... Commissioning of 155 MW-ac Springbok 2 Solar Farm to ... Los Angeles ...

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.8minutenergy.com/2016/12/8minutenergy-and-d-e-shaw-renewable-investments-announce-commissioning-of-155-mwac-springbok-2-solar-farm-to-provide-power-to-los-angeles-department-of-water-and-power/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]8minutenergy and D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments Announce Commissioning of 155 MW-ac Springbok 2 Solar Farm to Provide Power to Los Angeles Department of Water and Power[/font]

Springbok 2 Solar Farm Joins 105 MW AC Springbok 1 Solar Farm Already Operating in Kern County, California; Together They Are Expected to Serve Over 110,000 Households

[font size=3]8minutenergy Renewables, LLC, (8minutenergy), the United States’ leading independent solar photovoltaic (PV) developer, and D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments, L.L.C. (DESRI), which, with its affiliates, owns and manages approximately 1.3 GW of renewable energy assets in North America, announced the commissioning of the 155 MW_AC (191 MW_DC) Springbok 2 Solar Farm in Kern County, California. Springbok 2 joins the 105 MW_AC (137 MW_DC) Springbok 1 Solar Farm, commissioned earlier this year.

Located 70 miles north of Los Angeles, the two new solar farms combined are expected to supply enough clean, renewable energy to serve over 110,000 households in southern California through power offtake partner, Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA), on behalf of its participating member, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). 8minutenergy originally developed the Springbok 2 Solar Farm while DESRI and its affiliates invested the majority of the equity in the project and arranged financing from a group of lenders and tax equity investors. Swinerton Renewable Energy (SRE) served as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, with construction management overseen by 8minutenergy and DESRI.

…

Springbok 2 Solar Farm is located on approximately 700 acres of abandoned farmland taken out of production more than 20 years ago. 8minutenergy began developing the project in 2011, creating an estimated 300 direct and 400 indirect jobs during construction in Kern County. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions expected to be avoided each year through operation of the projects is comparable to removing 111,000 cars from the road.

“Projects like Springbok 1 and 2 produce affordable, locally generated electricity while providing significant benefits to the local economy through job creation and collaboration with area businesses,” said George Hershman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Swinerton Renewable Energy. “Construction at Springbok 1 and 2 created over 700 jobs for Kern County and the surrounding area.”

…[/font][/font]

[msongs]

1. maybe they'd be better off spending that $ to put solar on rooftops in the LA basin instead so

people control the sun not trump-like corporate thieves

[dumbcat]

2. Well, no, they wouldn't be better off

Ever heard of economy of scale?

The same amount of dollars applied to designing and installing PV to individual rooftops would result in much, much less capacity in kW. The economy of scale in building those large scale (multi-megawatt) projects allows for much more carbon displacing energy than what you would get from individual rooftops for the same costs.

Nobody on earth controls the sun, but it's a nice slogan.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. There are not enough suitable rooftops in the US to provide even half of the electricity the US uses

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1127107073

[NNadir]

4. It's widely reported that the sun goes down every night. Thus "half of the electricity" is the...

...theoretical maximum were solar garbage actually sustainable with the cells placed anywhere.

Of course, here at Democratic Underground, we hear all kinds of thermodynamic ignorance expressed about energy storage for the already useless solar energy industry, even though providing "half of the electricity the US uses" would be a chemotoxic nightmare that would probably dwarf the coal industry for pernicious environmental effects.

We have here, right here on the putative left which makes lots of noise about caring about the environment, but not so much as to actually learn the science involved, people calling for the distribution of batteries, even though the existing long standing distribution of batteries is already a nightmare.

Power Failure: The Battered Legacy of Leaded Batteries

Of course, anyone who calls up this paper will glibly report that "we're not talking about lead" while ignoring the fact that the people who originally began using lead batteries - still widely used by the unsustainable devotion to the car CULTure - thought they would be manageable.

There is no evidence, and no systematic evaluation except in obscure places that few people bother to seek out, that lithium or other batteries are environmentally benign.

The solar industry, which is a scheme to further exacerbate the already intractable electronic waste nightmare, is decidedly not environmentally benign, and at this point - half a century into the uncritical cheering for it - not even remotely useful, and still we here garbage thinking about it producing "half of US electricity." It hasn't; it isn't; and it never will.

Merry Christmas.