Steve Beckendorf’s Recent Comments

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  concentrating solar power and the desert

  I'm concerned by James Andre's rejection of concentrating solar power on the basis of concerns for the desert environment.  In projecting the potential of CSP in California and other southwest US states, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and others have tried to exclude environmentally sensitive land from consideration.  After excluding parks, wilderness areas, and similar lands along with any land that slopes at more than 1% and any land that is remote from transmission lines, they conclude that if fully developed, CSP in the SW US could supply over seven times the total US electricity usage requirements.  The potential is vast, but of course no one is suggesting that all of this potential be developed at anytime soon.

  The second thing to say about environmental effects of CSP is that planning processes underway in California now (initiated by the CA PUC) are consulting with environmental groups that are active in the Mojave.  At a recent workshop in southern CA, the largest concerns were about the water requirements needed for cooling.  Obviously, deserts are not places with a lot of water and it would be a big mistake if CSP plants pulled the scarce water away from the habitat.  How that will be resolved is unclear, but there is a possibility to use air cooled plants, though their efficiency would be reduced.

  I also want to clarify a couple of things about the technology.  First, the PG&E power purchase agreement was for a huge parabolic trough power plant, not for dishes or heliostats.  Second, CSP only works in areas with high incident solar irradiation that is available nearly every day of the year.  This limits its application to a few arid parts of the world - the US southwest, Spain, North Africa, some places in the middle east, parts of South America, western Australia.  A final misconception I've seen in several reports about CSP is that it only provides power when the sun shines.  In fact, liquids heated by the sun can be stored for many hours (6-16 depending on the technology) and then used in the evening or during the night to generate steam to spin turbines.

  Steve Beckendorf UC Berkeley

  On Solar has arrived posted 2 years, 3 months ago 16 Responses