US Commits Nearly $2 Billion to Two Solar Power Companies
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Abengoa Solar plans to build the largest concentrating solar plants in the world in Arizona.
Two solar energy companies are looking to expand with the help of nearly $2 billion in new financing through the US Recovery Act, President Barack Obama announced over the weekend.
During his weekly address, Obama said the Department of Energy would provide $1.45 billion in conditional commitment funds to Abengoa Solar, as well as additional funding to Abound Solar Manufacturing for three massive construction projects.
Abengoa Solar plans to build the largest concentrating solar plants in the world in Arizona. When completed, the 250-megawatt facility known as Solana is expected to provide enough clean energy to power 70,000 homes.
“After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it’s good news that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America,” Obama said of Abengoa. “In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona. What’s more, over 70 per cent of the components and products used in construction will be manufactured in the USA, boosting jobs and communities in states up and down the supply chain. Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the US to actually store the energy it generates for later use — even at night.”
The Solana project will be able to store up to six hours of energy by using molten salt. The strategy will allow the facility to provide power even during cloudy weather and after sunset, enabling it to help meet the summer peak demand.
Meanwhile, Obama continued, Abound Solar “will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what’s now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year.”
While acknowledging the severe economic conditions facing many citizens, Obama said such projects can gradually help replace many of the jobs that have been lost in this recession.
“These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act,” he said. “Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments. I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy.”
Reproduced with permission from Greenbang.
Woot you might me right and
maybe my perceptions is out of date. In a campaign add, out local
congressman is seen stepping in it at a dairy farm while taking about
bringing renewable energy jobs to the area.
“logic to explain sex appeal”
That is quite funny, and you are right, you can’t explain these political decisions by logic, frustrating as that is. As you have said before, sometimes you have to say so what.
Having bad decisions made is not the end of the world, as long as they are outweighed by the good ones, but I don’t see that happening at present, and certainly not in renewable energy.
Which is too bad, because then all renewable energy gets painted as a bad decision.
As long as there are people and cows there will be sludge to make energy and fertiliser, it’s the most reliable renewable source there is, and probably one of the lesser used ones.
I have heard several
presentation on how to deal with the media on environmental issues.
The first one was after the the nuke plant I worked at in California
closed. What I learned was that the editorial stance of the paper
was based on selling newspapers. Outrageous fear mongering about the
nuke plant and Pollyanna stories about solar were good for business.
The second presentation was
at a biosolids (aka, sewage sludge) conference. At the time, I was
working on my masters in environmental engineering as part of working
on cleanup of DOE super fund sites and the spent nuclear fuel
repository. Eastern Washington State had lots of large dairy farms
and my company has decided it was a renewable energy opportunity.
There I sit on the first day
of the conference with my boss and another engineer. I was very
excited about the prospect of getting out of nuclear power. I could
finally make my big sister in California proud. She had no problem
explaining one other brother who was a rehabilitated drug addict with
a criminal record but how could see explain to her friends a brother
that worked at a nuke plant.
What did I learn. The
keynote speaker was a well known journalist who had almost destroyed
his career by digging a little deeper and writing that there was no
scientific merit to the hot environmental crisis at the time. It
does not matter how good a job you do protecting the environment do
not expect the news media to tell your story fairly.
So we all know about the
‘environment’ organizations that are against nukes and coal power
plants. They love renewable energy in general but try to build one.
It will just as hard to build that big solar plant as a new nuke
plant. There will be some disease carrying vermin that will be given
a cute name like ‘kangaroo mouse’ so that they can raise money to
protect them from ‘big’ solar. Energy projects are always tied up in
court. Then they claim it takes too long to build.
Agreed,
People have to realize that energy always comes at cost. If they say the environmental costs of one is too high you have to be willing to embrace the costs of others. Personally I think we should gradually switch from coal to nuclear baseload.
Last year while I was in Bakersfield I read story about a wind developer who had experienced just this in California, would take 3 years and many lawyers to get thought he process, and may still fail. So they picked up their project and went to Texas, took 4 months to get approvals and they are off and running.
It is little wonder that California’s economy is cratering, as they make it impossible to do anything there, except lawsuits. I guess lawsuits in themselves have minimal environmental impact, so they flourish in California, but they do more harm than good, and eventually, they will run out of money to pay the lawyers.
No doubt that the media is in the business of selling papers, or gathering viewers, just as politicians are in the business of athering votes. None of these necessarily make for good engineering decisions.
And they only way they seem to be able to build them, is with huge subsidies. If people are willing to pay the true cost, then they can have what they want. Everyone seems to want it, but to have someone else pay the true cost.
As I have quoted him before, the physicist Richard Feynman said “in introducing any new technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled”
Thomas not to worry, nukes
will slowly replace coal. The O&M cost of nukes is trending down
while the cost of coal is trending up. New nukes are very expensive
because they are built to last 60 years.
PaulN let me remind you
that that the electricity generating industry is strictly regulated
in the US so talking about thing being subsidized is just kind of
silly.
In California, the cost of
electricity is high because of the over reliance on natural gas. You
would be surprised at all of the inventive ways they have figured out
to tax natural gas and making electricity in general. It would
appear over reliance on NG is the only result of promoting renewable
energy in places like California, Spain, and Germany.
Having a diverse mix of
generating sources is a good thing. Coal and NG are subject to
transportation disruptions. In Japan, an earthquake produced ground
motion that was larger than assumed in seismic analysis. Seven
nukes were off line for an extended period of time. At this time
we do not have to worry to much about the cost of renewable energy
because it is just too small a share. Like nuclear, renewable energy
may turn out to be a good investment compared to the cost of fossil
fuel.
By the way Kit, Sam and I have been discussing your recent posts. Your change in demeanor is noted and appreciated. I think everyone feels like you have something to offer, and I think you have found the forumula that allows much more productive discussions to take place.
Cheers, RR
Kit, I am not talking about the electricity industry being subsidised, just the renewables, specifically, wind and electricity. I consider $2bn in loan guarantees a subsidy, and then there are the grants for the Cape Wind project, and the general mandate for wind to be first in the loading order. Those are all subsidies.
Agreed the impact of these on overall rates is very small, and restrictive policies like Ca have increased costs much more. But my point is, and remains, that profitable operation of wind and solar still seems dependent on subsidies. If these are to grow, they should find a way to do so without subsidies.
Big Coal and Big Nuke are “profitable” in large part due to government subsidies. Remove subsidies from the big guys first. You’re asking for rookies to be strenuously drug tested while the all-stars have paid off the referees and are taking shots in bathroom stalls.
“I consider $2bn in loan
guarantees a subsidy…”
Then you would be wrong
PaulN unless you mean industry is subsidizing government. The US
government makes a profit on loan guarantees.
Again PualN let me remind
you that the reason for California having higher electricity prices
is the amount of natural gas being used and how energy is taxed. You
have to keep up with a changing world. For a long time, NG provided
cheap electricity because Western Canada had lots of cheap gas and
only one market. California had deregulation regulations did not
allow generators to lock in long term contracts with Canada. Then
everybody and their brother built NG plants exceeding the capacity of
pipelines. NG prices became volatile until more drilling and
pipelines could meet demand. The new price of NG is at least double
of what it was before the NG building boom.
Wind, biomass, and
geothermal produce electricity at a lower cost for Californians than
NG. This was not true 15 years ago but it is now.
For investors building power
plants there is less risk with NG because of lower capital costs. If
you want investors to take more risk, incentives or mandates must be
provided.
“Big Coal and Big Nuke are
“profitable” in large part due to government subsidies.”
I do not know what subsidies
you are talking about. Most coal and nuke plants serve a regulated
market. The cost of making my electricity with coal is pasted on to
me after review by the state PUC. A modest profit is provided to
stock holders.
Some nuke and coal plants
are now operated by companies that bought poor performing plants.
They make a modes profit by lowering the cost with better management.
A single unit nuke plant might have a staff 1000. A company running
5 nukes might have an average 600 per plant.
The 104 US nuke plants
subsidize government. Fuel cost for a nuke plant are about the same
as property taxes. Again I do not know of any large subsidies that
the commercial nuclear industry receives.
Thomas is likely the victim
of anti-nuke misinformation campaigns. DOE has a very large budget
for nuclear. Almost all of it is associated with nuclear weapons
storage and cleanup.
Just for the record, the
standards are the same for the big a little guys when it comes to
making electricity. If you do a little research you find the ‘big’
guys in coal and nuclear are also the ‘big’ guys in wind, solar, and
biomass too.
Size does not matter.
Excellence matters. One of the best utilities is relatively small.
When you look at performance indicators, their coal and nuke plants
are always near the top year in year out. I can think of three of
the largest that are always good too. However, I can not recall the
last time a west coast utility did something that I thought was
remarkablly good.
Kit P said:
This is kind of like you asking where all the air pollution was, when 19% of monitored U.S. counties aren’t meeting current EPA air quality standards.
Obama just approved $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power. We talked about it on this site.
“Again I do not know of any large subsidies that
the commercial nuclear industry receives.”
Maybe 8.3 billion isn’t “large”. You could have a future in politics…
Here’s a study that goes through the current energy subsidy structure and its problems.
http://www.earthtrack.net/file…..ptions.pdf
This is the breakdown of the estimated 74 billion in energy subsidies spent in 2006:
52% Oil and Gas
10.5% Coal
12.4 % Nuke
7.6 % Ethanol
7.5 % Renewables
2.1 % Conservation
These figures are just direct subsidies.
Coal ash is the second largest industrial waste product in the U.S. It contains an ugly assortment of heavy metals, silica and lime. It is also slightly radioactive. Studies have shown that these can be harmful to local communities in the event of a “spill” like in TN or more commonly when this stuff gets airborne. Yet it is not regulated by the EPA. The EPA has begun to change course on this, but big coal and utilities are fighting back citing ”cost”. The fact that there are no national rules on the disposal of this material has been a huge subsidy for the industry since its inception. There are also the indirect costs of coal production like tainted drinking water in WV.
—Kit : insert blind denial of scientific evidence on coal ash here——-
The Price-Anderson act places a $10 billion cap on corporate liability for a commercial nuclear generating accident. This is even in the event of gross negligence or misconduct. There is not yet a plan for the long term disposal of high level nuclear waste. You can bet whatever strategy is chosen the costs will be” socialized”.
Kit and Paul are complaining about 7.5%, while well-established members of the energy mix receive much bigger chunks. If you’re against subsidies then be against all subsidies not just renewables.
Perhaps you’re arguing that subsidies on Coal and Nuke are “justified” because they make up the vast majority of our energy mix?The subsidy$/MWh is much higher for renewables. But, why do these “mature” industries need subsidies at all? Both big coal and big nuke say they need increasing gov. support.
I’m not against energy subsidies in principle. Although, like all subsidies, they encourage rent seeking behavior. A much better strategy would be to move money away from fossil fuels subs toward conservation. Making old homes more energy efficient with better windows, insulation, thermostats etc has much greater returns because you decrease the number of power plants needed and you lower the energy bills of consumers.
Thomas thanks for providing
the source of information.
Yes, 8.3 billion is a
“large” large number. You do know that the government is
not giving any money to build that nuke plant? If fact the utility
has to pay the government an large application fee to investigate and
process the loan guarantee. The government is making a profit on
this program which is not just for nuke plants.
As far as your link, it is a
report by one person who references himself.
“Federal
subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8
cents per kWh”
Actually
there is a PTC of 1.8 (adjusted for inclation) cents per kWh for the
first few years of 6000 MWe of new plant capacity.
Thomas
wrote:
“This
is the breakdown of the estimated 74 billion in energy subsidies
spent in 2006:
Since
no new nukes plants have been built yet and therefore have not
generated any electricity, no money has been allocated or paid by the
government. I suggest Thomas that you find a more reliable source
than Doug Koplow at Earth Track.
“—Kit
: insert blind denial of scientific evidence on coal ash here——-”
Thomas you did not provide
any evidence that the government is paying the bill for managing coal
ash or cleaning up the TVA spill.
“The Price-Anderson act “
The pooled insurance program
is paid for by the nuclear industry. Another profit center for the
federal government.
“There is not yet a plan
for the long term disposal of high level nuclear waste.”
Actually there is, it is the
NWPA. A license application has been submitted to the NRC for a
geological repository in Nevada as required by congress. POTUS is
currently getting a civics lesson in separation of powers between the
branches of government.
“You can bet whatever
strategy is chosen the costs will be” socialized”.”
Actually it paid by the rate
payers who get electricity from nukes. Some of the high level waste
is a result of nuclear weapons and the navy propulsion program.
I hope this helps you
understand the issues better.
any evidence that the government is paying the bill for managing coal
ash or cleaning up the TVA spill.”
geological repository in Nevada as required by congress.”
“taxpayers pay for”
That is not how either TVA
or BPA works. Ratepayers pay for it. Not the federal government.
Thomas, again where do you
live. California? You keep making stuff up.
“Well we’ve made progress
at least you are admitting that there are “large”
subsidies for nuclear power ..”
That is not what I said. I
said that Thomas documented $0 dollars subsiding coal and nuclear.
“The biggest risk in
nuclear plant production is that the project gets bogged down in red
tape.”
Actually it is that a
project will get started based on demand projections that do not
materialize. One third of the nuke plants orders were canceled
before the TMI accident.
Of course that was then, now
the loan guarantee program looks very closely at projects based on
probability of success. Now construction does not start until the
NRC issues a COL.
“Your assertion ..”
No that was a fact. I have
read the legislation and carefully follow what congress budgets.
“The real money is spent
before these new plants are built and producing power. A large amount
of money is invested in their R&D.”
Investors are paying for
this not the federal government. In some cases some of the costs are
paid by customers through CWIP (Construction work in progress).
“Over $ 1 billion in 2007
on nuclear power R&D.”
Very little of this has
anything to do with commercial nuclear power and the new LWR power
plants being built. The thing Thomas leaves out is that the nuclear
industry pays lots of taxes. For example, the government will share
half the cost testing the new licensing process.
“I think the subs for
nuclear are justified but the coal numbers reflect the “small
state” power in the Senate.”
Virgina, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Illinois, ect are small states? Just for the record, California gets
lot of electricity from coal. Thomas I think what you think does
not matter very much based on how you do research.
I am in favor of limited
incentives to ensure an adequate and diverse energy supply and will
accept 10% government waste. I used to be anti-coal but the more
research on my part changed my mind.
This why I keep asking the
where Thomas lives. California has not coal and no business telling
anyone how to do it better. It is easy to be against something but
it is a lot harder to be a leader and do it better.
“Chu wants solidification
whatever that is.” Heard this story at a DC conference in the
1984. I would not have believed the same organization that started
with the Manhattan project would be so inept at caring out a simple
plan.
Mix the high level waste
molten glass and you get a very stable product. You could put high
level waste in a drinking water reservoir and not exceed CWA limits
for safe drinking water. The rate at which radionuclides leach out
of the glass is less that the rate of radioactive decays. Not that
we would put the glass in drinking water.
A facility for
’solidification’ is being built on the Hanford reservation which has
leaking tanks left over from WWII and the cold war. The glass logs
will be put in shipping/storage contains until a long term geological
repository is built.
Since surface structures at
Hanford will not survive the next ice age and Yucca Mountain will be
high and dry, elected officials in Washington State think Yucca
Mountain is a great idea.
Near Hanford is a facility
making commercial nuclear fuel uranium that came from US weapons
programs. At Savanna River a facility for MOX is being built to burn
weapons plutonium in commercial nuclear plants. This part is part
of treaties with Russia.
What we learned studying
Yucca Mountain is that the source term hundred thousand of years
from now is uranium and plutonium.
What the French, Germans,
Japanese, and Russians do is recycle uranium and plutonium to make
MOX fuel and make glass logs out of the waste.
There is a problems knowing
what Obama and Chu want to do because they have been a little vague.
I waiting to live in a country that can recycle heavy metals like
aluminum cans.