Solar Power

[R. Richard]

An interesting article that pretty much shows the true state of solar power. When a large company spends big bucks, they go with the best currently available technology. Comment?

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California

Published: August 14, 2008
Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.

The solar power will be sold to Pacific Gas and 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 plants, both using photovoltaic technology, which turns sunlight directly into electricity, would be competitive with other renewable sources, including wind and solar thermal, which uses the sun’s heat to boil water.

Solar power is more costly than wind, watt for watt, experts say, but delivers the energy at a time of day when electricity prices are higher and is more valuable even if it is more costly.

OptiSolar, a company that has just begun to make thin-film solar panels — with a layer of semiconductor material thinner than a human hair on the back of a glass panel — will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County, in central California. And the SunPower Corporation, which uses crystalline cells, will build 250 megawatts in the same county. The OptiSolar plant will cover about nine square miles and the SunPower plant about 3.5, although the actual cell area will be smaller.

They will total 800 megawatts. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart. At peak hours, together the plants will produce as much power as a large coal plant or a small nuclear reactor. But they will run far fewer hours of the year so output will be at least a third less than that of a coal plant of the same size.

The scale of the California announcement makes it “pretty significant,” said Robert J. Thormeyer, a spokesman for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, whose members sit on the state public utility commissions.

But such developments are only possible in states that have ambitious quotas for renewable power and have good sun, he said. “It’s hard to say if it’s something we’ll see replicated in other states,” he said. But “it opens up a door.”

The chairman of SunPower, Thomas H. Werner, said the 250 megawatts that his company would build was as much solar photovoltaic capacity as was installed worldwide last year.

At OptiSolar, the chief executive, Randy Goldstein, said, “There is really no point in doing this on small scale.”

“If you’re going to make a difference, you’ve got to do it big,” Mr. Goldstein said in a telephone interview.

The largest current installation in the United States is at Nellis Air Force Base, in Nevada, with 14 megawatts, also built by SunPower. Spain has one completed plant at 23 megawatts. A German company, Juwi, has a 40-megawatt installation east of Leipzig. Florida Power and Light recently ordered a 25-megawatt plant.

Solar energy, both photovoltaic and thermal, which uses the sun’s heat to make steam, is bounding ahead, driven mostly by state quotas. California requires that 20 percent of the kilowatt-hours sold by investor-owned utilities come from renewable sources by 2010, a goal that some companies are struggling to meet. Pacific Gas and Electric expects that when these two solar plants are completed, its total will rise to 24 percent, but that will not be until 2013.

Both plants would require a variety of permits.

The planned California installations raise questions about the idea that solar power is best deployed on the roofs of houses and businesses. Although they can help avoid transmission expenses when built near load, the companies said that by building on a gargantuan scale, they expected to achieve economies of scale in the cost of design, installation and connection to the grid, as well as marketing and overhead. A typical home installation is several thousandths of a megawatt, while these are in the hundreds of megawatts.

The prices are not clear. The companies said their contracts did not allow them to talk about the price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for its ratepayers by not disclosing the contracts and not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay.

According to the California Energy Commission, last year the price of power from a solar photovoltaic installation was 70.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, roughly six times the national average retail rate for residential power. But both OptiSolar and SunPower said their costs were much lower.

SunPower’s panels are mounted at a 20-degree angle, facing south, and pivot over the course of the day, so they face the sun. OptiSolar’s panels are installed at a fixed angle. They are larger and less efficient, but much less costly, so that the cost per watt of energy is similar, company executives said.

Both are good at producing power at the time of day when prices tend to be high, in the afternoon.

Neither approaches the economy of fossil-fuel burning plants, said Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric. But they are competitive with wind power and with power from solar thermal plants.

And prices will eventually fall, she said.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

An interesting article that pretty much shows the true state of solar power. When a large company spends big bucks, they go with the best currently available technology. Comment?

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California

Published: August 14, 2008
Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.

The solar power will be sold to Pacific Gas and 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 plants, both using photovoltaic technology, which turns sunlight directly into electricity, would be competitive with other renewable sources, including wind and solar thermal, which uses the sun’s heat to boil water.

Solar power is more costly than wind, watt for watt, experts say, but delivers the energy at a time of day when electricity prices are higher and is more valuable even if it is more costly.

OptiSolar, a company that has just begun to make thin-film solar panels — with a layer of semiconductor material thinner than a human hair on the back of a glass panel — will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County, in central California. And the SunPower Corporation, which uses crystalline cells, will build 250 megawatts in the same county. The OptiSolar plant will cover about nine square miles and the SunPower plant about 3.5, although the actual cell area will be smaller.

They will total 800 megawatts. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart. At peak hours, together the plants will produce as much power as a large coal plant or a small nuclear reactor. But they will run far fewer hours of the year so output will be at least a third less than that of a coal plant of the same size.

The scale of the California announcement makes it “pretty significant,” said Robert J. Thormeyer, a spokesman for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, whose members sit on the state public utility commissions.

But such developments are only possible in states that have ambitious quotas for renewable power and have good sun, he said. “It’s hard to say if it’s something we’ll see replicated in other states,” he said. But “it opens up a door.”

The chairman of SunPower, Thomas H. Werner, said the 250 megawatts that his company would build was as much solar photovoltaic capacity as was installed worldwide last year.

At OptiSolar, the chief executive, Randy Goldstein, said, “There is really no point in doing this on small scale.”

“If you’re going to make a difference, you’ve got to do it big,” Mr. Goldstein said in a telephone interview.

The largest current installation in the United States is at Nellis Air Force Base, in Nevada, with 14 megawatts, also built by SunPower. Spain has one completed plant at 23 megawatts. A German company, Juwi, has a 40-megawatt installation east of Leipzig. Florida Power and Light recently ordered a 25-megawatt plant.

Solar energy, both photovoltaic and thermal, which uses the sun’s heat to make steam, is bounding ahead, driven mostly by state quotas. California requires that 20 percent of the kilowatt-hours sold by investor-owned utilities come from renewable sources by 2010, a goal that some companies are struggling to meet. Pacific Gas and Electric expects that when these two solar plants are completed, its total will rise to 24 percent, but that will not be until 2013.

Both plants would require a variety of permits.

The planned California installations raise questions about the idea that solar power is best deployed on the roofs of houses and businesses. Although they can help avoid transmission expenses when built near load, the companies said that by building on a gargantuan scale, they expected to achieve economies of scale in the cost of design, installation and connection to the grid, as well as marketing and overhead. A typical home installation is several thousandths of a megawatt, while these are in the hundreds of megawatts.

The prices are not clear. The companies said their contracts did not allow them to talk about the price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for its ratepayers by not disclosing the contracts and not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay.

According to the California Energy Commission, last year the price of power from a solar photovoltaic installation was 70.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, roughly six times the national average retail rate for residential power. But both OptiSolar and SunPower said their costs were much lower.

SunPower’s panels are mounted at a 20-degree angle, facing south, and pivot over the course of the day, so they face the sun. OptiSolar’s panels are installed at a fixed angle. They are larger and less efficient, but much less costly, so that the cost per watt of energy is similar, company executives said.

Both are good at producing power at the time of day when prices tend to be high, in the afternoon.

Neither approaches the economy of fossil-fuel burning plants, said Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric. But they are competitive with wind power and with power from solar thermal plants.

And prices will eventually fall, she said.

EConomy of scale vs. vulnerability. I'd rather have my roof solarcell covered. IN fact, I just may . . .

 

[john-the-author]

I just read something about someone taking the attitude that we can use solar power in exactly the same way as we use nuclear power: to heat water to boiling and drive steam turbines. This just requires mirrors rather than PV cells and may be a lot cheaper to install. Where/when/what, I don't recall, but it's a good idea.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I just read something about someone taking the attitude that we can use solar power in exactly the same way as we use nuclear power: to heat water to boiling and drive steam turbines. This just requires mirrors rather than PV cells and may be a lot cheaper to install. Where/when/what, I don't recall, but it's a good idea.

It was built into a giant solar tower in California years ago but has since been torn down. Just wasn't efficient enough, or something.

 

[Guest]

It was built into a giant solar tower in California years ago but has since been torn down. Just wasn't efficient enough, or something.

Au contraire, mon bear; there's a whole lot of solar thermal being built in the Mojave and elsewhere:

Mega Solar: the World’s 13 Biggest Solar Thermal Energy Projects

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.

Megawatts: 500 MW, with plans to expand to 900 MW.

Solar Company & Electric Utility: BrightSource Energy and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Status: Will begin operating as early as 2011.

To date, this field of power towers is the largest planned Concentrated Solar project in the world:

 

[R. Richard]

I note that PG&E is involved in all of the projects. Apparently, there is some doubt about THE solar technology.

 

[Lisa Denton]

An interesting article that pretty much shows the true state of solar power. When a large company spends big bucks, they go with the best currently available technology. Comment?


They will total 800 megawatts. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart. At peak hours, together the plants will produce as much power as a large coal plant or a small nuclear reactor. But they will run far fewer hours of the year so output will be at least a third less than that of a coal plant of the same size.

By reading a story carefully you can sometimes find the small important parts.

Right there!

It takes a fuckin nuclear reactor to power 800 Wal-Marts. There is prolly 800 near me. Wal-Marts suck big time. They get you in there with a cheap price on scotch tape, then try to charge you 4 dollars for a damn loaf of bread.

Go look at the computer section in a Wal-Mart, they have a huge area for laptops. Each laptop is a 5 year old piece of junk, worth maybe $60.00 at a garage sale, but they have a $2,350.00 price tag on it. They never sell them, if you wanted to look at one they prolly couldn't find the key to open the glass case.

Buy a watch battery at Wal-Mart, if you have a decent watch they won't put the fuckin battery in for you. You have to go to a jewelry store and have them put in your new battery, and you will see new batteries at the jewelry store for half the price you paid at Wal-Mart.

If you shop at a Wal-Mart you have to walk 2 miles to get from the potato chips to the lunch meats, then you have to walk another mile to get to the aspirins for your aching feets.

Close 800 Wal-Marts per month, this will save the world.

JMO

 

[Guest]

I note that PG&E is involved in all of the projects. Apparently, there is some doubt about THE solar technology.

Thin-film photovoltaics are showing a lot of promise, but according to this article, they haven't yet "grabbed the brass ring."


"Lowering solar module cost to $1/W has been the brass ring for the industry because it's approximately at this point that solar energy will reach grid parity — the ability to economically compete with traditional fossil fuel energies. In some places, grid parity is coming soon or has already arrived, according to a recent talk by Mark Pinto, senior vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' Energy and Environmental Solutions (Santa Clara, Calif).2"

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Au contraire, mon bear; there's a whole lot of solar thermal being built in the Mojave and elsewhere:

Mega Solar: the World’s 13 Biggest Solar Thermal Energy Projects

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.

Megawatts: 500 MW, with plans to expand to 900 MW.

Solar Company & Electric Utility: BrightSource Energy and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Status: Will begin operating as early as 2011.

To date, this field of power towers is the largest planned Concentrated Solar project in the world:

Ah! Then perhaps the dismantled one was a prototype for either demonstartion or experimental purposes. It sure was a spectacular thing in operation.

 

[R. Richard]

Thin-film photovoltaics are showing a lot of promise, but according to this article, they haven't yet "grabbed the brass ring."


"Lowering solar module cost to $1/W has been the brass ring for the industry because it's approximately at this point that solar energy will reach grid parity — the ability to economically compete with traditional fossil fuel energies. In some places, grid parity is coming soon or has already arrived, according to a recent talk by Mark Pinto, senior vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' Energy and Environmental Solutions (Santa Clara, Calif).2"

I'm always a little skeptical about 'facts' provided by people selling the technology. They tend to be a bit omptimistic. The people who are spending big bucks to buy the technology are usually a bit more cautious.

I note that PG&E is trying more than one technolgy.

I wonder what the life of a solar panel is and what the replacement costs are.

I have no problem with solar replacing fossil fuels, I just want to be damn sure that solar really works before they use it for my power. To quote a noted authority [Kermit D. Frog,] "It's not easy being green."

 

[Guest]

I'm always a little skeptical about 'facts' provided by people selling the technology. They tend to be a bit omptimistic. The people who are spending big bucks to buy the technology are usually a bit more cautious.

I note that PG&E is trying more than one technolgy.

I wonder what the life of a solar panel is and what the replacement costs are.

I have no problem with solar replacing fossil fuels, I just want to be damn sure that solar really works before they use it for my power. To quote a noted authority [Kermit D. Frog,] "It's not easy being green."

And I have no problem with you being cautious. Of course, the costs of obtaining and transporting those fossil fuels continue to rise, and sooner, rather than later, solar power in its various forms will be cheaper than fossil fuel sources.

What we really need to work on, IMO, is storage capacity for the power generated when the sun shines and the wind blows. That way, solar is viable for far more than peak use times.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And I have no problem with you being cautious. Of course, the costs of obtaining and transporting those fossil fuels continue to rise, and sooner, rather than later, solar power in its various forms will be cheaper than fossil fuel sources.

What we really need to work on, IMO, is storage capacity for the power generated when the sun shines and the wind blows. That way, solar is viable for far more than peak use times.

No, we need to quit all this obsession with wind and sun and tide, etc. and really get to work on drilling to hot, dry rock. It is under every part of the globe, it will never cool down. To turn it on, all you have to do is pump water down and let the steam out to drive turbines. Geothermal is the most efficient, reliable, maintenance-free way of generating electricty there is. The oldest continuously operating electricity plant in the world is in Italy. It's been turning out the kilowatts for over a hundred years now. The problem is drilling that deep and keeping the pipes clear of corrosion.

 

[trysail]

Without comment, what follows are some rough "bogies" for comparable capital costs:

I watch estimates of the cost of newbuild electricity generation by following arms-length transactions for generating facilities. For the first time, I've seen recent estimates of the cost to build new NUCLEAR generating capacity (for an Areva-designed reactor) proposed for Constellation Energy's existing Lusby, Maryland, Calvert Cliffs nuclear generating site.

Using the LOW estimate of $9,000,000,000 (nine billion dollars) rather than a higher ($11,000,000,000) estimate for the 1,710 megawatt reactor, the cost per MW works out to roughly $5.26 million/MW.

The windfarm generating project now being built in the Texas panhandle by Mesa Power intends to install 4,000 megawatts at a cost of $10,000,000,000. That's a cost of $2.5 million/MW.

Existing natural gas-fired electricity generating plants change hands at prices ranging anywhere from $200,000/MW (for peaking units— units that are brought on-line to meet peak electricity demand) to roughly $500,000/MW for baseload (those that are run continuously to meet stable underlying electricity demand) units.

Newbuild and existing coal-fired electricity generating facilities cost roughly $900,000-1,800,000 per MW (significant variables include whether the plant's output is presold by existing contract (and, if so, the contract terms) or is sold into the wholesale market. Here are some examples of proposed newbuild facilities:
___________________________________________________
Florida Power & Light - Two newbuild coal fired units (equal size) in central Florida (9/06 announcement) to enter service in 2011-2012

Unit #1 Total Cost: $2,000,000,000
1,960 MW=$1,020,408/MW

Unit #2 Total Cost: $3,000,000,000
1,960 MW=$1,530,612/MW
___________________________________________________
Texas Utilities newbuild coal fired generation
11 facilities (announced 4/06, the size— but not the unit costs— were subsequently modified by agreement with the Texas Public Utility Commission)
Total Cost:$10,000,000,000
8,600 MW=$1,162,791/MW
___________________________________________________

Quite obviously, fixed costs for "non-greenhouse gas" producing sources of electricity (i.e., nuclear and wind) are very substantially higher than those for fossil-fuel based electricity. I am not aware of current cost estimates for COMMERCIAL quantities of solar-generated electricity (they obviously exist but have not been publicly disclosed). As noted in this thread, the "nameplate" capacity of large solar installations is overstated since they cannot currently provide baseload electricity.

Relative returns on capital for "non-greenhouse gas" electricity generation and fossil-fuel electricity generation will depend on the cost of the various fossil fuels. Fossil-fuel generating facilities clearly have higher variable costs than wind or nuclear plants but, unless you're clairvoyant (and, I assure you, I'm not— but neither are you), there's no way to accurately predict what fossil fuels will cost in the future.

Also be aware that the California VCs, notably Kleiner, Perkins have invested in OptiSolar and will be major beneficiaries of the subsidization of commercial solar generating capacity by California ratepayers.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I just read something about someone taking the attitude that we can use solar power in exactly the same way as we use nuclear power: to heat water to boiling and drive steam turbines. This just requires mirrors rather than PV cells and may be a lot cheaper to install. Where/when/what, I don't recall, but it's a good idea.

Here's one source: http://www.withouthotair.com/

It doesn't have a whole lot of detail, but suggests that this method covering thousands of square miles of desert is capable of actually powering our civilization, which makes it the only non-nuke, non-fossil source which can make that claim. I don't know if they use mirrors, but it amounts to heating liquids, concentrating the heat probably with heat exchangers, and spinning turbines with the steam from the distilled heat. The hot liquids can be stored underground, so the only time you don't get electricity is if it just rains for days on end. Which happens in most deserts at certain times of year, so it still seems like nukes are where our post-fossil future lies. Not to mention the enviros going ape-shit when someone tries to cover thousands of square miles of desert with these things. Watch and see - there'll be some ape-shit-going over this 9 sq. mile PV installation.

 

[Guest]

No, we need to quit all this obsession with wind and sun and tide, etc. and really get to work on drilling to hot, dry rock. It is under every part of the globe, it will never cool down. To turn it on, all you have to do is pump water down and let the steam out to drive turbines. Geothermal is the most efficient, reliable, maintenance-free way of generating electricty there is. The oldest continuously operating electricity plant in the world is in Italy. It's been turning out the kilowatts for over a hundred years now. The problem is drilling that deep and keeping the pipes clear of corrosion.

Those ARE substantial problems. If I'm reading the USGS's contour map (found at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/structure/crust/index.php )
correctly, there's nowhere on the North American continent where the earth's crust is thinner than 30 KM. That's a LOT of drilling and a WHOLE lot of pipe to keep clean for just ONE geothermal well.

Of course, we can look for magma intrusions from the mantle into the crust that create geothermal reservoirs and would only have to drill a few miles; but those places appear to be relatively limited on this continent.

I know that these few points don't sum up the entirety of the case for or against geothermal's practicality by any means. Personally, I'd love to see it happen. Practically, maybe not in my lifetime, or yours. I'm in favor of non-fossil fuel energy sources developing on all fronts.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Those ARE substantial problems. If I'm reading the USGS's contour map (found at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/structure/crust/index.php )
correctly, there's nowhere on the North American continent where the earth's crust is thinner than 30 KM. That's a LOT of drilling and a WHOLE lot of pipe to keep clean for just ONE geothermal well.

Of course, we can look for magma intrusions from the mantle into the crust that create geothermal reservoirs and would only have to drill a few miles; but those places appear to be relatively limited on this continent.

I know that these few points don't sum up the entirety of the case for or against geothermal's practicality by any means. Personally, I'd love to see it happen. Practically, maybe not in my lifetime, or yours. I'm in favor of non-fossil fuel energy sources developing on all fronts.

But it isn't necessary to drill clear to the mantle, just far enough to get the right temperatures. How many miles that may turn out to be, I don't have a clue.

 

[Boxlicker101]

PG & E is a big operation, and there is penty of hot, dry area in CA. I live in one of the hottest and driest of all. I look at the deadline of 2010 and wonder if they can get it that soon. That's less than 17 months, and I have always read about ten year or so requirements.

There are also windfarms and I drive past them fairly often. It seems strange to think of sun and wind as being something of the future. Wind power and water power and sunshine have been used for that purpose for hundreds of years.

I don't know how much it would cost to put solar panels on the roof o my house. I coulod probsbly get rebastes from PG & E and others if I did it, and maybe even sell power to PG & E.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

PG & E is a big operation, and there is penty of hot, dry area in CA. I live in one of the hottest and driest of all. I look at the deadline of 2010 and wonder if they can get it that soon. That's less than 17 months, and I have always read about ten year or so requirements.

There are also windfarms and I drive past them fairly often. It seems strange to think of sun and wind as being something of the future. Wind power and water power and sunshine have been used for that purpose for hundreds of years.

I don't know how much it would cost to put solar panels on the roof o my house. I coulod probsbly get rebastes from PG & E and others if I did it, and maybe even sell power to PG & E.

Actually, you could. Half of my roof faces due south and I keep thinking I really need to talk to a solar consultant . . . probably from SoCal Ed.

 

[Guest]

But it isn't necessary to drill clear to the mantle, just far enough to get the right temperatures. How many miles that may turn out to be, I don't have a clue.

Well, under current technology, you're looking for an area where water that has been heated by the mantle (or by magma that has risen through the crust) has expanded upward through fissures/crack/fault lines to produce a geothermal reservoir:

From: http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html

"Geothermal reservoirs that are close enough to the surface to be reached by drilling can occur in places where geologic processes have allowed magma to rise up through the crust, near to the surface, or where it flows out as lava."

And, from DOE:

"The Future of Geothermal Electricity
Steam and hot water reservoirs are just a small part of the geothermal resource. The Earth's magma and hot dry rock will provide cheap, clean, and almost unlimited energy as soon as we develop the technology to use them."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well, under current technology, you're looking for an area where water that has been heated by the mantle (or by magma that has risen through the crust) has expanded upward through fissures/crack/fault lines to produce a geothermal reservoir:

From: http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html

"Geothermal reservoirs that are close enough to the surface to be reached by drilling can occur in places where geologic processes have allowed magma to rise up through the crust, near to the surface, or where it flows out as lava."

And, from DOE:

"The Future of Geothermal Electricity
Steam and hot water reservoirs are just a small part of the geothermal resource. The Earth's magma and hot dry rock will provide cheap, clean, and almost unlimited energy as soon as we develop the technology to use them."

Right! That's what I was saying. Naturally occuring geothermal steam provides some of California's power from the plant at the Geysers. There is a noisy collection of malcontents that don't like them because natural steam smells like rotten eggs and bothers their delicate sensibilities. Awwww . . .

But come the day when we can drill or lazer or blast or . . . down to hot dry rock and then have adequate batteries to really power vehicles, the world will be clean and Venezuela and company will go back to hoeing beans.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Without comment, what follows are some rough "bogies" for comparable capital costs . . .

. . . Quite obviously, fixed costs for "non-greenhouse gas" producing sources of electricity (i.e., nuclear and wind) are very substantially higher than those for fossil-fuel based electricity. I am not aware of current cost estimates for COMMERCIAL quantities of solar-generated electricity (they obviously exist but have not been publicly disclosed). As noted in this thread, the "nameplate" capacity of large solar installations is overstated since they cannot currently provide baseload electricity.

Relative returns on capital for "non-greenhouse gas" electricity generation and fossil-fuel electricity generation will depend on the cost of the various fossil fuels. Fossil-fuel generating facilities clearly have higher variable costs than wind or nuclear plants but, unless you're clairvoyant (and, I assure you, I'm not— but neither are you), there's no way to accurately predict what fossil fuels will cost in the future.

Also be aware that the California VCs, notably Kleiner, Perkins have invested in OptiSolar and will be major beneficiaries of the subsidization of commercial solar generating capacity by California ratepayers.

Just to close the loop on this, the "fuel costs" for non-fossil plants are little (nukes) or none (solar).

Of course "little" in the case of the nukes is a relative term: A "full tank" of uranium is probably several million dollars, but it lasts a few years, and can be mostly recycled. For the amount of MW you get per ton of uranium the cost is indeed "little;" as trysail points out the big expense is construction.

Also, the cost per MW cited for the solar - the "nameplate" figure per trysail - ignores the reality that it only produces when the sun shines, and something else must provide the juice at night or when cloudy. So add the capital and fuel cost of that "something else" to get a realistic cost estimate on the solar. In the long run these kinds of installations - PV - are a dead end, because they can't provide that baseload power. In the short term, if fossil fuels get much more costly, displacing some of that consumption may be cost effective. Right now it's mostly just an expensive gimmick, mandated by politician and subsidized by taxpayers and utility ratepayers.

 

[Weird Harold]

Au contraire, mon bear; there's a whole lot of solar thermal being built in the Mojave and elsewhere:

Mega Solar: the World’s 13 Biggest Solar Thermal Energy Projects
...
Status: Will begin operating as early as 2011.

To date, this field of power towers is the largest planned Concentrated Solar project in the world:

Your link is out of date -- and I suspect out of date when it was created because it doesn't list either Nellis Solar at 14 MW the largest active PV installation in the US (as properly credited inthe Original Post) or Nevada Solar One a nominal 400 acre, 64MW solar concentration "liquid sodium" technology installaion that provides 64MW 24 hours a day with a Peak Load capacity of 75MW.

Each is the largest active US solar power plant in it's class and Nevada Solar One is the third largest active solar concentration plant in the world. and both have been in operation for over a year. (Nevada Solar One is probably providing a portion of the power used to compose this post at 8:20 PM)

The original post is, I think, OLD NEWS though, the numbers match proposed installations that we've discussed here an on GB threads for at least six months. (I'm not all that sure about the accuracy of the reporting either, because current Photovoltaic Cell technology -- even high efficency thin-film tech -- simply can't generate the numbers claimed by the author but the numbers are well within the capability of Liquid Sodium Solar Concentration plants.

If anyone tried to sell me stock in an 800MW Photovoltaic Cell project, I'd definitely want to nail their feet to the floor until I could get a dozen of so GPS transponders injected into them so I could track them down when they ran with the investor's money.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Those ARE substantial problems. If I'm reading the USGS's contour map (found at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/structure/crust/index.php )
correctly, there's nowhere on the North American continent where the earth's crust is thinner than 30 KM. That's a LOT of drilling and a WHOLE lot of pipe to keep clean for just ONE geothermal well.

Of course, we can look for magma intrusions from the mantle into the crust that create geothermal reservoirs and would only have to drill a few miles; but those places appear to be relatively limited on this continent.

I know that these few points don't sum up the entirety of the case for or against geothermal's practicality by any means. Personally, I'd love to see it happen. Practically, maybe not in my lifetime, or yours. I'm in favor of non-fossil fuel energy sources developing on all fronts.

wiki:
A 2006 report by MIT, that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years.[11]

The MIT report calculated the world's total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Of these, over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia.[11]

The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world's current needs for 30,000 years. [11]

Drilling at this depth is now possible in the petroleum industry, albeit it is expensive. (Exxon announced an 11 km hole at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin. Lloyds List 1/5/07 p 6) Wells drilled to depths greater than 4000 metres generally incur drilling costs in the tens of millions of dollars. The technological challenges are to drill wide bores at low cost and to break rock over larger volumes. Apart from the energy used to make the bores, the process releases no greenhouse gases.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

wiki:
A 2006 report by MIT, that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years.[11]

The MIT report calculated the world's total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Of these, over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia.[11]

The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world's current needs for 30,000 years. [11]

Drilling at this depth is now possible in the petroleum industry, albeit it is expensive. (Exxon announced an 11 km hole at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin. Lloyds List 1/5/07 p 6) Wells drilled to depths greater than 4000 metres generally incur drilling costs in the tens of millions of dollars. The technological challenges are to drill wide bores at low cost and to break rock over larger volumes. Apart from the energy used to make the bores, the process releases no greenhouse gases.

And now that I have raised everyone's conciousness, might I suggest a letter-writing campaign to encourage the development? It's gotta be better than stripmining Wyoming.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

But come the day when we can drill or lazer or blast or . . . down to hot dry rock and then have adequate batteries to really power vehicles, the world will be clean and Venezuela and company will go back to hoeing beans.

Of course I know you share my desire for Venezuela & Co. to enjoy the same bourgeois comforts, conveniences and broadened horizons that America & Co. does. It's just Hugo we want back hoeing beans.