President Obama once praised Ivanpah as a shining example of America's clean energy future. “With projects like this one,” he said at the site of the solar plant just before construction started, “we're putting Americans to work producing clean home-grown American energy.” (1)
His Department of Energy showered $1.6 billion in loan guarantees, as well as $600 million in tax credits on the plant. It's a behemoth that uses hundreds of thousands of mirrors spread out over more than five square miles of the Mojave Desert. The mirrors all aim at the tops of three 459-foot towers, where the heat boils water in tanks held there, which generates steam to turn the electricity producing turbines.
However, it turns out that Ivanpah isn't so squeaky clean after all.
It emits enough CO2 that it will “be required to participate in the state's cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions,” reports John Merline. (1)
In its first year, Ivanpah emitted 46,000 metric tons of CO2. That's about as much as a Frito Lay plant in Bakersfield emits.
How is that possible? It turns out the Ivanpah plant uses natural gas to function. First, it burns natural gas to pre-heat the water at the top of the three towers before the sun comes up. Then, it has auxiliary gas boilers that kick in whenever, cloud cover blocks the sun.
Ivanpah has some other issues. It has a nasty habit of cooking birds that happen to fly too close to the towers—3,500 of them in its first year.
It turns out that insects are attracted to the glowing light of the solar towers, followed by smaller birds seeking to feed on the insects, followed by large predator birds. As the birds fly into the focal field of the mirrors, estimated at approximately 800 to 1000F—many are fried. (2)
Another issue with Ivanpah relates to the sun rays sent up by the field of mirrors that are bright enough to dazzle pilots flying in and out of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The California Energy Commissions (CEC) has received numerous pilot and air traffic controller glare-impact reports. The situation is serious because pilots report that they cannot scan the sky in that direction to look for other aircraft. According to an air traffic controller, “Daily during the late-morning and early-afternoon hours, we get complaints from pilots of aircraft flying from the northeast to the southwest about the brightness of this solar farm.” (3)
Then there's Abengoa, a Spanish company, which was another of President Obama's personally picked green energy projects. It is now on the verge of bankruptcy, potentially saddling US taxpayers with a multi-billion tab and fueling the notion that the administration repeatedly gambles on losers in the energy sector, reports Ben Wolfgang. (4)
The company has received loans from governments around the world. In the US the administration awarded the company about $2.7 billion for two major projects, one of which was the Mojave Solar project in California which received $1.2 billion. (5)
Abengoa has a mountain of debt and provides the threat of becoming Spain's biggest ever corporate failure. The Sevillian firm, which employs over 20,000 people worldwide, has been struggling for more than a year, with a net debt of 6.28 euros at the end of September. (6)
Abengoa's looming demise is eerily reminiscent of the fall of solar power firm Solyndra in 2011, a colossal failure of another government investment that left taxpayers on the hook for more than $530 million. Solyndra was another project that President Obama personally touted.
Lastly, closer home to many folks, there's the issue of rooftop solar installations. California has stunned green advocates by excluding rooftop solar from their renewable energy mandate. (7)
If a home or business has a rooftop solar system, most of the wattage isn't included in the ambitious requirement to generate half of the state's electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2030, part of legislation signed in October by Gov. Jerry Brown.
This means rooftop solar owners are missing out on a potentially lucrative subsidy that is paid to utilities and developers of big power projects.
Ivan Penn says that one thing that is clear form this unexpected development is that even uber-green California cannot be trusted to provide a stable renewables subsidy regime. It you invest in renewables, you're taking a big risk. (7)
Jack Dini
Livermore, CA
References
1. John Merline, “Massive solar power plant emits 46,000 tons of CO2,” news.investors.com, October 19, 2015
2. Benjamin Zycher, “California's new solar plant: burning up taxpayer money, land and wildlife,” The American, May 21, 2014
3. Clifford K. Ho et al., “Evaluation of glare at the Ivanpah solar electric generating system,” Sandia National Laboratories, SAND2014-15847, July 2014
4. Ben Wolfgang, “Obama green energy project Abengoa on verge of bankruptcy, demise recalls Solyndra,” washingtontimes.com, November 25, 2015
5. “Mojave solar project,” en.wikipedia.org, November 8, 2015
6. “Abengoa shares in free fall as bankruptcy looms,” jamaicaobserver.com, November 27, 2015
7. Ivan Penn, “Why rooftop solar advocates are upset about California's clean-energy law,” latimes.com, November 29, 2015
