being theoretical max possible, anywhere. Wind gets you 30-40%. Or do you expect 100% uptime from this facility? No maintenance?? No breakdowns?? That would be something!
Anyway, Ontario, Canada will end up significantly increasing their energy costs primarily due to "clean energy initiatives".
http://www.canada.com/More+nukes+green+energy+billion+year+Ontario+electricity+plan/3871719/story.html?id=3871719
The government admitted last week that green energy programs will be responsible for more than half of the expected 46 per cent increase in electricity rates over the next five years.
The plan calls for $14 billion to be spent on wind power, $9 billion on solar projects, $4.6 billion on new hydro-electric generation, $4 billion on biomass energy, $1.8 billion on natural gas plants, $9 billion on transmission lines and $12 billion on conservation programs.
Solar in Ontario is retarded ($0.80/kWh), but that's another story. (cheaper to burn $300/bbl oil to generate electricity FFS)
Finally, all the renewable-only fanatics preach that there will be a lot less electricity consumption in the future. So, what do you think their electric cars will run on? PIxie dust? Currently, I use 20,000kWh/year for electricity (including geothermal heat) and another 25,000kWh/year from gasoline. Yes.. electricity consumption will go down once we shift gasoline => electricity...
If you literally say "literally" literally one more fucking time, I will, literally, kick your ass.
Cut President O'bama some slack. If you were Leader of the Free World and (apparently) a HUGE Fallout fan, you're saying you wouldn't hedge America's post-apocalyptic energy bets in style? After all, 'War...war never changes.'
It is unclear to me from the article and the summary whether this is peak or average power? Does anyone have a quote on this?
Whether it is average or not, I have always been interested in what this type of technology can actually achieve. It is definitely an interesting project and I will be watching for the final verdict on it.
for 5, the same would have been said about coal in England when all of the fuel was wood. or petroleum in the US when the only energy source was Whale oil. The idea is to ease the transition to the new source of energy.
The idea is to think about the future of energy production, not just the now.
There is also the question, do you want the energy silicone valley in the US or in China? Right now, it looks like it will be in China.
Fresh water constantly falls from the skies out over the oceans every day.. The only issue is catching it and transporting it
A fisherman, having awoke at 4AM and just now returning to the dock at sunset, is approached by countertrolling.
"The ocean is full of fish. Your only issue is catching and transporting them".
$700/55 comes to $12.7/W which is the same as $12700/kW. Not a lot more expensive. But then the plant in Finland isn't finished yet so there will be more cost overruns. And, the 55 MW is a 100% number while the nuclear plant will need to stop to refuel. So the solar power plant is cheaper using your numbers.
That's okay, we didn't need Nevada anyway. Or Utah.
I was moderating the last time this came up so I didn't post anything. But anonymous whiners who are complaining because I am more knowledgeable than them on energy issues so that I disturb their nuclear wet dreams really need to stfu. This whiner hasn't even rtfa. This whiner hasn't even read the headline. What part of 24/7 does the whiner not understand?
The Chinese[1] could easily block off the Sun. Then where would you be?
[1] Mr. Burns would also have been a acceptable boogerman.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Literally, you are an idiot.
We could also "create '600 construction jobs and 45 permanent positions" by paying people to dig holes and fill them back up. It really bugs me how the number of jobs required to build and staff the thing is touted as an advantage. If it only took 300 jobs to build and 20 to staff then that would be demonstrably superior from the perspective of being an efficient mechanism for generating electricity, only that's not why we're building it. We're building it in order to create 600 construction jobs and 45 permanent positions.
This from the website of the company receiving the money -
SolarReserve will deploy massive arrays of mirrors called heliostats around a very tall tower.
I have done some experiments of my own, in Florida, using mirrors for solar collection.. What I have found is that it is very difficult to maintain the mirrors so that they operate at peak efficiency. I would imagine that the NV desert would be an even harsher environment.
Mirror maintenance is not a very sexy topic, but based on my experiments, it would be reasonable to expect that all of the reflecting surfaces will have to be replaced in less than 5 years and require labor-intensive day-to-day maintenance.
All that number assumes is current consumption levels. It'll probably be less than 1/10th of that in reality, but 25,000 years is still a long time. However cheap power will lead to an increased standard of living for everyone. Increased standard of living invariably leads to decreased reproduction rates. Many first world countries are already below replacement rates.
Also: Current uranium reserve estimates in northern canada alone could power the current 16% nuclear power consumption of the planet for over 1500 years by conservative estimates. Allowing for no increase thats 240 years at current rates with a switch to full out uranium tomorrow, no breeders, just whats currently in use. Even allowing for the increase rates we've seen over the last 50 years or so we come out to a number thats higher than what you stated just for the deposits in one area of the globe. That makes me question where you're getting your data.
40 full time positions and 600 construction jobs would be nothing to sneeze at, even if the plant isn't really all that efficient. It should have a nice ripple effect, with some of those houses sitting empty getting new tenants, and, if they don't count it already, the construction that would need to be done for infrastructure. At least Harry Reid is effective for Nevada, if not the rest of the country.
Don't forget the machines...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
This is not about energy development or research. It is pure politics.
NV is an energy exporter, already.
Energy research for storage, transport to market,and clean ecology could be done with out this federal outlay by existing market forces.
A typical power plant in the US is anywhere from 500MW up to 1800MW, regardless of technology used. This doesn't include the smaller co-gen's but is representative of what the layperson would call a "power plant". There are hundreds of power plants throughout the US (nuke, coal, combined cycle, and even hydro)
This one solar plant can generate 110MW. That is a pittance compared to what is needed and hardly registers on the usage meter. Think of it this way: for every combined cycle plant (there are hundreds), we'd need to build (5) of these solar plants.
Worse, this one solar plant couldn't even get off the ground without federal loan guarantees.
If the technology scaled up to 500-600MW, all us engineers would be singing a different tune. Furthermore, if it scaled up that high, funding would become a non-issue and government loans would not be needed. In short, it would be a GREAT solution and my guess is that the wind energy business would have more funding and investment than it could handle.
But it is not that way....
Why? Because of scale. Wind and solar aren't even close to ready for prime-time unless you completely ignore the economics of it.
Absolutelly. They would lose less money to pay 50 guys walking in circles or just standing there. The greens have absolutely no common sense.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?
Seems there are a lot of projects in Vegas tearing up good roads with that on the signs.
And like other road construction in Vegas, they often screw up the sewer lines and not fix them, so it smells like a sewer.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
As soon as someone figures out how to use solar power as a weapon, we'll have economical solar power.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
I linked to the article, and either way beyond a certain point it stops mattering.
If we don't figure out fusion in a thousand years we deserve any problems we have.
Machine propaganda!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The sun emits so much light that you can go blind if you look directly into it.
Only if you stare at it during an eclipse.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Because all of national endeavors must make sense financially, yes? If so, so long space program...
The United States is abandoning space very soon.
July 8, 2011 will be the last time we send people into space.
The shuttles are being decommissioned and there is no replacement.
Well, China will take our place I'm sure.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The sun emits so much light that you can go blind if you look directly into it.
Only if you stare at it during an eclipse.
If you think so, try staring at it around noon during a normal, non-eclipse day. But don't complain if you don't see anything afterwards.
An eclipse just happens to be the only time when people would voluntarily stare at the sun.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
That money comes from somewhere - the private sector. So private sector expansion is reduced by the $.75B these "created jobs" cost (as if the government will return the money to the private sector when this "loan" is repaid). And considering the private sector is a lot more efficient that government procurement, it's likely a net loss of jobs.
When you steal money from the future, there will eventually be a cost, even if you don't notice it. That which is seen, and that which is not seen.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I would like to point out that the government doesn't need to guarantee loans for something that is guaranteed to win on a cost basis. So I am betting that the risk is too high for venture capital to do this without government intervention. I expect that those numbers people are waving around are best-case scenarios. Or even fantasy-case scenarios. Regarding "window cleaning," I am not as worried about the solar collection as I am turning the latent heat into power. I am supposing it would be a steam turbine, but don't actually know.
My number 5 was really in response to his unnumbered fifth point, that the federal government is unintentionally sabotaging "renewable" energy. I was arguing that they are, in fact, the only reason we have any renewables in the US at all. I absolutely agree with you that these incentives are an integral part of this transition. We should be investing as heavily in that as we should invest in something as pivotal for the continuation of the human race as, say, space travel, and far more than we invest in something as wastefully pointless as, say, foreign wars over nothing.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
...until we have more solar energy production online than we can use in real time. And we are not with a factor of 100 of that point, yet.
...since the industry won't even build a plant without government loan guarantees.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
That's merely an advantage of my position that we all know I'll be right for at least 500 years.
Interesting argument that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
if there's some kind of limit as to how many of these plants we can build. But as far as i can see, there's no reason we can't build 5 of these to replace one conventional plant. If doing so drives the price per MW to unacceptable levels, that's a problem. If it doesn't, it's not. Nobody cares if there electricity comes from one giant plant or a few smaller ones.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Interesting, they just tore down a similar system called Solar One in Daggett, CA. There is supposedly another project going on east of the Mohave Desert as well.
1 - Shipping and mining of feedstock - I presume you mean fuel... I really don't see how this is a problem at all, it creates a lot of industry and drives new technologies. It's a good thing all around. There's no way a sane person can see this as a drawback.
- Lets see. How about the children of dead miners? I suspect they might like their parents back.
- How about the cost? all that fuel mining and transport costs people money. Sure it employs people, but given the Koch Industries profits that's a lot of money a whole lot more average people would still have if the 'fuel' was free as it is with solar. Rather than concentrate the money into the oligarch's hands lets keep it in people's pockets....crazy I know and I'm a rabid liberal. With government people have a say in how money and taxes are spent, not so with big industry.
2 - Long term cost with storage of waste - You've clearly never heard of breeder reactors [wikipedia.org], or the negative radioactive waste drawbacks of things like coal [scientificamerican.com]. Combine the already-lower radioactive waste of nuclear with breeders, and you've got an extremely planet and people-friendly power source.
Wait you're defending nuclear with coal? talk about cognitive dissonance. BOTH are bad and have significant waste issues. Nuclear waste for 1 year of production requires 100s of years of storage - we still don't have a safe place to put this stuff yet. That price is not included in the utility power prices. That's not fair. Likewise with coal, the cost of emitting CO2 isn't currently included in the price. Once it is included, trust me, coal will go bye bye fast.
- that said, nuclear will be necessary in the short term (50-100 years) while we get renewable sources up to scale, that doesn't make it a 'good' solution though. Also consider that nuclear isn't viable without $10s of billions in loan guarantees from the government. That cost isn't reflected either.
3 - Proliferation - Ya, we're clearly stopping openly-hostile, fundamentalist Iran from building nuclear power plants. That's totally happening. If you call tuxnet on this, you're crazier than Ahmadinejad.
A. Q. Khan. nuff said.
5 - Solar and wind production in the US - At the APPA conference in Nashville this spring, one of the foremost investors in "renewable" energy in the country outright stated that they would have put absolutely nothing into solar/wind/geothermal if they didn't receive federal grants for it. It'd've simply've been a waste of time and money. Federal support is the only reason we have anything like this project.
To repeat, renewable sources are quite economical when the full costs of operation and disasters are included in other fuel sources. CO2 release for coal, and Fukishima for nuclear. We need government subsidies for renewable until the true costs for established industries are reflected in their prices.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
When idiots don't want to face the fact that they are living in a desert.
At least he's not using "basically" along with it...
First $1B for 110 MW is very similar to the capital cost of other energy plants such as nuclear. Current estimate on nuclear are in the $5-6/w capital cost range according to several google-able papers. That doesn't include external costs that are HUGE for nuclear (waste management, security issues, fuel transport and disposal, regulatory management, etc), nor does it include fuel costs.
Whereas the solar system has no fuel costs and few externalities.
The real question is does it work out economically? Apparently so, since this is a commercial venture not a demo project. In addition, Bill Weihl Google.orgs energy investor, Vinod Khosla, and NREL are all predicting this type of solar hitting $0.05/kWh by 2015. That competes with coal and soon.
On the issue of clouds: You need to do you're research. The Solar-one demo project using this same technology has a 99% availability. That is huge. No other plant has that kind of availability. Nuclear in recent history has just passed the 90% mark, after being stuck at 80% for 3 decades. And their good reason for this:
1. The sun never fails to come up
2. It has built in storage
3. Yes there is solar availability even in cloudy weather
The only fallout of concern from Fukushima is political, not nuclear. And thanks for ignoring my actual arguments, by the way. That's classy of you.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The only fallout of concern from Fukushima is political, not nuclear.
Given the cost is estimated at $300 billion dollars to rebuild the country, that is 'cost' renewable sources don't have when they fail. Nuclear cannot ever fail, and since we humans are the ones building and operating them, failures are going to happen.
And thanks for ignoring my actual arguments, by the way. That's classy of you.
Actually I did. You said no sane person could call mining and feedstock transport bad. I gave clear reasons why it *is* bad.
You said nuclear costs aren't a problem. I clearly showed that there are massive costs associated with nuclear that are not factored into the cost of its electricity.
For the proliferation argument, I misunderstood your answer to be that proliferation is not a problem. However if you think we aren't actively trying to stop nuclear proliferation, you are naive.
For point #5, you said "Federal support is the only reason we have anything like this project." which I took to mean that renewable isn't viable because it isn't cost effective. I clearly showed *why* this a false comparison to make.
But whatever you say...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
...They have Vegas, legal prostitution outside of Clark County, Medical Marijuana, and now the first large scale solar plant. Hmm, I know where I am moving now.
The world is how you make it
Also, no such thing. The so-called nuclear cycle is a myth. UK, France and Germany all tried to build fast breed reactors and failed (because the cooling system uses sodium which catches fire when it is exposed to air).
I guess russians are lying to the world. Please tell us more!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor
Secondly, prototypes are not suppose to generate power. So your examples of Japanese or France is misleading, again.
'modern, meltdown proof'
No such thing. There is always a small chance of meltdown, no matter how many backups systems you have
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Passive_safety
"Self-regulation of the IFR's power level depends mainly on thermal expansion of the fuel which allows more neutrons to escape, damping the chain reaction...IFRs are able to withstand both a loss of flow without SCRAM and loss of heat sink without SCRAM. In addition to passive shutdown of the reactor, the convection current generated in the primary coolant system will prevent fuel damage (core meltdown). These capabilities were demonstrated in the EBR-II.[9] The ultimate goal is that no radioactivity will be released under any circumstance."
I guess it is impossible after all. The demonstration was probably faked, like the moon landing.
Some plants use expensive and dangerous to process MOX fuel, but that gives almost negible saving on uranium use and you still have to dispose of the spent MOX fuel in the end.
They are *burning* plutonium. It significantly reduces the amount of newly mined uranium required while operating in conventional uranium reactors. 20% reduction, I guess it's nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel
"that is 'cost' renewable sources don't have when they fail."
all in one go or in little bits?
Is a destroyed city bellow a hydro dam a cost or the medical bills of the people hurt?
Things like that could run into multiple billions easily.
The medical bills of people hurt if there's a leak of some toxic solvent at a plant making solar panels could be very very expensive, look at bhopal for what can happen when an ordinary chemical plant has an accident.
Hydro dams don't collapse every day, chemical plants don't suffer toxic leaks all the time etc but these things aren't as black and white as you make out.
spread across the entire world the cost of simply using a significantly more expensive source of power can quickly run into the hundreds of billions and that money could be spent elsewhere saving lives or making peoples lives better.
there is an opportunity cost in human lives if you pick a power source which costs a lot per watt.
So you have to weigh it all against each other in terms of cash costs, risks in humans lives and financial risks- not just basing it on what makes headlines most often.
This whiner hasn't even read the headline
Typical misinformation from mdsolar. You haven't even read the reply otherwise you would have known this was false.
I'll quote it for you, so you get it though your very thick skull.
While I support this project and Nevada could use 100s of these (if they prove viable), your sir, are an idiot.
But then maybe you don't have capacity to understand a difference between a nuclear power plant near Moscow or London vs. a thermal-solar plant in the middle of a desert in southern US. Heliostats or other ground-based solar will not be powering New York in my lifetime, and I still have many decades to go. Heck, China will run out of coal in my lifetime, at the rate they are going!
They don't want it because it means they can't refine nuclear weapon grade fuels.
Or maybe they just don't want to be reliant on the US, Russia and France for their energy needs.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
From the company building the site:
The project will be a solar generating facility located northwest of Tonopah, Nevada, in Nye County with a nominal net generating capacity of 100 megawatts (MW).
"Nominal net" sure doesn't seem to indicate "peek".
Besides, they tell us the expected annual output of 480,000 MWh. As I pointed out above, $100/MWh would be a bargain. So in the first year alone they are looking at pulling in $48 million if the price of electricity drops. But realisticly, they'll ship the power to Cali, there $150-200/MWh would be more accurate. They should have no problem paying off the loan on a 15 year schedule, and still have plenty of money left over for labor and maintenance.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Argument from ignorance? No, that doesn't apply here. At least not to me. I do wonder about people who babble about 500 year evacuations when trivially, such an event wouldn't happen for almost 5 centuries. Further why would such an event happen? The half-life of most dangerous radioactive materials is a few decades or less. It probably would still exist in detectable quantities, but there would be a vast reduction in radioactivity, just from the passage of so much time. When we also consider that it's just not that hard to bulldoze earth and even flush ground water (for radioactive levels that are lethal with long half-life isotopes), there's no reason to expect 500 year evacuations unless there is a complete and utter absconding of duty by the government responsible for the territory in question. Then the evacuation would be an indictment of the government not of nuclear power as a whole.
Conclusion, that is.
Also, read through the article on argument from ignorance.
Your claim that you are "right for at least 500 years" as there has not yet been any such case of evacuation could be used as a textbook example of that fallacy.
"It asserts that a proposition is necessarily true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa)."
Like I said - a textbook example.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
$737 million for 55 MW average - that's $13/W. The UAE contract for four APR-1400 reactors from South Korea put nuclear at about $4/W. Wind is at perhaps $6/W.