With present day technology solar has no chance of being a viable generating option, it is too costly, unreliable (one does not know when the sun will shine) inflexible (it cannot alter load) requires back up conventional generation, causes instability and inefficiency in conventional generation (by causing them to alter load more than required)
Hey Doc, I would not call it a failure, but a learning experience. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still carrying traffic by the way, 50 years after its "failure." That plant has two issues, habitat and storage. Keep in mind that a coal plant does much more habitat destruction than any solar farm, and that says nothing for the coal mining that is taking place someplace else. At least the sun is delivered free each day right to the plant.
In the wake of this plants "failure," it only is able to generate 377 megawatts of net power, and provide $300M in taxes and fees for the state and local area over its lifetime. Since coming online, Bechtels Ivanpah plant is now competing with Crescent Dunes, which uses similar technology, but has 10 hours of solar thermal storage, providing solar power in the middle of the night. Gerrit Herring has a great review of these and other projects that pretty accurately outline the spot Bechtel has found itself in, I will include the link below. Meanwhile the Germans are building Desertec, a solar thermal farm in the Sahara Desert that does not use tower collectors, so there is no focused flux to kill birds with, has more storage than Crescent Dunes allowing solar generation 24/7, and uses sea water for steam generation, which has a natural byproduct of freshwater, pretty handy in the desert.
None of these plans are perfect, but they do produce energy without producing CO2, destroying rivers and habitats with coal ash, adding mercury to the waterways and fish or killing coal miners. (we average about 19 deaths per year in the US.) No, this plant does not indicate solar power has failed any more than the AMC Pacer indicates the automobile is a failure. People still drive cars, we'll still be making solar power in 50 years, in fact, a great deal more of it than we do today. Take care Doc, Rudydoo
I think electrolysis of water into H2 and O2 is a good possibililty. Especially if this much advanced, high value generator I have heard about is legitimate.
solar has not failed, some projects have. Many in oil have failed too.
renewables include wind, geothermal, tital..
yes, invest more.
$1.6 Billion solar Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is only generating half of the power promised in peer review papers. It is now considered a major engineering failure along side the engineering failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Should additional money funneled for green energy be targeted towards clean, carbon free, 24/7/365 safe nuclear power?
