It wasn’t bad enough that the solar thermal plant, Ivanpah, which cost $2.2 Billion to scorch birds, got the environmentalists all in uproars about desert flora and fauna, it scorched a lot of money as well.
To meet original expectations, it took a few years as well as extensive natural gas to pre-heat the three solar boilers. Also, just outside Las Vegas, was the Crescent Dunes solar thermal plant. The cost was $1Billion and the Feds, back in 2011, gave it $700 million in loans.
Was is the operative word. Popular Mechanics has the story is that it has now been abandoned:
Even at peak operation, “[i]ts power cost [Nevada] about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh today at a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm,” Bloomberg writes. That’s not necessarily a reflection on the structure or management at Crescent Dunes, but a reflection on how rapidly the price of solar technology has fallen.
The total cost of Crescent Dunes was $1 billion for a promised 110 megawatts on 300 acres. Now, the Trump administration is approving a $1 billion plant that will make 690 megawatts on over 7,000 acres. The solar dollar is going a lot further in 2020.
I’m not complaining, per se, about solar technology but I am in who bankrolled most of the cost. Just ask yourself – who was President during that time period when 3/5 of a $1 Trillion was put at risk? Yeah, Obama whose Administration was acting more like a Venture Capital firm when it came to alternative energy (like Solyndra). Winners & losers – a biz model that Government should be staying OUT of instead of thinking “we have ALL this money – let’s spend it because we are the smartest administration evah!” (never understanding Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit”).
A monument to a Government didn’t torch its money but OUR money – and just like Solyndra, up in smoke.
Blinded by the light…..or sunlight, if you prefer…
