Comments Lhogue has made

Coal is not the issue?

Sunflower: your statement that coal is not the issue is interesting. Carl Zichella of the Sierra Club keeps claiming that we need to "do it all" to stop new coal-fired power plants from coming on line in the western states. And folks in this forum often say you have to compare the impacts to the desert to the impacts of mountain top removal mining.On Biggest California utility contracts for world's biggest solar power deal posted 9 months, 1 week ago 23 Responses

A little pushback

Check out this op-ed in the L.A. Times for a different view of large-scale solar.

Joe, thanks for clarifying that BrightSource does not plan to have storage capacity at Ivanpah. It provides peaking power and would most likely offset some portion of a gas-fired peaker power plant rather than a coal plant.

Can you point to an existing CSP plant that uses the molten salt technology? I know some companies, such as Abengoa, are planning to use the technology in Spain and Arizona. Can BrightSource's technology, which uses solar heat to turn water directly into steam, be retrofitted to have this storage technology? How about Stirling Energy Systems' dish-Stirling technology (assuming that ever works commercially)?

Those are the two companies with large projects farthest along in the approval pipeline for the California deserts. Together, they will cover 36,700 acres. The way the planning process is going right now, we have to assume all of that will be intact habitat (Ivanpah, and both of SES's projects are in functioning habitat, not "disturbed lands.")

36,700 acres of the desert scraped, and not one coal-fired power plant offset. (There is some debate over whether SES will or will not scrape the desert, but no debate over BrightSource's Ivanpah project, which will remove functional plant cover from the entire area.)

Meanwhile, potential storage technologies for PV are continually discounted, even though MIT claims hydrogen fuel cell storage for PV systems is less than ten years from being commercially ready. Sure, the response is "we can't wait around ten years for storage to become available." But is this response credible when we're building large-scale solar plants without storage?

To answer Sunflower's question, yes the Ivanpah project will have gas-fired backup. It will be used at startup every day, as I understand it, and on cloudy days. I still want to find out whether the gas turbine would also run at night.

At least, unlike most of the news coverage on this contract, Joe's post didn't reprint BrightSource's lie that the 1300 megawatts would power 845,000 homes. That number only works if you think a home can be powered on 1.5 kw of nameplate solar capacity. On the other hand, when denying that PV will "work," the CSP industry uses a figure of 5 kw nameplate capacity to power a home with solar.

 On Biggest California utility contracts for world's biggest solar power deal posted 9 months, 1 week ago 23 Responses

That was a great recipe

Tried it last night. My wife thought the blend of spices and other stuff for the sauce looked strange. Turned out great, kids loved it too. Though it was heavier on meat and fat than we usually like. Have to eat vegetarian for the rest of the week.On Cheap-chicken ad from KFC hides true cost of food; here's a tastier, low-cost alternative posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 17 Responses

Isn't CSP really peaking power?

This has been a very fruitful discussion, and thanks to David for the original post. I think he's right that stopping/slowing global warming will take a multi-faceted approach. And we keep looking for the technological magic bullet that will get us out of this fix, when there are so many things we're not doing right now that require no new technology.

Right now we have so much focus on these large renewable facilities. Despite a lot of lip service, we have a lot less focus on energy efficiency. The stimulus package is a good example: 3000 miles of transmission (which will probably cost $40 billion) and only 2 million homes getting weatherized (and that's getting criticized by Republicans as pork). But this is backwards, you don't put solar panels on a house with no insulation. You insulate the house first.

These misplaced priorities work their way into the planning processes for renewable energy. For instance, California's Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) underestimates the effect California's new energy efficiency regulations will have on the state's energy demand by more than 50% (68,000 GWh/yr vs. 40,000 GWh/yr if EE is fully taken into account -- that's the 33% RPS goal, not the total demand).

Then RETI drastically underestimates what PV could contribute toward that goal by modeling outdated technology (2,000 or so GWh/yr). When it did a separate model using new thin-film prices, it found that PV could contribute 46,000 or so GWh/yr, meeting what should be the appropriate figure for the total renewables target. But then it included a big footnote saying these prices are theoretical -- even though projects are being contracted and completed at these prices, and an energy analyst just claimed that Sempra's thin film installation at one of its gas-fired power plant sites is the first solar project to achieve grid parity at 7.5 cents/kwh. Meanwhile, CSP companies like Ausra are getting out of the large-scale market and pursuing more locally based projects.

So this leads to my question for frflyer: How does a CSP facility, which is really a peaking power plant, displace a coal plant, which provides base-load power? And where's the storage? Sure the water stays hot for a while, but even BrightSource admits (to a reporter I was talking to the other day) that its Ivanpah project will provide peaking power. (I'm aware of other technologies like molten salt storage, but I think the first one of those in the U.S. is just being built right now, right?) So it really displaces gas-fired peaking plants, which are usually located near the load center.

And the Ivanpah facility would make a relatively small contribution to our power needs, given the 4,000 acres of good quality desert habitat it will scrape to the ground. It has a nameplate capacity of 400 megawatts. Since solar has a capacity factor of .25 (looks like BrightSource is trying to claim .3) this is equivalent to a combined-cycle gas fired power plant (the most common type in California, I believe) with a name-plate capacity of 160 MW and a capacity factor of .6.

Is scraping 4,000 acres of habitat that is home to several threatened or endangered species "worth it"? For those of you up Grist's way in the northwest, imagine a 4,000-acre clearcut in an old growth forest done to make room for a "renewable energy" project, when the proposed technology may or may not displace some portion of a coal-fired power plant. Imagine being called a hypocritical short-sighted NIMBY because you think that forest is too valuable to cut down. (Remember the logger saying, "These enviro wackos want no logging but also want their toilet paper -- they should wipe with their hands." Now it's "these enviro wackos want no desert habitat scraped but want their power -- they should burn candles!") And now imagine that the forest won't grow back in a hundred or two hundred years, and maybe not even in a thousand (which is the case for deserts). Wouldn't you want that project relocated to forest land that had already been clearcut? Or ag land? Or rooftops? And if it still had to go there, wouldn't you demand to see the coal plant that gets shut down or not built before putting away your picket sign?

That's how we're feeling down here in the California desert. That explains some of StopGreenPath's anger (not to speak for that writer). While there's a lot of talk about "proper siting" and "the desert's a big place," and while Arizona does have at least one proposed CSP facility on ag land (which the local Sierra Club supports), the first project to come down the pike in the California desert is Ivanpah, which is on good quality desert tortoise habitat, on a migration route for bighorn sheep, and contains several rare plant species and plant communities. I don't know of any projects proposed for abandoned ag land or brown fields in the California Desert. So, you multiply the small energy contribution of Ivanpah times the number of these plants that would be needed to make a significant dent in our energy supply, and the prospect is pretty scary.

Meanwhile, we have hundreds of square miles of rooftops still to be covered with photovoltaics. We have buildings both public and private that leak energy like a sieve, even in a state that's leading the way in energy efficiency (I know, I bought one of them in 2000 -- it doesn't leak so much now, but we could still do better). We still don't have a real Feed-In Tariff (which is incentivizing Germans, for instance, to install 1500MW of solar each year). Why is it easier to scrape the desert than to do any of these things? To scrape the desert while not pursuing these other alternatives to the greatest extent possible just isn't acceptable.

Many people say we have to "do it all" to stop Global Warming. That might be true, but we're clearly not "doing it all". We're mostly focusing on CSP and Big Wind, as far as I can tell.On Energy density is not an immutable requirement posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 44 Responses

Shade from Solar Facilities?

Christophersj wrote:

"If shade from solar facilities causes ecological collapse or extinction of a species or poisons ground water in a desert please let me know and I will join you in a protest of that facility existing."

You seem to have the misconception that the plants and the bunnies will still exist beneath the solar collectors. This is not what happens. Rather, the entire area is scraped bare. See this image of the existing solar facility at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert.

As to water, the solar collectors do require washing, and where will that water come from, in the desert? Which riparian areas will suffer because of this groundwater pumping?

And desert plants do have value, even if you only value them as carbon sinks. The Mojave Desert was recently shown to have the same carbon-storing capacity as some temperate forests (partly due to the microbiotic crusts that exist even where few plants grow). Would you suggest clear-cutting forests in Oregon and Washington and replacing them with solar panels? Even if it were sunny enough, I think you'd agree this would be absurd and counter-productive.

If the facility is far from existing transmission lines, how much impact will those new lines have, how many resources (think open-pit copper mines) will be used, how many greenhouse gases will be released in this construction?

In fact, the EIR on the Sunrise Powerlink shows that this 150-mile power line will cause greater greenhouse gas emissions than would be saved by the renewable energy it is promoted to carry. (We know, however, that it will only carry a small fraction of renewable energy.)

Those are the sorts of questions an environmental review is made to answer, and we need to know those answers ahead of time. There probably are some spots in the Mojave that are appropriate for solar facilities -- close enough to existing transmission, already disturbed, etc. Part of the environmental review should be to identify those spots. Instead, the solar industry's attitude is: "Hey, we're green, why do we have to follow environmental laws?"

Also, please show me the coal-fired power plant that will be decommissioned as a result of these solar plants. Solar energy used to run residential pool pumps (which are in some cases the biggest electricity users in houses with pools) and to cool houses with insufficient insulation is not green.

Efficiency and conservation first, local solar second, distant solar third.On BLM reverses stance on solar-project moratorium posted 1 year, 4 months ago 37 Responses

Sunrise Powerlink is not clean energy

I go on vacation and all hell breaks loose on the blogosphere because of this incredibly one-sided AP article. The Sunrise Powerlink controversy is NOT about scenery vs. renewable energy, although SDG&E, Republicans, and the national press are trying to frame it that way. Some enviro blogs are falling for the greenwashing.

That greenwashing started in a meeting in 2006 between SDG&E and various San Diego movers and shakers, Chamber of Commerce types and local pols. SDG&E had already proposed a roughly similar power line with no renewable energy justification, and been denied by the California Public Utilities Commission. Now SDG&E asked these movers and shakers: We need this power line, what's the best way to sell it to the public? The movers and shakers' answer: renewable energy plus reliability. Read about that meeting in this San Diego Union-Tribune article.

SDG&E has already sold San Diego on one transmission line that they promised would carry renewable power. Today, it carries almost none. The solution for bringing "big solar" to San Diego (if it's really necessary): boot some of the fossil-fueled power off the existing transmission line and replace it with renewables. But better yet, start with efficiency (which SDG&E is way behind on) and local rooftop solar (which SDG&E has fought tooth and nail against).

As I've posted here before, building a long transmission line to carry zero-carbon power makes no sense. The environmental impact report on the Sunrise Powerlink found that building and operating the power line would produce more greenhouse gas emissions than would be saved, even if the line carried 100% renewables.

For the full truth on this issue, go to www.sdsmartenergy.org. Or see my article at www.desertreport.org.

To Grist: please don't just re-post one-sided AP articles on complex local energy issues.On Huge Calif. solar plant would run transmission lines through state park posted 1 year, 5 months ago 39 Responses

Solar with No Upfront Cost

Open Energy of Solana Beach is starting to do residential solar with the same financing scheme other companies have been using on commercial rooftops: they finance the entire cost, then charge the homeowner for the electricity generated, at a guaranteed rate that is equal to or less than the local utility's rates. At the end of 25 years, homeowners will have the right to purchase the panels at the depreciated value.

The company is starting with 47 townhomes in the Pacific Station development in Encinitas, Ca, and works exclusively with homeowners associations, avoiding some of the messy legal and financial issues Ken raised. The company's CEO said his personal goal is to have 50,000 meters under contract in five years (sounds ambitious!). See more coverage at http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080401-9999 ....

And ShastaTodd's right: energy efficiency and personal conservation have to come first. What are we saving if we just use all those solar panels to run our new 60" plasma TVs (or have people stopped buying those since the recession hit?).On Entrepreneur Lyndon Rive wants to solarize your house for a low, low price posted 1 year, 7 months ago 9 Responses

Transmission Capacity

are dirty words here in San Diego, where we're fighting the Sunrise Powerlink, a massive powerline proposed to run through miles of wilderness, rural landscapes, and one of the country's largest state parks. The power companies are always screaming about the dire consequences of not having enough transmission capacity, but these purported capacity needs are regularly shown to be overblown. Now, SDG&E, the company proposing to build this power line, is claiming that this transmission bottleneck is keeping it from pursuing green energy alternatives. At the same time, it publishes lies about the costs and benefits of rooftop solar to discourage people from going that route, and its net metering program also discourages residents and businesses from installing the largest photo-voltaic systems possible.

Meanwhile, how many grocery stores in California still don't carry CFLs? (The Vons within walking distance of our house doesn't, and a proposed ban on incandescents just died in our state legislature.) How many houses in California are like ours was when we bought it, with a massive air conditioner and little insulation? (On a 75-degree day, the ceilings actually became hot to the touch!) Is electricity from a wind farm that's transported for miles (with around a 7% energy loss) and then used in this wasteful manner still "green"? Does it make sense to cover pristine habitat with industrial-scale "green power" plants (I'm not necessarily talking about windfarms here, but 7,000-acre solar fields), when we already have acres and acres of rooftops and parking lots that have yet to see a solar panel?On California is no longer leading the pack on wind energy posted 2 years, 5 months ago 5 Responses