First this story: California's supreme court threw out an environmental lawsuit against development of a solar farm near Barstow, California. The court threw out the lawsuit without comment; the Sierra Club did not even get its day in court.
One can argue that a solar farm footprint is greater and more damaging to the environment than an oil well. I'm not talking about carbon footprint. I'm talking about the physical footprint. These solar farms are going to cover acres of surface area, making the surface unusable for anything else, wherever the panels are. And the panels never go away; they are there forever.
On the other hand, once a well is in, it takes up very little space comparatively and the area around it is still available for farming, recreation, or other development. In southern California, there are pumpers sitting between homes in Los Angeles suburbs. And the wells eventually go away. But enough of that.
The court throwing out an environmental suit makes it more difficult going forward for environmentalists to take on other energy companies when they want to develop projects, particularly wind and solar. Again, this was the California supreme court, and lower courts in California will now have a precedent to follow. Interesting.
The linked story above does not say how big the project was. When I went to look that up, some very interesting things came up. First, the size of the farm: 850 MW. That's huge.
But then this (December 30, 2010 -- just 3.5 months ago):
K Road Sun acquired the Calico Solar Project near Barstow, California, from Tessera Solar North America after a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison (SCE) fell through.
The Calico project was approved by the California Energy Commission at the beginning of December and has an interconnection agreement to supply 850MW to the state’s power grid.I wonder if SCE will have to go back and re-think its position now that California is going to mandate 33% renewable energy sources by 2020.
But SCE unexpectedly withdrew its offer to buy power from the project earlier this week.
It was thought Tessera found itself unable to finance the project after SCE withdrew. The total capital investment required is estimated at $3.0 billion.Memo to California electricity users (electric vehicles, anyone?): your rates are going to go up. Way up.
In addition:
Tessera had planned the for the entire Calico development to use concentrated solar technology developed by its parent company Stirling Energy Systems (SES).A lot of moving parts to this story. It may be worthy for the start of an entirely new solar energy blog. But not for me.
But K Road said it will stick to more mature photovoltaic technology for the bulk of the project, reducing financing risk.
Cool! Last time we had an electric rate spike was the enron manipulation of 2000 2001. At least we get something for our money this time.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of ENRON, I have a great story about that whole thing, but because it involves some pretty important folks, I've never put those stories in print. It would explain a lot about "cap and trade." But maybe sometime down the road I'll be brave enough to tell it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking time to visit, and even more, taking time to comment.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times........." It is amazing that before the huge financial issue is solved, they have put yet more stress on the public. It is all great in theory and can be tested when there is money to support the cost, but we know that at this point the CA tax payer will be squeezed yet again!
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