By the way, the starting point of that barstow to vegas race was actually daggett, right next to the solar energy plant.
The one they bulldozed last year.
It was deemed not economically feasable long ago, and was redesigned with different technology, which was also not economically feasable.
I worked on the original plant in 1981 and also on solar two (the second fail).
They had to pay companies to run it as it lost money, it could not compete, the energy it produced was way too costly.
So they abandoned it a couple of times and eventually tore it down.
Now they are building a plant using the same technology that didn't work 30 years ago.
But, it's actually worse than that! Solar one had one tower. This plant has 12 of those towers, using the same technology, so it will be 12 times as costly to operate and 12 times as inneficient!
It's the same as the one that didn't work except they are building 12 bad ones to replace one bad one. There will be little to no economy of scale on this project, no cost savings from building more than one, excerpt possibly a little money saved in staffing. Not enough to notice.
The only way they can make this one work is the same way they made the last one work (for a while), the government has to pay for it to be built and pay for it to be operated.
The gubmint will give them our tax money, and will force us to buy that over-priced electricity and there won't be a damn thing we can do about it.
It will not be unusual in 10 years for Californian households to be paying $800 a month or more for electricity thanks to boondoggles like this one and AB32.
Quote:
Solar One was a pilot solar-thermal project built in the Mojave Desert just east of Barstow, CA, USA.
It was the first test of a large-scale thermal solar power tower plant. Solar One was designed by the Department of Energy (DOE), Southern California Edison, LA Dept of Water and Power, and California Energy Commission. It was located in Daggett, CA, about 10 miles (16 km) east of Barstow.
Solar One's method of collecting energy was based on concentrating the sun's energy onto a common focal point to produce heat to run a steam turbine generator. It had hundreds of large mirror assemblies, or heliostats, that track the sun, reflecting the solar energy onto a tower where a black receiver absorbed the heat. High-temperature heat transfer fluid was used to carry the energy to a boiler on the ground where the steam was used to spin a series of turbines, much like a traditional power plant.
In the late 1970s, a competition was held by DoE to obtain the best heliostat design for the project. Several promising designs were selected and prototypes were built and shipped to the area for testing. Trade-offs involved simplicity of construction to minimize costs for high-volume manufacturing versus the need for a reliable, bi-directional tracking system that could maintain focus on the tower. Rigidity of the structure was a major concern in terms of wind load resistance and durability, but shading of the mirrors by support structures was to be avoided.
The project produced 10 MW of electricity using 1,818 mirrors, each 40 m² (430 ft²) with a total area of 72,650 m² (782,000 ft²). Solar One was completed in 1981 and was operational from 1982 to 1986. Later redesigned and renamed Solar Two, it can be seen from Interstate 40 where it covers a 51 hectare (126 acre) site, not including the administration building or rail yard facilities shared with a neighboring plant. Solar One/Two and other nearby solar projects are plainly visible via satellite imaging software at 34°52′18″N 116°50′03″W / 34.87167°N 116.83417°W / 34.87167; -116.83417.
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