Morocco Has Fired Up the World’s Largest Solar Power Plant!

Montegriffo:

Uniformed Opinions about projected solar plant?

Healthy skepticism at someone's written promises is better the laying at their feet. Wishful thinking that something is going to work is a recipe for disaster (ex. Titanic). Let's look at this with a skeptical eye first.

Morocco is the size of Texas with about the same population. It has several mountain ranges and a sub-standard infra-structure to support such an advanced plan.

If you like projections, consider this: solar power is well under one percent in the world today. It is hoped to reach only 3 percent in the next 25 years--hardly an answer to the world's energy needs.

Solar power has improved in efficiency and cost, but it has not improved that much. If you invest billions of dollars (hopefully, their billions and not ours) to build a power system that is not cost-effective and efficient, those billions could be wasted. Check out California's proposed super train and all the billions wasted so far.

If done too fast, the Solar power industry could go broke (remember Solindra?) like the nuclear power industry to nobody's benefit.

Better a pilot project in a modern country under better supervision.

 

Implying that Morocco is not advanced enough?
In fact by building the worlds largest plant they could be considered to lead the world.
Solar is not the whole answer but it is certainly part of the answer.
Building this plant can only be seen as a positive move in the right direction. Is an alternative to dirty fossil fuel energy needed soon or in some far off time when it's efficiency is cost effective?
Screw cost effective, not everything is about money.

 

Montegriffo;

Read your post. It is what I have been telling you.

Basically, everything you have written about solar power and Morocco is a HOPE it will come true. We can all hope especially if it is not our own money on the line.

"Not everything is about money"

You don't understand the concept of jumping the gun. If you build something and it fails, there may not be money to start over--like a college education.

The California Bullet Train is a good example. Billions in cost overruns already and it has barely started. And when/if it is finished, will anyone ride it?

 

Investing in non cost effective forms of energy which results in higher energy prices reduces economic growth, reduces the rate of increase in the standard of living, and is very much regressive resulting in greater economic harm to low income people. And this plant and all the others like it in the world will result in no significant reduction in the rate of global warming. Economic pain for no temperature gain.

 

Solar power may have a future in some form. It just won't be enough to replace fossil fuels. You can't stick sunshine into a gas tank. It's future would be stationary and in places where an infra-structure already exists to support it. The best example is outside Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

The best example of solar power is in the US. There is a solar power plant outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is close to the city and near a highway. If if works, it could be the template for others.

 

Assumes extremist alt right disinformation not in evidence.

 

No assumptions required. It's Econ 101. And climate science 101.

 

Neither of which you have demonstrated any knowledge of whatsoever.

Where are your links supporting your allegations?

 

Never heard of electric cars?
Non fossil fuels generated over half of the UK's electricity last week for the first time. Wind and solar capacity Is increasing all the time. Fossil fuels can and will be replaced no matter how much people with your mindset drag their feet.

 

At what cost and what economic damage to low income people. In Germany electricity is becoming a luxury item. They pay triple what we pay in the US. Their economic growth is half the Obama growth rate and that is a very low bar. And 24/7/365 fossil fuel capacity must match full demand. The wind and solar are additional costs which are amortized in every electric bill paid by consumers or taxpayers. All this economic damage with no significant effect on global warming.

 

Do your homework - read the book.

 

Not my problem if you are gullible enough to swallow a fictionalised version of history that was published 6 years before the failed Republican/Libertarian "deregulated free markets" crashed the world's economy.

 

Montegriffo;

Electric Cars?

Thank you for mentioning electric cars. That is a perfect example of jumping the gun. Their driving range was exaggerated. For example, the Nissan Leaf. It was advertised has being able to go 150-200 miles on a single charge. That is under pefect world conditions, but things like cold weather, hot weather air conditioning will drop the range to 60-65 miles on one charge. Why would anyone want to buy a Leaf for twice the cost of the gas version (the Sentra) under those circumstances?

The value of 2-3 year old Leafs has dropped 90 percent.

Even expensive Teslas do not live up to the hype.

 

I have a Ford Fusion Energi. It's range is very limited on pure EV, but it functions as a normal hybrid as well. I paid less for it brand new than a similarly equipped gas-only version. My electric rates are a very low $0.06/kwh which means gasoline would have to get down to about $0.80/gallon before it stopped being economical for me. I charge as much as I can. After 30k miles I have saved about $1200 in fuel expenses (gas+electric) compared to the gas only version which is impressive because gasoline is so cheap right now. And again, my "break-even" period is negative since the vehicle was actually cheaper than the gas-only version. To be fair though that is because I got a $4000+ tax credit.

 

Iamanonman;

Your Fusion is a hybrid. We were discussing all-electric cars like the Leaf. It's range drops dramatically in real world situations and so does its value.

I like hybrids. I think they make much more sense than electric cars. One problem with them is the cost of a replacement battery. They started out very high (approximately $4000.00). Once the warranty on the battery expires, people tended to dump them.That may be why you got the Energi for less than the gas version.

I don't follow Fords much so I am not the last word on them. I looked at buying a used Leaf and found out about them that way.

 

There's an example of rewriting history. The housing bubble was the result of D policy which forced Fannie and Freddie to lend to low income people and monetary policy. The financial crisis was the result of the unintended consequences of banking regulations. Supply side economics had nothing to do with that recession. It was all the result of gov policies.

 

Government policies, people's desire to get something for nothing (house, cars...for nothing down) and realtors, mortgage brokers, bankers, wall streeters and investors ready to feed this greed led to this mess.

The blame is everywhere.

 

The banks were following gov policies and regulations. They were told that nothing bad would happen. Lots of bad things happened. The lesson is to get the gov out of business.

 

AFM:

You are almost 100% right. A perfect storm of government stupidity and personal greed created this mess.

 

Still waiting for perfection before changing to a better option I see.
Even if your figures are true (which I contest) many people don't drive more than 60 miles to get to work, or go shopping or visit friends or go to the cinema. 60 miles per day is practical to a majority of UK drivers, the rest can drive a hybrid or catch the train. Cost per mile to run an electric car is tiny, city air quality is vastly improved,CO2 emissions reduced but oh no, electric cars are not good enough yet so lets all keep using fossil fuels till they are.
Jumping the gun? Cities will be under 15' of water before you think renewables are a good enough alternative.
You would have been one of the guys saying can't be done when Kennedy said he was going to get a man on the moon by the end of the decade........

 

Montegriffo:

"many people don't drive more than 60 miles to get to work or go shopping...?

Although I have visited the UK many times and enjoyed each trip, I do not live there. America is different. I live in California which is bigger than your country,. Here, a 30-mile commute is very modest and already beyond a 60-mile round trip commute with an electric car. Charging stations are few and would be overwhelmed if too many people owned them.

When you add in side trips like lunch, the store.... You could easily end up taking the bus home.

I am not saying electric cars will have no value in the future. Batteries may improve with time. They are not yet a practical alternative to gasoline which by the way is not the only expense in owning a car.

In addition to gas, there is insurance, maintenance and re-sale value. Here, electric cars have a poor re-sale value--roughty 10 per cent of cost after three years. Any savings in fuel costs are more than wiped out in depreciation..

Cities 15' under water?

I live Palm Springs, California which is well above sea level and in the desert.

 

Ironic since it was deregulation that caused all the bad things to happen!

Obviously the extremist alt right never learned anything from those bad things that happened when they deregulated.

 

Again ignorance is on display. ^^


The housing bubble and financial crisis are actually two different things although the collapse of the housing bubble resulted in the financial crisis. The housing bubble was caused by the lowering of lending standards due to the HUD requirement that Fannie and Freddie make a set percentage of loans to low income borrowers. This policy was initiated by Bill Clinton and was based on an interpretation of the Community Reinvestment Act. At the end of Clinton's term that percentage was 50%. This was increased to 55% by the Bush administration. The lowering of the lending standards was used by unscrupulous mortgage lending firms like Countrywide and New Century to make many other high risk loans. Adding to the housing bubble was the easy money policy of the Fed which made loans easier to afford due to low interest rates. The housing bubble suddenly burst in 2008. This was similar to the dot.com bubble which burst in 2001 and recovered from by 2003 but why was the financial industry so terribly affected this time.


The financial crisis triggered by the housing bubble collapse was the result of a combination of financial and banking regulations going back to 1936 (See the list below). Mortgage backed securities have been around for years before the 00's. They are securities formed by conglomerating home mortgages and are a way for investors to earn a return through the housing market. They have historically been very safe investments. The HUD housing policies however resulted in a portion of the MBS's created in the 90's and 00's to consist of the subprime and other low standard loans. The Basel rules were based on the assumption that securities consisting of home mortgages were of very low risk. Therefore the reserve requirements for MBS's were set at a very low rate of 5%. This meant that for every $50K of MBS's that a commercial or investment bank had it could make loans totaling $1M. Since banks make money from loans they would use the investment vehicles with the lowest reserve requirement. And very many of them did. They bought AAA rated MBS's (the ratings were determined by the National Ratings Agencies - Fitch, Moodys, and Standard and Poors). This was required by gov regulation. But the ratings agencies were not doing due diligence on the make up of the MBS' which was unknown to the banks involved who trusted the ratings and Basel guidelines. Collapse of the housing bubble caused foreclosures in the subprime mortgages especially. This created fear and uncertainty in the value of the MBS's even though they were still paying ~ 90% of their returns. The market price dropped (in some cases a price could not be determined because no one was interested in buying). This is where the mark to market rule came in resulting large paper and consequently the banks reserves falling below the already low 5%. The bailout from the gov started out as TARP which was passed to buy up all these MBS's which had now large paper losses due to mark to market. It was quickly changed however to give money directly to the banks so that they could bring their reserves up to the 5% level. Bear Stearns was bailed out but Lehman was allowed to fail. This resulted in uncertainty and the credit markets froze (none of the banks wanted to lend to other banks who might not be bailed out). Some commercial banks like WaMu also had MBS's in reserve and ended up being taken over.



The analysis of what happened is contained in the book by Friedman and Kraus – “Engineering the Financial Crisis” – 2011. As can be seen these rules were issued over the years with no analysis on how they might conspire together to set up a catastrophic house of cards situation due to the homogenization of asset mix held by many of these investment houses. Collapse of the housing bubble which affected these assets including MBS’s (whose contained loans were still paying at ~ 80%) then lost value due to the market price dropping way below value triggering large paper losses due to mark to market accounting rules. This reduced the capital and lending capacity of the banks due to Basel I and the Recourse Rule (an adoption in the U.S. of part of what later became Basel II), which specify those capital requirements. The conflation of all of this resulted in the financial (really the banking) crisis. The authors also show that the repeal of Glass Steagal had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Glass Steagal prevented the mixing of private deposits with investments and that was not a factor. Here are the set of regulations:




1. SEC Regulations from 1936 requiring mandated minimum ratings for a growing number of institutional investments.


2. SEC decision in 1975 to confer NRSRO on the big three ratings agencies.


3. Basel 1 from 1978 which established favorable risk weighting for mortgages and GSE issued MBS’s.


4. Mark to market accounting established by FAS 115 in 1993 and refined by FAS 157 in 2006.


5. HUD targets for mortgages to low-income families in the late 1990’s resulting in reduction of down payment requirements for the GSE’s.


6. Recourse Rule issued by the FED, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift Supervision.






Here are some excerpts from an editorial from the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577166723093578272.html


Google – The Meltdown Remains a Whodunit

 

Assuming extremist alt right disinformation NOT in evidence again?