I don’t travel much, but I’ve seen this solar plant. (The biggest in the world.) I’ve seen the mirrors, meant to harness the sun’s power by aiming the rays at water tanks. The sun boils the water and creates steam to turn turbines.
Nice idea. If it wasn’t so cloudy there much of the time.
Another potential reoccurring problem? Computer glitches causing misaligned mirrors.
One such mirror harnessed the sun and aimed it somewhere else in the plant and set the place on fire.
The plant will survive. The feeble, feeble plant. It cost $2.2 billion to build with hundreds of thousands of huge computer controlled mirrors and takes up five square miles.
It powers about 140,000 homes when running on full capacity. Right now, it’s not.
ht/ KR
Largest solar power plant in the world bursts into flames
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Come on, how about a hint? Nevada?
I’m on fire…! Love that song!
It’s on California’s side, in the Mojave desert.
The plant paid for by taxpayers?
There’s anew one in Morocco coming on line in 2018. That one will heat salt instead of water. Good luck with that! Couldn’t have happened to a better company. Thanks SCE. 👍💩👌👽👻
Meanwhile, the green nazis are busy getting hydroelectric-generating dams removed all over the Pacific Northwest. Phucking idiots.
I’ve got to believe that somebody on the design team wanted to cover the tower with reflective panels to avoid the kind of failure, but was shot down because the bean counters didn’t want to “waste” the money.
This is the Google Ivanpah solar plant which owes its entire existence to your tax dollars. It was originally funded by an Obama administration $1.6 billion DOE guaranteed loan and $660 million in tax credits.
Since it is only producing 1/4 of the electrical output projected, Google asked for a $540 million grant to pay down the federal loan.
Like all “renewable” energy generating plants it has a back up plant fired by natural gas to produce electricity when the sun isn’t shining (or catches fire). Yes, ALL “green” energy projects require a conventional generating plant fired by coal or natural gas which must also be paid for because wind and solar are unreliable.
Any questions why Google has been to the White House more than any other company or lobbying group and why it used its data crunching expertise to put Obama over the top – twice?
C’mon … 5 mi^2 … at 160 W/m^2?
Who’s shittin who?
Pure, unadulterated, unmitigated corruption.
Can’t work (as posited).
Never intended to work … just like ObolaCare and the Avian flu and Zika virus bullshit.
Americans are dumber than the fuckin French … and that’s sayin something!
izlamo delenda est …
These large solar plants are only good for death ray action.
In fact I would posit that this whole solar power stuff is a ruse to develop a Heat Ray
I wonder if anybody has ever calculated how much heat solar panel reflect. Talk about global warming
Even though it’s a boondoggle, it is pretty impressive looking when you drive by on I-15. Looks like something from Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
There is another way to do this. A huge magnifying glass 1000 ft in the air focused on
the boiling system. Sounds like I’m joking but they have tried a scaled down version and it worked very well. But it’s a logistical nightmare to do it.
It’s called *Greek Lightening*.
Isn’t that plant going bankrupt, and closing? I read an article that it cannot sustain itself and cannot produce the amount of energy needed. Therefore unless we spend Millions more tax payer money, it’s closing.