California Desert Solar Projects Collapsing

Many companies have gone under or reduced scope of plant plans

Three years ago California regulators in quick succession approved nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants. They were to be built in the desert and would generate 4,142 megawatts (MW) of carbon-free electricity. The state, it was said, was on its way to becoming the Saudi Arabia of solar.

Not any more. Today, the developers of four of those projects have since gone bankrupt and only three solar thermal power plants are under currently under construction.

In recent weeks, BrightSource Energy put on hold two new solar thermal power plants that would have generated an additional 1,000 MW. (It's 370 MW Ivanpah project, however, is set to go online this year.)  And last week, the builder of what would be the world's largest solar station at 1,000 MW—at peak output that's equivalent to a big nuclear power plant—downsized the project to 485 MW.

Comments

[Paul.]

of carbon-free electricity. The state, it was said, was on its way to becoming the Saudi Arabia of solar.

Bragging you're the Saudi Arabia of anything is probably not a good opening strategy.

[Sevo]

PG&E (the local rent-seeking power company) is required by law to provide X% 'renewable' power by Y date, and most of that is planned to be the now non-existent solar farms.
Look for weeping and tearing of hair in the Dem legislature when it become obvious that X-by-Y ain't happening.

[Paul.]

You seem awfully confident that the Dem legislature will even concern themselves with the inconvenient facts of not reaching a single goal they themselves demanded.

These things are usually greeted by a shrug by policy-makers.

"Meh, we didn't throw enough money at it... "

[Gorilla tactics]

yeah exactly,my town is now thinking about building a tram or something, they're saying it will be up by 2020 and it will cost 1 billion dollars, as if. This shit will be like 5x over budget and will probably never be built

[Paul.]

It'll also never make the predicted ridership numbers which are used to sell the project in the first place, and no one, including the media will care. Because Transit For All!

[Gorilla tactics]

What's so sad about this is that it proves you can never ever reason with progs. Some things really have to get worse before they get better, they have to wait for empirical reality to pull them back down to earth all the fucking time. The wind and solar shit is a prime example,it crashed in europe and in china but they will still cling to it, no matter how many billions are flushed down the tubes.

Pathetic

and fuck california