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US Pays $2B To Develop Concentrating Solar Power Projects
coondoggie writes "The US Department of Energy today said it was conditionally committing $2 billion to develop two concentrating solar power projects that it says will offer 500 megawatts of power combined, effectively doubling the nation's currently installed capacity of that type of power. Concentrated solar systems typically use parabolic mirrors to collect solar energy."
Actual information about the Mojave Solar Project can be found here and here.
The technology used in the MSP isn't entirely new (has been used in at least one other plant) but looks to be an incremental improvement.
The plant features heat storage using molten salt, and won't be using fossil fuels as nighttime backup.
$2B in loan guarantees for 100,000 homes. I wonder if they're guaranteeing the entire cost of the plants or just a part of the financing.
That would work out to $20k per home.
Average monthly bill for a home is approximately $100 a month. So $1200 per year. 12 year pay-off ignoring operating expenses and maintenance.
Sounds like a good investment.
You need both. Solar power is low-density, so you need a lot of area to gather enough power.
When you install PV on rooftops, it doesn't provide enough power for buildings with more than a couple of floors. I did some calculations recently for my own apartment building: a roof full of PV panels provided just enough power for one floor of the building, assuming the national average domestic power consumption.
CSP can supplement power generation for high-density areas (cities). It can also easily provide nighttime power by using heat storage. This is more difficult to do with house-sized PV (you need huge battery banks in each house, or a central storage system, e.g. a pumped water storage facility).
Which would be just awesome. ;) Can you imagine getting the automated phone call:
To PG&E customers in your area: We regret to inform you that your area will be experiencing rolling blackouts this afternoon as we utilize our power plants as massive solar death rays against the hardware of our nation's foes. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. As a token of apology, we invite you to enjoy a spectacular light show in the sky at no expense to you.
Seen on a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use."
Really? Only $2Bil? When we are spending $708 Billion on defense? Why are we only putting up 0.0028% of the annual defense budget towards renewable, clean energy like this? Not sure how this makes sense. While it is nice to see a number in the Billions being put towards a project like this, I have a hard time taking the initiatives seriously when there are so many other bloated budgets we could chop down in size to put towards initiatives like this...
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
You're right. What company in their right mind would want to produce something that is going to be in constant and ever increasing demand? They would have a guaranteed customer base, guaranteed scarcity, and guaranteed profits. Yup, no company in their right mind would ever want to be a part of that. Thank God that Uncle Sam is here to fill the gap. We should pour money into projects like this right up until the day we default.
Yeah! It's not like NASA has any current missions that are providing valuable science to our society at all. It's nothing but a worthless jobs program!
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the rest of your post, but please educate yourself about the space industry before commenting on it. I'm getting really tired of correcting ignorance on what is supposed to be a News for Nerds site. Thanks.
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Not a Dime. It's a a loan guarantee. It's entire purpose is to allow the borrower to borrow the money to build at government interest rates (currently 3%) rather than the market rates that would likely be MUCH MUCH higher for a power plant with an unproven design (by unproven I mean there aren't 50,000 of them). Something like this helps develop technology like this without high interest rates that make the project uneconomic. Because the reality is you can't build a power plant and make money at 9% interest rates and only proven technology (as in 20% of the nations power is generated by the technology) is given market rates.
The single greatest barrier to the development of new technology is the interest rate barrier that applies to such projects. Banks assume because it's not "proven" that there is a higher risk of default and charge much higher interest rates. Those higher rates make projects ROI negative or so small as to essentially make the project worthless. If we want to move away from Coal power and to carbon-less sources of power we MUST provide loan guarantees and grants to move the projects from theory to reality. Unlike what politicians these days like to tell you the purpose of government is help move the infrastructure and the country as a whole forward. When you put market forces behind infrastructure you inevitably end up with little to no progress without economic incentive to move forward. Coal is cheap, the technology is proven, if we want to move away from coal (and I do) then Government needs to help find the alternative technology that's just as good because the reality is the banks don't like risk and power is a business where margins are razor thin. Power and Energy are national security issues, we've forgotten that as a nation, particularly if people like you post such sarcastic posts and ignore the reality of the market and it's driving forces.