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."

Comments

Re:Dunno, article leaves out information

[slim]

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,

Because, just like Slashdotters, "The Greens" isn't a homogeneous group of people with identical opinions, nor is "environmentalists".

You can be an "environmentalist" and only care about the aesthetic appearance of countryside during your own lifetime (therefore opposed to onshore wind turbines).
Or you can be an "environmentalist" and only care about CO2 emissions and their long term effect (probably in favour of onshore wind turbines)
Or any of hundreds of differing viewpoints.

The proper role of government

[omems]

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.

Funny.

[TheCabal]

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?