Let's See Where This Goes -- July 27, 2015; Cost Of Intermittent Energy

Penn Energy is reporting: a nuclear power plant in Missouri is shutting down over a "non-emergency" leak.

The Ameren Corp. nuclear power plant in central Missouri was shut down for the second time in eight months Thursday after a "non-emergency" leak was found in the reaction control system.

The shutdown occurred at 1:15 a.m. at the plant near Fulton.

Ameren officials are investigating the cause. Trammel said it was unclear when the plant would restart.

This is a 1,900 MW power plant.

Presidential-wanna-be Hillary Clinton wants to replace this plant with solar panels. At $3 million / MW, the cost to replace this nuclear plant with a solar plant would be $3 million x 1,900 = 57 with 8 zeroes, almost $6 billion. Okay. Whatever. At $4.5 million / MW (see below) = almost $9 billion. Okay. Whatever. [I often make simple errors in arithmetic and my calculator doesn't always have enough zeroes when it comes to solar energy costs.]

From google: As of November 2014, Topaz Solar Farm was the largest PV solar plant in the world at 550 MW. The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is a 550 MW solar power plant in Riverside County, California. Other large plants are under construction.

The Topaz Solar Farm supposedly cost $2.5 billion ($4.5 million / MW). The develop had to acquire 25 square miles and then went back and acquired another 640 acres.  

Any electricity produced by this plant has to have a "conventional" power plant for a) night-time hours; b) cloudy days; c) two to four hours of start-up time every morning when the solar panels are coming on line. 

By the way, speaking of high-cost solar energy. Does anyone remember this story? -- Where Tim Cook (Apple) paid $6.5 million / MW solar power, this was just earlier this year:

It was just announced this afternoon, apparently during Tim Cook's presentation, that Apple is building another 130 MW solar farm to power in central California. Forbes is reporting: 

First Solar said Tuesday it’s signed a 25-year contract with Apple to deliver solar electricity from a yet-to-be-built project in central California.

Apple “has committed $848 million” for 130 megawatts of energy from California Flats Solar Project in southeast Monterey County, said a press release.

$848 million / 130 MW = $6.5 million / MW.  Disclaimer: you may want to check my arithmetic. I often make simple arithmetic errors. But the story says $848 million for 130 MW of energy; if that's correct, and if $6.5 million / MW is correct, that's horrendous by anyone's standards. See story below. But again, I could be wrong. Deserve Sunlight is costing not enough twice $848 million and is getting way more than 130 MW.