Ben Schreiber wrote on May 11, 2008 08:46 PM: The 100 square mile statistic was quoted incorrectly, either misstated by myself at the press conference or heard incorrectly by John in the article. It is actually a 100 mile by 100 mile square, which would be 10,000 square miles, that would be needed. It is correct in our report, which is available here.
http://environmentamerica.org/uploads/0f/jZ/0fjZtsJDnQCqGKdr9a7Hjg/On-The-Rise.pdf

As for the storage for thermal energy, there are new plants in construction that will have thermal storage for up to 15 hours.

Finally, even water cooled solar does not use anywhere near the water that nuclear power does and you can in fact do solar that only requires water for periodic washing of the mirrors.

David Johann wrote on May 09, 2008 11:57 PM: Nonsense. The answer is to burn more coal. Remember, coal is cheap, coal is here, coal is now.

Just ask the Nevada Power people, that nice, semi-government monopoly that the R-J seems to love so well.

Sierra Pacific.

Coal.

Just don't eat much shark, large salmon, albacore tuna, or other predatory fish.

Charley says, all of those big predatory fish have a ton of mercury in them as a result of burning so much coal (coal contains mercury). Burn it and soars into the atmosphere and accumulates in your sushi or tuna salad sandwich.

Then, as a heavy metal that you don't get rid of, it ends up in your central nervous system. Mercury conducts electricity and electrical charges.

Is that why my thinking is so wacked, wacked, wacked, wacked, wacked . . . .

Nevada Power / Sierra Pacific.

Promoting "clean coal."

Jim Nance wrote on May 09, 2008 04:29 PM: Also, Solar thermal plants require very large amounts of water. They require more then a nuclear power station.

I doubt that the state has that much water to feed into a super large system of solar thermal plants.

Alan wrote on May 09, 2008 02:30 PM: Why not just solar each individual structure so that our land can be free of all the mirrors, pipelines, wires etc. By using solar in each structure you would not have a utility or a utility payment. Money in my pocket or slot/table game.

Eric wrote on May 09, 2008 08:30 AM: The above article covers a lot of information that has been known for years. The same can be said for wind power. The whole southwestern part of the country is prime for both,but as usual government sits around waiting until cost will become prohibitive and they can dole out high priced contracts to their friends, just look at our oil situation.

Jerry Mac wrote on May 09, 2008 08:25 AM: THS: You must also be smoking this hallucinogen if you believe that a 7,000 square mile foot print (on a 1:1 scale from NSO) can fit on a 100 square mile foot print. It is not going to happen. Besides, only a limited number of joules per square unit of area are available to be corralled into an oil filled pipe and you still need accessibility for maintenance/service. Unfortunately I do not know the ratio of mirror coverage to non-mirror coverage at Nevada Solar One but guaranteed it is optimized as land is money.

Regardless, the article states that it would take 9% of the land surface of the state of Nevada – that is about 10,000 square miles! The 100 square mile number is simply wrong, but the 9% actually sounds conservative.

Also, I am not a doubter of renewable energy – it is only a piece of the puzzle. Many government studies (not political) have shown that going beyond 20% renewable creates instabilities in the electric grid (I can provide references if you’re interested in learning more). This is where Europe sits to-date. They are at the 20% threshold and learning that a lack of energy storage technology is creating voltage instabilities.

Finally, the article states that it can provide for 6-hours of energy storage. What about the other 18? Are we supposed to turn on our TV’s when our lights flicker?

Greg McFarlane wrote on May 09, 2008 08:23 AM: "Admertising"? "Expedential"? "Deflats?" Wow. Those might be the most hideous misspellings of "amortizing", "exponential" and "defrays" ever written.

The fact that John G. Edwards couldn't bother to check whether 100 square miles is 9% of Nevada's total area brings into question every other number in the story.

ths wrote on May 09, 2008 07:47 AM: So many doubters about renewable cause the lack of movement. As Jerry states he takes straight math to multiply Solar One. Jerry how do you not know that Thermal plants don't work on an expedential ratio in efficiencies? Perhaps that allows a reduction of land needed.

Yes there are still concerns but the one thing that is not listed is why thermal costs what it costs compared to coal or other plants. Coal generation is one thing, cost to build is another and in many cases when a Utility owns a coal plant they break the pay back seperate from the generating costs. That way it deflats the actual costs compared to thermal solar that figures admertising the cost of building the plant with generating the power.

Jerry Mac wrote on May 09, 2008 07:13 AM: You have to get the numbers straight guys – or at least stop living on hallucinogens in Disneyland.

Nevada is about 110,000 square miles and 9% of this land area is about 10,000 square miles (not 100 as stated). 10,000 square miles also makes sense as the requirement to generate 715,000 megawatts (MW) with solar thermal. If you scale Nevada Solar One (at 64 MW with about 400 acres if my memory serves me right) to 715,000 MW, the land requirements would be over 7,000 square miles of mirrors, oil filled pipes, and turbines.

So, low and behold, this article is GARBAGE and so is Environment America. Besides, at 7,000 square miles of solar thermal, who is going to maintain this place? That is, fix the leaks, wash the mirrors, and ensure that the tumbleweeds aren’t overgrown. We would have to outsource this labor to our southern neighbors (any comments Harry Reid?). In addition, how would you transmit all of this generation capacity with a lack of energy storage technology? What about security? The questions can to on and on…

Reference Europe for a power system in distress due to too much renewable generation.