Obama-Backed Solar Plant Could Be Shut Down For Not Producing Enough Energy

The Ivanpah solar plant was controversial from the start because it developed thousands of acres of pristine desert lands and killed or dislocated desert tourtise in huge numbers. There were fears it would incinerate birds which have proven to be true and now in the end the power it promised to generate was a lie and it is on the verge of being shut down. Obama held this plant up as a showcase for so called green energy and it is yet another of his massive fails as POTUS. Your tax dollars go up in smoke just like the birds that fly over the latest Obama boondoggle.

"California regulators may force a massive solar thermal power plant in the Mojave Desert to shut down after years of under-producing electricity — not to mention the plant was blinding pilots flying over the area and incinerating birds.

The Ivanpah solar plant could be shut down if state regulators don’t give it more time to meet electricity production promises it made as part of its power purchase agreements with utilities, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ivanpah, which got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Obama administration, only produced a fraction of the power state regulators expected it would. The plant only generated 45 percent of expected power in 2014 and only 68 percent in 2015, according to government data.

And it does all this at a cost of $200 per megawatt hour — nearly six times the cost of electricity from natural gas-fired power plants. Interestingly enough, Ivanpah uses natural gas to supplement its solar production."

Moniz’s optimism aside, the project faced huge problems from the beginning. NRG Energy asked the federal government for a $539 million federal grant to help pay off the $1.6 billion loan it got from the Energy Department.

NRG Energy said the plant had only produced about one-quarter of its expected output in the months after it opened. The company needed an infusion of cash to help keep the project afloat.



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/17/o...or-not-producing-enough-energy/#ixzz43GL2bquc

 

Is that the same solar plant funded by the stimulus and built by nancy pelosi's son?

cause we all know he earned it right?

 

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The World’s Largest Solar Plant Just Torched Itself[/FONT]






[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Safe, reliable energy production. That's what we've been promised. Beside the fact that this plant needs lots and lots of natural gas to keep running, it doesn't produce anywhere what was promised. And, they've destroyed thousands of acres of natural habitat.[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Full story @ http://gizmodo.com/the-world-s-largest-solar-plant-just-torched-itself-1777767880[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Another version of the story @ http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/05/epic-solar-power-fail-gets-even-more-epic-er.php[/FONT]

 

Millions of "green" jobs. MILLIONS!!

Isn't that what Obama promised us during the days of the stimulus? Solyndra, Ener1, some electric car company and billions and billions of wasted boondoggles later.....

Oh and the California high speed choo choo is 4 years behind schedule and two to three times the original estimated cost. But you keep on believing the envirowackos have the answers to how we should live. They will have the answers until you are broke.

 

Well, technology doesn't just develop itself. Of course there will be problems; you have to build the generators and then you can work out the problems. It actually sounds like they are making steady progress:

"the plant had only produced about one-quarter of its expected output in the months after it opened"
"The plant only generated 45 percent of expected power in 2014 and only 68 percent in 2015"

So, right there, they've already increased from 25% to 68%. Almost tripled the output by 2015. That doesn't seem like something to just give up on, but to keep improving. They do need to figure out some way to keep the birds away though. Perhaps some sort of sound that birds don't like?

 

yeah it failed but we still need to do something. The going green part doesnt matter too much. The leaving the ME along to kill itself matters a lot more.

Is it a money pit? Maybe. But if we could get assurances and auditing that actual research and development were being done instead of justa 24/7 gravy train ride then yeah bring out the shovels and lets throw more money in.

If there is some research and development we will get a breakthrough eventually.

On a personal note my home runs on solar energy and I dont pay anything for electricity. Basically I still use power from the plant but my solar panel feeds energy back in. So some months I am a net consumer and some months a net producer. It all evens out when the bills come.

Using my own personal experience without any scientific background I think this should be where the future of solar is. Hey it works for me

 

yeah like that high speed train going nowhere fast now in the middle of the state

 

It should be done with private investments NOT tax dollars.

 

And yet, the Obama adminstration's green energy fund remains solvent and has generated positive overall returns. Thus is has not cost the taxpayer billions in wasted dollars.

And the investment pales by comparison to the billions in US taxes we forego every year to oil and gas companies in depletion allowances, the most sacred of sacred tax shelters.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/01/1654501/oil-subsidies-century/

 

Really?

You mean like the Erie Canal (built entirely with New York taxpayer dollars).

The Transcontinental Railroad (built entirely with Federal money)

The Panama Canal (same thing)

The airline industry (which existed on highly subsidized mail contracts for two decades before the industry finally made a plane effecient enough to make a profit carrying passengers)

Radio and electronics (which was nurtured by a Federally guaranteed patent pool).

Computers (their largest and often only customer for three decades was the Federal government).

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Gee, we agree on something!

I have solar panels on my home too!

 

I already signed the contract and will be joining the club in July .

 

Oh my yes, let's keep burning coal and oil and maybe we can attain the pristine skies of China. I can imagine what the troglodytes said about the ban on lead in gasoline back in the day. We need more solar, more wind, more thermal, more tidal and more anything alternative. Combined with shale maybe we can achieve complete energy independence. Probably not but worth a try.

 

I think if they put it in the roof of every shopping mall and house we could have energy independence for , i guess the term is consumer energy?

I mean I dont think solar will work for the needs of offices which are 24/7 or factories or anything with high usage. But for shopping malls and houses it could and that will be a huge deal already.

I have seen a shopping mall with the roof filled with solar panels and they dont pay anything to the power company.

Personally I think I have hit 100% ROI in 1 year.

 

You're right. The troglodytes decried the ban on lead in gasoline. I was one of them at the time. But I learned from experience.

Taking the lead out of gasoline meant exhaust systems rarely need to be replaced anymore. Before that, they rarely lasted 50K miles.

Electronic engine controls and fuel injection, both adopted because of the clean air regulations, radically increased both the reliability and fuel effeciency of cars, and we got clean air too!

 

The development of effecient, safe, low cost batteries will be the thing that puts solar panel on the roof of every eligible home. Even without that, solar has grown by 600% in the last few years, although it's market share is still small.

The electric power industry, with its vast capital investments in grid and centralized power plants is keenly aware of the threeat this poses to a century old business model.

It should be noted,. the the US electrical grid is still a patchwork hodgepodge, dispite cries for modernizing it that go back more than a decade now. Big power is still largely a collection of de facto monopolies, so they never had any incentive to be more efficient.

Which is why Nevada Power and Florida Power and Light have moved to box solar out by taking advantage of their political clout, while others like Constellation Energy are embracing solar as part of their portfolio.

 

i wouldnt stop coal production or any other industry though until im 100% sure you have something else the people can shift to. Otherwise you are just asking for another Detroit.

Like if the master plan was to kill of coal then the green funds to develop the solar and other stuff should have been given to people who would invest in west virginia and other affected places.

 

There is also a theory that drastically lowered lead levels (paint, gas, etc) led (pun intended) or contributed to lower crime levels. Maybe guns don't kill people, bedroom paint kills people.

 

Out of the frying pan into the fire applies here except in this case the fire isn't producing nearly enough to compensate so you end up in both places

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Comparing a for profit failed solar plant to canals and transcontinental rail roads is apples oranges

 

I think comparing it to ethanol rather than removal of lead is more accurate. Ethanol like solar plants ended up doing more harm than good and is nothing more than a government boondoggle

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Indeed, solar belongs on roofs not in bulldozer destroyed deserts

 

The problem with solar right now is still the lack of installers. In our area, there is only one company installing them. Without competition, installation costs are high. In our case, it is almost 2/3 of the cost of the system. I can't fathom why putting 30 panels on the roof would cost the same as putting up a whole new roof, including shingles.

This will change, however, since the rate of home solar installations will explode. Once installation costs come down, home solar will easily be competitive with grid electricity, and providing the additional benefit of providing energy to the power company when they need it most -- in peak hours in the summer when all those ACs are running. That reduces the need for peak power capacity for the energy provider and reduces everyone's cost.

 

What is pathetic if this was proposed by someone with an R after their name, these people would be beating their chest at the progress that was being made towards a new viable energy source.

I swear that there are people here who watch the Flintstones and wish it was like that again all so they can save a quarter on their taxes every week.

 

Saudi Arabia has a huge facility on Farasan Island in the Red Sea that has been very successful.. Its the only power source for the island.. But, KSA has been working on solar power since 1980.. Since 1982 they have built whole villages that are completely solar powered.. and they have done a lot of work on "Hy-solar" over the past 30 years.

 

Yep, Portugal powered the whole country with renewables for 4 days recently, Germany did the same for a full day last year (given a sunny one).

Other countries will leave us in the dust when it comes to the modern energy economy, while we are still stuck in the oil stone age -- thanks to continued outsized subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and lack of focus on modern energy sources.

 

We can do it.. It just takes the will to do it and the money.. I think we must prefer to invest in weapons or wars.

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Here's a dated list of solar projects in KSA from 2013.. The only ones I have seen were joint venture projects with the Germans at King Abdulaziz Center for Science and Technology.

http://desertsolarsaudiarabia.com/top-10-solar-projects-ksa/#

 

The Hoover Dam was not paid off for 50 years. Was it a terrible investment? We could ask the people of Las Vegas who
have generated billions off it.

If this solar plant is used to work out the kinks in solar energy production, and we later make money from that research - or the
plant eventually pays off - will it be worth it? Should we have torn down the Hoover Dam after 10 years because it didn't
pay of itself? Was it a bad investment for the government to make?