Solar Thermal Power Poised for Prime Time

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5625

Solar Thermal Power Poised for Prime Time

Washington, D.C.—Yet another renewable energy technology—concentrating solar power (CSP)—may be ready for the explosive growth that has marked solar photovoltaic and wind power systems in recent years.

CSP, a utility-scale technology ideally suited to desert areas, is resurging around the world, with major facilities being built or planned in the U.S. Southwest, Spain, North Africa, Peru, Chile, and even Germany, write Susan Moran and J. Thomas McKinnon in the March/April issue of World Watch magazine. In the United States, a “perfect storm” of influences—especially growing public concern about coal, new venture capital, high oil prices, and state renewable energy mandates—is positioning CSP to become a much bigger part of the energy mix.

CSP delivers power in the middle of the day, when demand is typically highest. And CSP facilities can be equipped with thermal storage capacity that enables them to supply “off-peak” power long after the sun has gone down. Costs are currently around 17 cents per kilowatthour (kWh), but Moran and McKinnon cite one set of projections suggesting that cost could drop to 8 cents/kWh with experience. Department of Energy research grants have been awarded to nine U.S. companies in an effort to bring costs down to 7 cents/kWh by 2020.

Although Congress failed to extend a solar investment tax credit earlier this year, many U.S. states are more sympathetic. In California, for instance, several utilities have signed power purchase agreements with builders of CSP facilities.

[Hydra]

1. More solar, wind water!

no more oil!!!

[NNadir]

2. Again?

http://www.solargenix.com/news_details.cfm?id=6

There are only nine solar thermal plants - all located in California - known as SEGS plants that were built by LUZ International during the 1980s and 1990s. During construction of a tenth plant in 1991, the company filed for bankruptcy citing a combination of eroding Renewable Energy incentives and plummeting energy prices, according to Hank Price, Parabolic Trough Technology team leader of SunLab at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

"In 1991, LUZ filed for bankruptcy because they were unable to get construction financing for their tenth plant due to delays in the signing of the California solar property tax exclusion," said Price. "But declining energy prices and incentives were the real problem that halted further expansion of trough power plants."

[DCKit]

3. Your point is? I don't see the price of oil declining again any time soon.

OPEC intentionally cut prices to kill alternative energy schemes and retain their profit center. Currently, while OPEC may still control the supply, they no longer control the market. Greed owns and runs the market: It's ENRON on steroids.

As long as oil remains above $40/barrel, there are several alternatives that are less expensive. Additionally, without emissions of CO2, mercury, sulfur and particulates (or funding terrorism), the actual human cost of solar, wind and hydro is far lower than coal or gas fired plants.

Wouldn't the U.S. be better off without having to spend billions each year defending our oil habit? Even before Iraq we were spending more defending the M.E. supply than we were spending on the actual import of oil.

Again, the neocons and empire builders have it all backward.

[jpak]

5. Ummm...anti-solar California Republics yanked those solar tax credits and sank Luz

BTW - those nine plants are still operating today.

It it weren't for Anti-solar Republic Luddites, there would be many more solar thermal plants operating in CA today...just think of all the natural gas that would *not* have been oxidized to CO2 if republics had not repealed those tax credits

But thanks to Pro-solar California Democrats, several thousand MW of new solar thermal capacity (stirling and parabolic trough) are under development in CA today.

Thank you pro-solar Dems and FU anti-solar republics.

[NNadir]

6. Oh, I see, without subsidies, the brazillion solar roofs go away. Subsidize the rich!

That's the American way.

In principle, I think energy subsidies - except for the huge fossil fuel subsidy that the anti-nuke cult couldn't care less about - are a good thing, but one would like to see efficient subsidies, subsidies that create wealth for the culture as a whole and not for a bunch of yuppie brats who live on money that Mom hands them.

Solar subsidies are generally a waste of money, since worldwide they have failed to produce much energy. In fact, all the world's solar energy combined couldn't run the servers devoted to running websites that say how wonderful solar electricity is.

Nevertheless solar electricity is vastly subsidized around the world, mostly because the world is accustomed to hearing only what it wants to hear. The number of "renewables will save us" advocates who are cognizant, aware, educated, wise, informed, and intelligent is, in essence, zero. The number of "renewables will save us" advocates who are hugely popular - and often highly paid (off) - is not zero.

One can always get political cheers by announcing a love for solar energy. Even George W. Bush does it.



http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/images/20060221_f1g1012-755v.html

One hundred percent of this big talk is meaningless on scale. The number of natural gas plants in California that have been shut by solar or wind or geothermal is zero.

Solar electricity, PV and thermal, has still not managed to produce a single exajoule of electrical energy, not in California, not in the United States, not in North America, not on the planet as a whole.

In fact, the Luz plants combined - and all of Governor Hydrogen Hummer's brazillion solar roofs - have never provided even two percent of California's electricity.

[caligirl]

4. solar making equipment orders at my hubbys company are up 180%. But orders

for flat panel display are even higher.