You just can't make this windmill stuff up...LOL

[Locutus]

h/t sda

If the [Bright Source Energy] permit is approved, then this "solar" plant will produce about 35 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels.



Ivanpah solar plant wants to burn more natural gas

August 22, 2014 Jonathan DuHamel

In a earlier article, Avian mortality from solar farms, I featured the Ivanpah generating station, in the Mohave Desert southwest of Las Vegas, which uses 173,500 heliostats each with two mirrors to focus sunlight on three towers where water is converted to steam to generate electricity. This method is called “solar-flux” and it generates very high temperatures. Birds experience traumatic impact with the mirrors, but the larger danger is getting singed by the heat flux which is up to 800 degrees F.

But since the sun doesn’t shine all the time, the plant uses natural gas to keep the water hot. And, apparently, there hasn’t been enough sun to do that.

Bright Source Energy, the company operating the plant, is petitioning the California government, requesting permission to burn more natural gas and to emit 94,749 more tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s the equivalent of emissions from about 16,500 automobiles. (See full story at the Hockey Schtick)

- See more at: Ivanpah solar plant wants to burn more natural gas

 

[taxslave]

At least they are using clean natural gas generated emmissions and not dirty coal emmissions.

 

[SLM]

Okay, so, just to maybe play devil's advocate here, is it better to produce energy by burning fossil fuels 100% of the time or 35% of the time? Setting aside all the extreme rhetoric on both sides of the equation for a moment, the whole point in renewable energy systems is that it is self-sustaining where as consuming fossil fuels is finite, so anything that moves into that direction can be seen as a positive move, no?

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Okay, so, just to maybe play devil's advocate here, is it better to produce energy by burning fossil fuels 100% of the time or 35% of the time? Setting aside all the extreme rhetoric on both sides of the equation for a moment, the whole point in renewable energy systems is that it is self-sustaining where as consuming fossil fuels is finite, so anything that moves into that direction can be seen as a positive move, no?

The real question is how does this plan fit into California's energy grid. Solar obviously will not produce 100% of the time. If the overall grid expects it to produce energy when it can, it does not need to be supplementing with natural gas. However, if they want that power online 100% of the time, they need to supplement at the plant level. Its a question of where that supplementation happens. Of course, if it happens at the plant, the plant owners reap the profits of that. Which is the real reason they are asking for it.