Australian Politics Forum - A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant

Sir lastnail

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A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Jan 21^st, 2018 at 7:10pm

Check it out. 400MW solar plant with the ability to power 140,000 homes or the equivalent of taking 72,000 polluting cars off the road !! Makes you wonder why on earth aren't we building them here ?

Blame the dumbarse liberals who gave us junk copper internet Sad

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Frank Sesno reports on the Ivanpah solar thermal plant, a 400 megawatt facility that uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto energy towers instead of burning coal to make steam.

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lee

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #1 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 7:24pm

Oh, Ivanpah?

"On Wednesday, May 25, Ivanpah's operator, NRG energy, confirmed the fire was indeed caused by mirrors that did not track the sun properly, which focused sunlight onto the wrong part of the tower. NRG spokesperson David Knox estimates the plant would be back online within three weeks. *

https://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-caught-fire-thats-least-problems/

3500 acres for 170000 homes. Just 48 homes to the acre. Care to extrapolate that to a larger number of homes?

And then of course there are the bird carcasses. Quick get Kentucky Fried in there.

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Bobby. Moderator Offline Australian Politics Posts: 122096 Melbourne Gender:	Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant Reply #2 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 7:31pm Where are we on the list? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations
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Rider

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #3 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:01pm

Bobby. wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 7:31pm:

Where are we on the list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations

Here is a little snippet from 4 seconds on google...

That move followed the 2014 decision of French nuclear giant Areva, which acquired an Australian concentrated solar startup called Ausra in 2010, to exit the solar business after losing “tens of millions” of dollars. And the Spanish company Abengoa, which has developed several large concentrated solar projects and received $2.7 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, is in talks to restructure its debt and is in danger of becoming Spain’s largest-ever bankruptcy.

Walks like a duck sounds like a duck....

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Bobby.

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #4 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:06pm

Read on Rider:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601083/ivanpahs-problems-could-signal-the-end...

At least that’s true in the United States. Executives at BrightSource and rival SolarReserve point out that a number of projects are moving forward in other countries that lack low-cost supplies of natural gas, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. China, which is plowing billions of yuan into clean energy schemes in order to reduce its dependency on coal, plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts. Going forward, both companies also plan to add energy storage capacity, in the form of molten salt, that can enable new plants to continue producing electricity for as much as 10 hours when the sun's not shining.

For now, says SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith, market conditions in the U.S. “have forced us overseas.” SolarReserve is developing a 100-megawatt in South Africa, known as Redstone. And BrightSource is building a 121-megawatt facility, featuring the world’s tallest solar tower collector, at Ashalim in Israel. “You need to look beneath the surface and beyond the U.S.,” says Joe Desmond, senior vice president of marketing at BrightSource.

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Rider

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #5 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:16pm

Bobby. wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:06pm:

Read on Rider:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601083/ivanpahs-problems-could-signal-the-end...

At least that’s true in the United States. Executives at BrightSource and rival SolarReserve point out that a number of projects are moving forward in other countries that lack low-cost supplies of natural gas, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. China, which is plowing billions of yuan into clean energy schemes in order to reduce its dependency on coal, plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts. Going forward, both companies also plan to add energy storage capacity, in the form of molten salt, that can enable new plants to continue producing electricity for as mu8ch as 10 hours when the sun's not shining.

For now, says SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith, market conditions in the U.S. “have forced us overseas.” SolarReserve is developing a 100-megawatt in South Africa, known as Redstone. And BrightSource is building a 121-megawatt facility, featuring the world’s tallest solar tower collector, at Ashalim in Israel. “You need to look beneath the surface and beyond the U.S.,” says Joe Desmond, senior vice president of marketing at BrightSource.

Cheap gas and beautiful cheap coal equals cheap power prices in the US therefore this hopelessly expesive problematic solution to a non problem is defective.

Ivanpah has 170000 plus individual garage door sized mirrors, each one is motorised, is controled by computer to move.....spread over 3500 acres......what could possibly go wrong lol.

Good solutions are simple and compact, not this sprawling mess of technical glitches all just waiting to happen. And dont mention the birds...or flamers as they are called by workers on site.

I suppose you'll apply for one of the newly created green jobs there? You know, reall high tech stuff, they'll provide you with the Windex and paper towells...yay the green revolution!

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Bobby. Moderator Offline Australian Politics Posts: 122096 Melbourne Gender:	Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant Reply #6 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:22pm BrightSource Published on Jan 24, 2014 The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System generates 377 MW of clean solar power, enough to power 140,000 California homes. This brief video provides some quick facts and images from this iconic infrastructure project.
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lee

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #7 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:28pm

Rider wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:16pm:

plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts.

Putting that in perspective. China's electricity consumption is 5,920,000 GW.

So 10GW is gunna be small in the overall scheme of things.

And that's only current consumption as at 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption

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lee Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 21533 Gender:	Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant Reply #8 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:30pm Bobby. wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:22pm: enough to power 140,000 California homes. Ok I was wrong. Only 40 acres per home.
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Bobby.

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #9 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:30pm

lee wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:28pm:

Rider wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:16pm:

plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts.

Putting that in perspective. China's electricity consumption is 5,920,000 GW.

So 10GW is gunna be small in the overall scheme of things.

And that's only current consumption as at 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption

Still - it's a start.
I don't think we're doing anything here.
There are too many deriders like Rider.
They can always point to something negative.

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Bobby.

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #10 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:36pm

lee wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:30pm:

Bobby. wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:22pm:

enough to power 140,000 California homes.

Ok I was wrong. Only 40 acres per home.

Yes - it seems a bit high compared with solar panels.

Homes = 140,000.
Area = 3,500 acres

140,000/3500 = 40 acres per home.

https://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projectID=62

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miketrees Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 6492 Gender:	Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant Reply #11 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:46pm I can see the two schools of thought on renewables. 1) Renewables are too expensive (factoring in the need for reliability.) 2) We have to have renewables at any cost. At some time in the future the cost wont be an issue, everybody will be happy
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Sir lastnail

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #12 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 9:05pm

Bobby. wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:30pm:

lee wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:28pm:

Rider wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 8:16pm:

plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts.

Putting that in perspective. China's electricity consumption is 5,920,000 GW.

So 10GW is gunna be small in the overall scheme of things.

And that's only current consumption as at 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption

Still - it's a start.
I don't think we're doing anything here.
There are too many deriders like Rider.
They can always point to something negative.

no not with that lot in canberra. they are still working out how to keep on old cold fired power station going that's way past its use by date.

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"If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region..." - Benjamin Netanyahu in 1995

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Frank

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #13 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 9:07pm

Sir lastnail wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 7:10pm:

Check it out. 400MW solar plant with the ability to power 140,000 homes or the equivalent of taking 72,000 polluting cars off the road !! Makes you wonder why on earth aren't we building them here ?

Blame the dumbarse liberals who gave us junk copper internet Sad

Quote:

Frank Sesno reports on the Ivanpah solar thermal plant, a 400 megawatt facility that uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto energy towers instead of burning coal to make steam.

They are insanely expensive and unreliable.

Next question?

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Vladimir: That’s what you think.

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lee

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Re: A Look at the World's Largest Solar Plant
Reply #14 - Jan 21^st, 2018 at 9:14pm

Sir lastnail wrote on Jan 21^st, 2018 at 9:05pm:

no not with that lot in canberra. they are still working out how to keep on old cold fired power station going that's way past its use by date.

Is that because the uptake of renewables is too slow? If it were to close tomorrow, where would the reliable elctricity come from to replace it?

"Melbourne hospitals, including The Alfred, have enacted a 'Code Yellow' and switched off non-essential lights and equipment to conserve energy amid Friday's searing heat."

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-hospitals-on-code-yellow-as-heat-pos...

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