The historical destruction of the "Solar One" solar thermal plant by a toxic fire.

[NNadir]

Fundies are trying to pretend that the idea of solar thermal plants is a new idea, discovered sometime last week.

Actually it is not.

The idea has been around for a long time, and has limited - because solar electricity is trivial - industrial demonstration.

Many of the existing plants have been poor performers, driving the investors to lose all of their money - although the plants were generally made to work after the fire sale of the assets. This all happened in the 1980's.

Nor has the grand solar fantasy proved risk free.

The second method of turning solar energy into electric power is solar thermal generation. The three most notable U.S. solar power electrical generation stations were sited in the Mojave Desert near Barstow, California. In each case solar energy was used to boil water, generating steam that drives a turbine, which in turn drives a generator--just as coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants do.

In the case of solar power, there is a problem: a pot of water put in the tropical sun at noon won't boil. And since the efficiency of a turbine generator is proportional to the difference between the ambient temperature and the temperature of the steam, water that's just boiling wouldn't be enough. A paltry 212F wouldn't even get the turbine moving. For reasonable efficiencies the temperature should be raised in the boiler to about 600E In this process, water is not directly heated during solar thermal power generation. Instead, an oil with special heat-transfer characteristics (therminol) is heated far above the boiling point of water and circulated through a heat exchanger.

The first of the solar plants in the Mojave Desert, Solar 1, was destroyed by a therminol fire. Its very similar successor, Solar 2, used thousands of computer-controlled mirrors to focus sunlight on a boiler on top of a tower. The plant occupied 130 acres and could produce 10,000 kW of electricity at peak power, although it only averaged 16 percent of this output. Doing a little math shows 1,600 kW from a land investment of 130 acres, or about 12.3 kW per acre, about a quarter of the theoretical photovoltaic installation previously discussed.

Of course the fundies - who get wedgies in their underwear of their is - gasp - radiation exposure outside of dental and medical offices - not counting of course coal - couldn't care less how many people were exposed to burned therminol fumes.

Another thing, there seems to be some dangerous fossil fuel apologetics involved:

Even SEGS, the largest operating solar plant in the world--also located in the Mojave Desert (fancy that)--which uses nine solar arrays with over 1,000,000 sun-tracking parabolic mirrors to concentrate solar energy, is not a wonder of efficiency. As advertised, the facility sounds great. It is rated at 354,000 kW of electrical output, roughly one-third the output of a major nuclear power plant. But its real average power is 77,000 kW--which means that the plant, which takes up a 1,600-acre site--generates 48 kW per acre and requires a natural gas boiler that contributes about 25 percent to its output.

http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/169087496/?print

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/761869-hh1dP8/webviewable/761869.pdf

[NMDemDist2]

1. you know, if you ran the auto industry 100 years ago we'd still all be driving model Ts

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Actually, if NNadir ran the auto industry....

...we'd all be riding on horseback.

[NNadir]

3. Bicycles, I think. To be fair to myself, I am always hearing fron anti-nuke fundies

about nuclear accidents that happened as far back as the 1940's. They wish to say that somehow these things are relevant to modern nuclear power.

[hunter]

8. I'd be happy if the automobile industry had never existed.

If I was the sort of person who'd push a young Hitler under the wheels of a train, I very much suppose Henry Ford might join him there.

Fortunately I'm not that sort of person.

[NNadir]

29. I assume of course, that you are not old enough to have done much with a young Hitler.

I am not sure that the idea of the automobile would have been undone by pushing Ford under train wheels, but there is a certain irony to that.

You would now need to be 110 to have done something with the young Hitler.

Even I'm not that old, and I am an old - and very cynical - man.

In a very pleasant exchange of DU emails with my good friend DeadParrot, he has suggested a topic about the early history of cars for me to write about on the other website where I write. It was a very good suggestion, and I will take him up on it.

The irony potential of the suggestion is tremendous. It probably won't come out for a few weeks - I haven't done any background research - but if you are familiar with my work over there, I hope you will join me there.

[hunter]

30. Never step into a stranger's Tardis.

Most especially one holstering her hot pink blaster in her thigh high boots.

It doesn't matter how old you are, some timelines are worse than others. Much worse.

In some world's without Hitler, Germany gets the atomic bomb first.

:scared:

[NickB79]

12. At least the Model T got 25 mpg

Now that's messed up.

[jpak]

4. "poor performers, driving the investors to lose all of their money"

Not so...

http://www.luz2.com/agallery%20presentation/c5128.php

Twenty years ago, Luz International Ltd. ("Luz") revolutionized the power world by proving that solar energy could reliably produce commercially competitive electricity during the heavy use, peak load, day time hours. Between 1984 and 1991, Luz designed, developed, built, financed, and operated nine Solar Electricity Generating Stations (SEGS) in California’s Mojave Desert generating a total of 354 MW.

The Luz plants have generated more than 11,000 GWh and produced more than 1.7 billion dollars of revenue over the past 22 years. These plants are still generating electricity to the Southern California Edison grid and operating profitably. No other company has come close to the Luz track record.

The Luz solar power revolution was accomplished during a time of high fuel costs, high electricity prices, and a favorable governmental and regulatory climate. These conditions have returned, galvanizing the technical and management team that designed, financed, and built the original Luz solar plants to reassemble in the new company LUZ II.

The original Luz projects were based on solar thermal parabolic trough technology, which focused sunlight on a pipe carrying synthetic oil. Since that time, LUZ II has developed a new, proprietary design based on Distributed Power Towers (DPT). This new DPT 550C technology increases solar-to-thermal conversion efficiency from about 35% (for the older parabolic trough technology) to above 40%. At the same time, the new design significantly reduces overall equipment and project costs. The team is also in the process of developing a second generation DPT. The DPT 1200C technology will increase solar-to-thermal efficiency to approximately 50%, and further lower overall project costs.

<more>

Solar hating pro-nuclear California/Reagan Republican tax policies and falling natural gas prices - not "poor performance" - "drove the investors to lose all of their money"...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/renewable.energy.annual/backgrnd/ch11box.htm


In 1984, Luz International built its first Solar Electric Generating System (SEGS) plant and immediately became the world leader in solar power generation.^a^ Luz put eight more plants into operation over a period of less than 7 years. A number of factors contributed to its success: tax credits, a quick move up the experience curve, the ability to provide bulk power, and several market factors, including expectations of rising natural gas prices and high avoided-cost rates for utilities. Initially, the company received 25-percent Federal tax credits, which were matched by the State. As successive plants were built, costs decreased and performance increased (the first plant had an installed cost of $5,979 per kilowatt of capacity, compared with $3,011 per kilowatt for the ninth). Natural gas was used to supplement 25 percent of the solar generating capacity, so that plant output could be tailored to meet utility peaking requirements. And expectations of higher fossil fuel prices in the future made Luz's alternative energy projects more desirable. Yet Luz went bankrupt while constructing its 10th plant.

Although Luz relied heavily on tax credits and property tax exemptions to reduce costs, it was still fighting an uphill battle in some areas of tax equalization with conventional fuel power plants. Under most State tax codes, solar plants face heavier tax burdens than conventional fuel plants because their "fuelþ supply and sourcing are the same. Most States treat solar collectors as capital equipment, with the solar field representing real property. Solar plants can thus incur both a recurring property tax liability and sales taxes on the purchase of equipment for plant construction. Because conventional fuel plants buy fuel directly and own no equipment to "create" the plant's fuel, they pay no property or sales taxes at the time a plant is built.

Luz was also hampered by changes in the tax codes that helped it become successful in the first place. The uncertainty associated with the continuation of beneficial State and Federal tax policies added to construction risk and increased the cost of financing. This type of uncertainty in various aspects of the solar energy industry continues today, and it continues to add risk to commercial solar development.

While uncertainty in tax policy and the elimination of tax credits contributed to Luz's downfall, its financial failure can also be attributed to changing forces and price expectations in the electric power market. As natural gas prices fell in the late 1980s, utilities' short-run avoided costs for new electricity generation also fell. As a result, it became more difficult to finance new SEGS projects, and in the end Luz simply could not compete with the continuing decline of natural gas prices.

<more>

Nice try though...

:rofl:

[ladjf]

6. Good post, as usual.

[jpak]

7. NEI propaganda is pretty transparent and all too easy to debunk

:hi:

[ladjf]

9. I agree. However, it's tiresome to do it. They frequently counter

with pages of complicated data that proves nothing.

[phantom power]

11. It is ironical...

We also find it tiresome to post said pages of "complicated" data, knowing that the response will be "that doesn't prove anything" and/or "you are a lackey for the NEI and Dick Cheney"

[jpak]

14. Most of that "complicated data" is BS designed to deceive

Charlatans historically play and prey upon ignorance and prejugdice...

...call nuclear skeptics "stupid"

...throw in "complicated data" cut-and-pasted from an undergrad nuclear text and....

...viola (sic)...

....one becomes a "resident expert"..

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

15. I *knew* you'd say that

[diane in sf]

10. I endorse your fact-based posts! Thanks for doing the research and posting.

[NNadir]

17. If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

I have responding to this particularly stupid and innumerate Repuke/yuppie fossil fuel apologetics below.

There is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who would know a fact if it bit them in the ass.

[diane in sf]

21. Sorry dear Marvin--you're the one making shit up---that's why you're so defensive

not to mention nasty. Your arguments don't stand on their own merits.

[Systematic Chaos]

23. Well then let's hear YOUR arguments, hmm?

Oh, I know.

In the voice of South Park's Mr. Mackey: "Nucular energy is baaaad, mmmkay?"

Yeah, that explains it all. :eyes:

[NNadir]

16. Never let it be said that there's a yuppie anti-nuke fundie who understands economics.

Triply so for reading comprehension.

The point is is that solar thermal is not new. It's been a failure for several decades now. We'll do the numbers below, even though there is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who can do numbers.

Nevertheless, let me get this straight and try to sort out the fundie babbling.

"Economical" solar power isn't economical without huge subsidies for the rich investors?

No subsidy, no return on investment?

You mean it's a game for yuppies?

What a surprise...

Tax credits, hand outs to rich people with solar fantasies?

I note too that the Luz plants are "lipstick on a pig" dangerous natural gas plants, and have burned lots and lots of natural gas in their pathetic lifetimes.

There is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who can comprehend numbers but let's do them, using the numbers provided by the fundie anti-nuke post that alleges that 1) the plant produced 11,000 GWh of electricity over 22 years.

First let's talk average power: 11,000 GWh - your number (who knows if its a fantasy or not, let's just pretend this is true - amounts to 4 X 10¹⁰ joules or 0.04 exajoules over 22 years.

It follows, assuming you didn't fail fifth grade and understand the number of seconds in a minute, the number of minutes in an hour, the number of hours in a day and the number of days in a year, that the continuous average power of the economically failed yuppie 30 year old "solar thermal is new" plants is 57 MW, not 354 MW.

No wonder solar power is trivial in California. That wouldn't even light the street lights in San Pedro, never mind all of headlights of all the dumb ass ZEV cars that fundies promise every ten years for 20 years after whatever year this happens to be.

Why am I not surprised that fundie "fake it" math is off by a factor of about 7?

Given that 1/4 of the energy comes from dangerous fossil fuels - the natural gas about which fundies couldn't care less - the situation is even more pathetic.

Fundies, of course, don't understand the first thing about math, or the first thing about data either.

Let's calculate what 11,000 GWh which - if we believe fundie talk - generated 1.7 billion in alleged revenue since 1984. If we believe these numbers, the busbar power cost is more than 15 cents per kilowatt-hour, busbar being the cost at the power plant, the wholesale cost.

Now, I know that the fundie anti-nuke cult worships Governor Hydrogen Hummer - who usurped the legitimately elected Governor of California because of Enron fakery - you know Enron, the world's largest supplier of wind power at the time of the faked "crisis" - because of allegedly high retail power prices in California.

In case you've forgotten who I'm talking about, I mean the guy who got worshiped here because of his smoke and mirrors "Brazzillion solar roofs" marketing campaign, that has failed to do anything about dangerous fossil fuel waste in California.

At no point in history, including the time that Governor Hydrogen Hummer usurped the legitimately elected governor, was the retail price has high as the busbar cost of the failed solar thermal plants:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/sales_revenue.xls

In 2006, the average retail price of power in the United States was 6.1 cents,or less than one half the cost of the economically failed solar thermal plants. The data is here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat7p4.html

Only in dumb ass fundie land is this an economic success.

In California right now, the average retail power cost is 12.14 cents:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile5_6_a.xls

From this data, it appears that when Amory Lovins' pal, the convicted felon anti-nuke Jeff Skilling - who promised to eat the next nuclear plant built in the US (I don't know if they serve nuke plants in prison) - was stealing from the citizens of California in order to make the world safe for Repuke steroid crazed governors, the retail price peaked at 13.84 cents per kwh, still less than the economically failed solar thermal plants.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/sales_revenue.xls

Dumb ass Repuke worshiping anti-nuke fundies would be up in arms if a nuclear plant produced power at 15 cents per kw-hr, but they don't. They are in most places, the cheapest form of electricity available with the possible exception of hydroelectric, when fully loaded external costs are included. It is not entirely clear, of course, that the external costs of hydroelectric is all that great, though, since all the world's rivers are dying, in part from the "renewables will save us" fantasy.

For comparison purposes, I corresponded with a guy at STNP publicly on the other website where I write. He reported a busbar cost at his plant of less than two cents per kw-hr.

Of course, we already knew that the fundie "renewables will save us" crowd couldn't care less about poor people. That's why this particular fundie set is so easily mocked in Tortilla Curtain.

And that's after the gas price increases that fundie anti-nukes have foisted all over the world because they couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel waste. Gerhard Schroeder ain't got nothing on Governor Hydrogen Hummer Steroid boy.

If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

[kristopher]

18. "...understands economics..."

From the keyboard of the planet sized brain that can't recognize substantial long term shifts in demand curves when they slap him in his pimply face.

:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:

[NNadir]

19. Of course, if you were back up a claim, you would need to offer some insight to the topic.

You have none to offer. One could, of course, if one wasn't a lazy worthless kiddie shit, post the demand curves for particular regions and comment on them.

I for instance, did this on this website two years ago, which I'd estimate was about the time you were finishing up your first year in junior high: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=66002&mesg_id=66035

No where in your drivel can you cite any data reported by you on the nature of demand curves. You simply make stuff up, assuming that people will let ignorance slide.

I don't let ignorance slide kiddie. Ignorance kills.

Typically the fundies here are so alike, I kind of wonder at times who is whose sockpuppet.

I was discussing this off line with a friend from this site, and I noted that there are, among the fundies, certain kinds of locutions and practices that say something about the source.

For instance, consider the passive voice: Every for days, fundies here write a thread called "Solar power poised to grow rapidly in..." (insert place here)"...!!!!!!!!" "Wind power Sweeps Spain!!!!!"

Of course, solar power is inanimate, and thus cannot be "poised." What is not surprising is that it is illiterate, but also that it is so consistently worded across dumb ass fundie fossil fuel apologetic thinking.

The only one of the dumb ass fundie anti-nukes who is stylistically independent, although his intellectual level is at the fundie level all the same is the dumb ass fundie guy who feels compelled to scream every time some one slips on a wet floor in a nuclear plant.

The vintage fundie moron here - you're merely the most recent fundie - closes a majority of his posts with rofl smileys. I note with contempt that these are usually confessions of inability to think or respond intelligently.

In fact, the entire "renewables will save us" cult is cartoonish, but these are cartoons that do real harms, since they breed complacency and indifference.

Now we see the smileys that substitute for having original thought.

But on the other hand, I note that cults other than the anti-nuke "renewables will save us" cult also adopt a kind of lexicon of faith.

The Moonies, for instance all talk the same way, as do the baptists, and as do the members of a cult I happen to have family members in, the Church of Christ.

So maybe that's it.

I couldn't care less. Although I hold the fundies and their moral void in contempt, what concerns me is not the fundies themselves - but the ignorance they push. Many millions of people have died from dangerous fossil fuel waste since the scientifically illiterate fundie paranoid anti-nuke Ralph Nader started giving interviews with wrong statements to the the media, which ate it up like any uneducated goat eats garbage. Millions have since died from this ignorance, practically every body lost to air pollution wrests on his head.

Ignorance kills.

[kristopher]

20. MArvin, Marvin, Marvin...

What am I going to do with you?

It becomes so tiresome wading through your vituperative verbiage and preening prepubescence.

Everything you need to confirm the shift in demand curves relative to world demand is here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/oilconsumption.html

And if you know anything about the EIA, you'll know that under Bush, they historically have underestimated the economic negatives of fossil fuels.

[NNadir]

28. You, Kiddie, are not going to do anything with me.

You are an illiterate and from my perspective, I am only interested in interacting with you on a ridicule basis.

Ignorance kills.

You may think - with your cartoon version of the universe - that I take ignorance as something other than a form, at best, of amorality, at worst, immorality. If so, you would be wrong. Ignorance is a moral issue.

Again. Ignorance kills.

Now let's talk about misrepresentation:

You have apparently mistaken me for someone who has any respect for you. That's hardly a surprise. You are routinely mistaken about everything. I think I am quite clear in my contempt. I have no compunction whatsoever to misrepresent my contempt for the entire anti-nuke anti-science cult.

One hundred percent of the members of the anti-nuke cult on this side are lazy besides being indifferent. They seem to think that twenty seconds of googling is the same as thinking.

It is not. Anyone who lives by 20 second google sessions is a part of the deadly complacency that has killed the planet. Congrats, fundie Kiddie, you've won. This is the world you wanted. Welcome to it.

I know all about the EIA and have been posting information from it for years and - this would certainly be beyond the scope of your very poor education - I also am involved in reading the primary scientific literature. I have no exact count of how many citations I have made of the primary scientific literature on this and on the other site on which I write, but easily these references number in the many thousands.

One hundred percent of these citations are over your pathetic little head.

Now, there is not one fundie anti-nuke who knows anything about data, because there is not one fundie anti-nuke who bothers with data. The fundie anti-nuke position is a religion, and a very lazy religion at that.

Now, if you knew how to read - and there is no evidence that you can - you would be capable of understanding the value of critical thinking.

But you are not able to read, and just as you have mistaken me for someone who might have a modicum of respect for you, Kiddie - I don't - you obviously have obviously mistaken the nature of what it is to read and more importantly, to think critically about what one has read.

[diane in sf]

22. Also Marvin, don't confuse writing in understandable English with being innumerate.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

26. It's a Marvin Meltdown!

:rofl:

I know a yuppie that claims he lives in a fine home in an "upscale" NJ suburb who also claims he burns $3500 "cash money" worth of natural gas each year.

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

24. 11,000 GWh... over the past 22 years

That's an average of 57.04 MW

Is that supposed to make me feel better? It doesn't, there are fucking locomotives that that have generated more than that.

Nice try though...

No, not really. It's a bit wank, to be honest.

[phantom power]

5. Humans aren't ready for solar power.

It's too dangerous, when you consider its externalized risks.

[hunter]

13. It was totally awesome to walk out among the mirrors.

Here's a picture I took of the tower:



It was too bright to look at.

The control room was an absurd setup for the amount of power the plant produced; it was certainly built that way to impress visitors.

[phantom power]

25. That photo makes me think....

That it could be more efficient with a much lower albedo:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x73058

I mean, if it's too bright to look at, it's reflecting photons that could be captured for heat.

[hunter]

27. The receivers had an absorptance of 0.93 to 0.96

... depending upon the quality of the black Pyromark paint, which tended to degrade after time.

The peak flux at the reciever was about 300 kW/m<sup>2

So the reciever is fairly efficient as these things go, even though there is a lot of light bouncing off.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/791898-6mGeQ8/native/791898.PDF ( 9 megabytes about Solar Two mostly )

Pyromark paint is interesting stuff if you want to play with these sorts of applications.</sup>