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Google-Backed Solar Plant Catches on Fire (pv-tech.org)
An anonymous reader writes:"The world's largest solar plant just torched itself," read the headline at Gizmodo, reporting on a fire Thursday at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. Built on 4,000 acres of public land in the Mojave Desert, the $2.2 billion plant "has nearly 350,000 computer controlled mirrors -- each roughly the size of a garage door," according to the Associated Press, which reports that misaligned mirrors focused the sunlight on electrical cables, causing them to burst into flames, according to the local fire department. The facility was temporarily shut down, and the fire damaged one of the facility's three towers, according to the Associated Press, while another tower is closed for maintenance, "leaving the sprawling facility on the California-Nevada border operating at only a third of its capacity."
The New York Times reported that by 2011 Google had invested $168 in the facility.
The New York Times reported that by 2011 Google had invested $168 in the facility.
If we regulated it as heavily as nuclear it would be a 6 month shutdown and line by line review of the code.
No sir I dont like it.
For centuries unscrupulous businessmen and employees have used the cover of a "devastating fire" for to cover up failures of owners/managers and to mask theft by the employees.
The Ivanpah solar plant was backed not just by Google's ($168 million), but by Obama's Department of Energy ($1600 million — strangely omitted from the write-up) as well. And it proved to be a major failure long ago. Just two months ago it was reported on the very edge of closing down for not producing enough energy:
And what it did produce, cost $200 per megawatt hour — nearly six times the cost of electricity from natural gas-fired power plants. Worse! It actually used the evil natural gas to supplement the solar-cells' output... (Remember this the next time someone tells you, how we could "power the planet" with only a fraction of the land covered by solar cells — if only the evil oil/nuclear/whatever weren't sabotaging the efforts.)
This fire may really have been an accident. But a suspicion, that it was deliberate is certainly no less credible, than the FUD-spreading accusation, some German nuclear plant deliberately released nuclear waste in the air 30 years ago.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1) This is a non-event, about on par with the non-events in nuclear power that mdsolar regularly submits (which for some baffling reason gets approved). The reflected sunlight set a few wire bundles on fire, and the fire damaged some piping. That's it. Ars Technica has about the only non-dramatized coverage of it I've read. I suppose you could view the hype as counterbalancing mdsolar's anti-nuclear hype, but I'd just rather not have hype of any kind on /.
2) The danger of solar comes mostly during installation and maintenance. Working on the roof (where most PV panels are installed) is the most dangerous construction job out there. And the always-generating nature of PV panels makes them an electrocution hazard. Not really an issue here since Ivanpah is a solar thermal plant.
3) After fuels that you burn and Banqiao, solar is the most dangerous energy source once you normalize for amount of electricity generated. About 10x deadlier than nuclear power,
Government is uniquely positioned to take longer term bets that the corporate world will not take. They can take the longer term view as the US will still be around in decades, while the average corporation will look at things quarter by quarter, and where the max horizon is 3 years out.
And yes, by taking a longer term view they will quite regularly waste money. But, if you think R&D is expensive, try ignorance. We now know much better how to (not) run a solar plant. Live and Learn. Directly harvesting solar energy is a long-term inevitability, and arguing that the big bad gubmint has no reason to involve itself in the development of the capability is quite short-sighted.