Andrew Beebe, chief commercial officer of Suntech, said that with Sempra, Zachry and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) involved, Mesquite Solar 1 will be built. Sempra already has a 20 year power purchase agreement with PG&E. Scheduled for completion in 2013, Mesquite Solar 1 will be one of the largest PV solar installations in North America, projected to create no permanent jobs. The project is supposed to provide 300 construction jobs.
The questions I must ask are: If Sempra has all of the above technology, facilities, partners, and money in place, why does it need a DOE loan guarantee? And when the construction jobs are gone, what new green jobs will be created?
Spain — Been There, Done That
Spain's solar project, a 2009 study at King Juan Carlos University found, spent more than half a million euros for each green job created since 2000. Further, the solar PV industry alone received subsidies of €2.6 billion in 2010. And, we learn that Spain is using the same technology proposed for both the Tonopah and Mesquite projects. But Spain ran out of money and ended solar power subsidies.
DOE Loan Guarantees
DOE has issued loans, loan guarantees, or conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling nearly $40 billion to support more than 40 clean energy projects, including several of the world's largest solar generation facilities, three geothermal projects, the world's largest wind farm, and the nation's first new nuclear power plant in three decades. So? Will the Tonopah Solar Project and the Mesquite Solar 1 project be profitable, or will they be another Solyndra, another hole into which taxpayer money will be poured with little or nothing to show? Spain could not make it work without massive subsidies that it had to end. Why does Obama think it will work here?
Article comments
1 - Maurice
WB - great article. You raise some good questions.
Side note: the Treasury loaned Solyndra $535mil. The Katrina people are still waiting for their money.
2 - Bill Woods
Solyndra was a factory, that made panels that generated expensive power -- for which there was little demand. Crescent Dunes and Mesquite Solar are power plants, that will generate expensive power -- which utilities have already contracted to buy. That's a big difference! If they can be built on budget the taxpayers will come out okay. (The ratepayers, now...)
3 - Cannonshop
The Crescent Dunes and Mesquite projects, if they can operate at a profit, will make returns. The odds of operating at a profit are pretty good, assuming that the work building them is better than half-assed.
As Mr. Woods pointed out, they already have customers, and if the work is done well, they can run lower cost and thus, keep up with changes in the supply/demand curve.
Solyndra was, from the start equal parts snake oil and orbital pastry (pie-in-the-sky).
The bigger problem is the perception of graft-having close relatives of congresscritters who control the purse involved isn't a good sign, and if the projects (either one) go into overruns, the perception will be all that matters.
4 - El Bicho
So they have loaned out $40B and you only account for $1B in the article. Does your lack of coverage mean you are okay with the companies that received the remainder?
5 - Warren Beatty
Mr.Woods, please explain WHY PG&E customers should pay higher prices for electricity. And you raise a very big IF question concerning building within the budget.
Cannonshop, you also raise a big IF question about profitability. If Spain could not make solar energy profitable, and had to subsidize it, what makes you think it will be different here? BTW, Crescent Dunes and Tonopah propose to use the same technology as in Spain.
El Bicho, no!! I simply reported what DOE has said. The other $39B will, in all probability, be spent on other "orbital pastry" projects, leaving us taxpayers holding the bag once again.
6 - Igor
You people really should look at how that $40billion subsidy is distributed, since most of it is for old projects like ¨clean coal¨ (a boondoggle to give cash to coal companies), ¨biofuel¨ (which is the widely discredited corn-alcohol subsidy, a boondoggle to give cash to agri-business), and of course, that old favorite, nuclear energy, which plugs on regardless of the March 11 experience in Japan, which might have caused normal people to change their plans.
Instead of that superficial ¨energy.com¨ website, I suggest the DOE´s much better information site at EIA: EIA subsidy, which reveals that little of that $40B is for new energy (except, of course, the money wasted on the myth of ¨Clean Coal¨).