Inefficient solar plants construction in California

NY Times:

Proposals for the first large solar power plants ever built on federal lands won final approval on Tuesday from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reflecting the Obama administration’s resolve to promote renewable energy in the face of Congressional inaction.

Both plants are to rise in the California desert under a fast-track program that dovetails with the state’s own aggressive effort to push development of solar, wind and geothermal power. The far larger one, a 709-megawatt project proposed by Tessera Solar on 6,360 acres in the Imperial Valley, will use “Suncatchers” — reflectors in the shape of radar dishes — to concentrate solar energy and activate a four-cylinder engine to generate electricity.

A 45-megawatt system proposed by Chevron Energy Solutions and featuring arrays of up to 40,500 solar panels will be built on 422 acres of the Lucerne Valley. When complete, the two projects could generate enough energy to power as many as 566,000 homes.

Mr. Salazar is expected to sign off on perhaps five more projects this year; the combined long-term output of all the plants would be four times that of the first two.

“It’s our expectation we will see thousands of megawatts of solar energy sprouting on public lands,” he told reporters.

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Federal stimulus grants and federal loan guarantees could underwrite as much as hundreds of millions of dollars or more of the $2.1 billion Imperial Valley plant, said Janette Coates, a Tessera spokeswoman.

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In addition to the two plants approved Tuesday, projects that are poised to gain approval by the end of the year include BrightSource Energy’s proposed 370-megawatt Ivanpah facility, Tessera’s 850-megawatt Calico project, NextEra’s 250-megawatt Genesis Solar Energy Plant and Solar Millennium’s 1,000-megawatt Blythe project.

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But even with federal approval, a major hurdle remains for most of the projects: finding excess capacity on transmission lines in the desert, most of which are fully booked or nearly so. At the moment, capacity exists for about 345 megawatts of the 754 megawatts that would eventually be generated by the two newly approved projects.

The rest would require a new line, like San Diego Gas & Electric’s 123-mile proposed Sunrise Powerlink, which has been approved but faces challenges in federal and state courts.

Mr. Salazar emphasized that the Lucerne Valley and Imperial Valley projects had the support of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and the Wilderness Society.

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I am sure that support is only temporary. At some point the environmentalist will begin complaining about lost desert acreage. But the real problem with these facilities is that they cost way more than they are worth. When compared to the cost of conventional power plants even if they have modest maintenance needs, they will never have enough return on investment to offset cost difference before the end of their working life.

The Obama administration will try to hide the higher cost of power from these facilities with its give aways, but it cant give away power to the whole country without people noticing and there is already a rebellion against their profligate spending.

Salazar has been a terrible Secretary of the Interior who has been killing jobs in traditional energy businesses as fast as he can while trying to create jobs in the "magic" energy sector. So far, he is producing less energy for more cost. He should be fired.