Amargosa Valley Residents Fight a German Plan to Cover 4,350 acres of desert with parabolic mirrors.

[NNadir]

The German company Solar Millennium AG wants to lease 7,810 acres of BLM land that interfingers with the town, placing giant parabolic mirror fields with superheated oil (Therminol) on 4,350 acres, within a quarter mile of many homes, and less than a mile and a quarter from Amargosa Elementary School and a park. Two power blocks would also be within these fields, including two thermal storage tanks in each, containing molten salt - an experimental technology - as well as large steam turbine engines like those used in conventional fossil fuel plants...

..Many residents voiced concerns about explosion and fire dangers from such a power plant, citing the 1999 explosion at the Daggett SEGS Solar 1 plant . The SEGS 1 plant used new molten salt thermal storage technology developed in the 1980s, and initially had 3 hours of thermal energy storage that was used to dispatch to peak period. But the storage system was damaged by an explosion and was not replaced (source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory...

...This plant had a nameplate maximum capacity of only 13.8 megawatts (MW). Solar Millennium is seeking 242 MW. The heat transfer fluid Therminol will be used in Solar Millennium's design, similar to the Caloria oil that burned uncontrollably all night at SEGS 1. Pipe ruptures in the parabolic trough fields are a hazard.

Several residents stood up to speak about how the local volunteer fire department would not be able to handle an oil spill or fire involving specialized chemicals. Who will supply the needed equipment to cope with this industry? One man said a quarter-mile buffer zone was needed between the plant and residences at least. Questions were raised about how to evacuate the school in the event of a fire at the solar plant. Someone commented that he doubted that the execs of Solar Millennium would live so close...

http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/AV-SolarMill-scoping-Aug2009.html



Here's the really amusing thing. The 242 "watt" talk is pure bullshit from the so called "renewable" industry, since they always lie and represent their plants, which seldom operate at peak power if ever - even in a desert a high capacity factor would be, at best, 20% - as if it were a gas plant that can operate at more than 95% of capacity utilization.

Thus 4,350 acres of desert are required to build a plant that will prove, at best, the equivalent of a plant of less than 50 MW.

Have a nice evening, running it, as I'm sure on your therminol fueled solar thermal system.

[provis99]

1. alternative energy in general is a bullshit field.

Solar energy, wind energy, dam energy, all only provide a very tiny proportion of our energy supply, which comes mainly from oil and coal-fired power plants, supplemented with nuclear power.

The earth-first freaks don't have many realistic ideas on where to get alternative energy from.

[joshcryer]

2. I think they can work, but you have to consider all the variables.

In this case opposition can lead to massive delays, delays that for every day release millions of tonnes of CO2.

[NNadir]

5. Bull. This junk will do very little to fight climate change. All the solar energy systems in the

world have done almost nothing to fight climate change.

After 50 years of big, big, big, big, big talk, the solar energy conversion systems can't even run the servers that are devoted to spreading the word on how wonderful solar energy is.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html

I very much doubt that this system, if built, will even recover the energy required for the trucks to build it.

[OnlinePoker]

7. Hey...it increased almost 50% in 5 years

:sarcasm:

[AlecBGreen]

8. I would not call 7% "a very tiny proportion"

although it seems many are in favor of demolishing dams on the west coast due to concerns of salmon spawning and methane emissions. Apparently the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter that accumulates behind the dam releases so much methane that it may outweigh the GHG benefits of utilizing hydropower.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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

[intheflow]

4. What does this have to do with the OP?

:shrug:

[NNadir]

6. Everything, really.

It's no different than any other of the stuff produced by the "renewables will save us" set, pure babble.