US approves world's biggest solar energy project

[MannyIsGod]

Jesus Christ why do you have to always reach and constantly shift your position to fit what you want it to be? Why can't you just acknowledge this plant isn't all that bad at all? Is it so damaging to your myopic world view that you can't admit things and instead choose to constantly flip flop and squirm?

[RandomGuy]

If I assume a 2% annual increase, that $0.04 becomes only about $0.049.

factor @2%
1.02
1.0404
1.061208
1.08243216
1.104080803
1.126162419
1.148685668
1.171659381
1.195092569
1.21899442
1.243374308
1.268241795
1.29360663
1.319478763
1.345868338
1.372785705
1.400241419
1.428246248
1.456811173
1.485947396
1.515666344
1.545979671
1.576899264
1.608437249
1.640605994
1.673418114
1.706886477
1.741024206
1.77584469
1.811361584
1.847588816
1.884540592
1.922231404
1.960676032
1.999889553
2.039887344
2.080685091
2.122298792
2.164744768
2.208039664
total 61.61002284

average 1.540250571 >>>>>>61.61/40

1.54*.04=0.06...

Try 6 cents average over the period, before adjusting for other factors.
3% =7.7 cents.

Not sure how you are calculating your averages, but they are incorrect.

[RandomGuy]

Just how expensive will solar actually be?

"That depends" is the quick answer.

A MUCH better question:

"How expensive will solar actually be relative to alternatives?"

Given that it is certain that fossil fuel depletion and "peak production" will make such forms of fuel VERY expensive long before depletion, we need to collectively make some really good guesses now, because the power plants we build today will lock us into that form of power for 30+ years.

This Net Present Value is extremely dependent on assumptions one makes for conditions 20-40 years down the road.

[Wild Cobra]

O&M is going to turn a 30 year payoff into a 60 year payoff? For that to be the case O&M would have to be running running in the +$100mil/yr range. Sorry, I just don't see it.

I said it "could be." never said it will.

An average worker in such an industry makes over $100k in salary and benefits in California. The project will cover 7,025 acres, or 11 square miles. The parabolic reflectors will require daily cleaning to keep dust from reducing the thermal efficiency. How many people will it take, and at what cost of resources?

Now I can wag it at about 2500 or more employees performing daily maintenance. Since this isn't exactly a skilled job, let's assume they make $60k in salary and benefits. That amounts to about $150 million annual costs just for labor. What about the costs of the specialized cleaning equipment, supplies, fuel, etc.

I based the approximate 7025 acres at 2 manhours of labor a day per acre. I allotted each employee with 1904 annual hours. 2080 hours minus 4 weeks annual vacation - 16 hours average sick leave. Use your own numbers as you wish and ratio them with my 1904, pay, and man-hours per acre. Annual maintenance is 5,128,250 man-hours. At 1904 hours per man, that's 2693 employees.

I'm all ears for what you think the true costs will be.

[Wild Cobra]

Not sure how you are calculating your averages, but they are incorrect.

I was only taking the 2000 figures to 2010 electrical cost. I was not attempting to forecast the future costs with inflation, as they close to balance with the compounded interest.

[Wild Cobra]

"That depends" is the quick answer.

A MUCH better question:

"How expensive will solar actually be relative to alternatives?"

Given that it is certain that fossil fuel depletion and "peak production" will make such forms of fuel VERY expensive long before depletion, we need to collectively make some really good guesses now, because the power plants we build today will lock us into that form of power for 30+ years.

This Net Present Value is extremely dependent on assumptions one makes for conditions 20-40 years down the road.

I somewhat agree. However, I am an advocate of making such project when we know they will be cost effective compared to current methods. We don't know for fact when "peak production" really is.

[Wild Cobra]

ooops...

The actual solar cells will only take up 5950 acres. calculated labor force is now 2281.25 instead of 2693.41. Using 2,000 employees vs. 2,500 would be $120 million annual.

[RandomGuy]

I somewhat agree. However, I am an advocate of making such project when we know they will be cost effective compared to current methods. We don't know for fact when "peak production" really is.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

It is generally agreed that we are rapidly approaching, if not past peak oil. Peak coal, and peak natural gas will follow in short order. It is also generally agreed that price increases will hit long before final depletion.

[RandomGuy]

ooops...

The actual solar cells will only take up 5950 acres. calculated labor force is now 2281.25 instead of 2693.41. Using 2,000 employees vs. 2,500 would be $120 million annual.

Try "oops, if I had bothered looking up the press release, I would have noticed the company says it will create 295 jobs on a permanent basis".

[Wild Cobra]

--snip of the insanely repeated words---

You cannot always wait until you have perfect information before making decisions.

It is generally agreed that we are rapidly approaching, if not past peak oil. Peak coal, and peak natural gas will follow in short order. It is also generally agreed that price increases will hit long before final depletion.

In geological terms, a thousand years is short order.

I seems we are on the decline for oil. Not coal or natural gas though. It will still be decades before a resource we use for electricity will become too costly without "Cap and Tax."

Isn't one definition of insanity doing, or repeating the same thing over and over, expecting a different result?

[coyotes_geek]

I said it "could be." never said it will.

An average worker in such an industry makes over $100k in salary and benefits in California. The project will cover 7,025 acres, or 11 square miles. The parabolic reflectors will require daily cleaning to keep dust from reducing the thermal efficiency. How many people will it take, and at what cost of resources?

Now I can wag it at about 2500 or more employees performing daily maintenance. Since this isn't exactly a skilled job, let's assume they make $60k in salary and benefits. That amounts to about $150 million annual costs just for labor. What about the costs of the specialized cleaning equipment, supplies, fuel, etc.

I based the approximate 7025 acres at 2 manhours of labor a day per acre. I allotted each employee with 1904 annual hours. 2080 hours minus 4 weeks annual vacation - 16 hours average sick leave. Use your own numbers as you wish and ratio them with my 1904, pay, and man-hours per acre. Annual maintenance is 5,128,250 man-hours. At 1904 hours per man, that's 2693 employees.

I'm all ears for what you think the true costs will be.

A snippet from a story about a solar plant in Arizona. 4,000 acre site, 340MW capacity and they're predicting that they'll only need 100 employees. That's 0.29 employees per MW. For 1,000MW, that's 290.

If approved and funded, the project could generate an estimated 1,500 jobs during the construction phase, and require 100 employees when operational.

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/05/13/...d-for-arizona/

For comparison, coal requires 0.18 employees per MW. I'll buy that solar will require more employees given the larger land area required for the site. A jump from 0.18 to 0.29 sounds reasonable. A jump from 0.18 to 2.5 does not.

According to Singh & Fehrs' 2001 analysis of Energy Information Administration data, the average coal-fired power plant - per megawatt of peak capacity - employs 0.18 people in operations & maintenance on a permanent basis.[11]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php..._United_States

[Wild Cobra]

Try "oops, if I had bothered looking up the press release, I would have noticed the company says it will create 295 jobs on a permanent basis".

Then their output will suffer.

What is the daily dust level in the winds at that desert anyway?

If I assume 280 of those jobs to be typical maintenance for the farm, and 150 to be management and other higher pay jobs, how does $28 million annual labor cost sound? What will the spare parts, supplies, fuel, cleaning equipment, etc. cost? Those are costs I really don't care to guess.

Another though...

Is there any contracted work not factored in? The another possibility.... Normally a manufacturer will supply a labor force while the warranty is in effect that will have to be replaced by more permanent employees later.

We have seen time and again that costs are far more than estimated.

[RandomGuy]

However, I am an advocate of making such project when we know they will be cost effective compared to current methods.

The magic of NPV helps enormously.

If one assumes increases in fossil fuels at a rate a bit faster than inflation over the next 40 years (a VERY conservative assumption) we can probably make some fair guesses.

A less conservative assumption would be short term prices at a bit past overall inflation, with larger increases as time progresses.

Costs of construction for plants will simply follow inflation. Solar/wind operating costs seem to be fairly dependent on build costs, so it is safe to assume that solar/wind cost increases will stay roughly in line with inflation.

It is possible to build a reasonable model based on this, and simply add up the revenues/expenses for all periods in the future and see how things really stack up, and then see how sensitive that is to the variables, and get a fair answer.

[Wild Cobra]

I'll buy that solar will require more employees given the larger land area required for the site. A jump from 0.18 to 0.29 sounds reasonable. A jump from 0.18 to 2.5 does not.

Like I said, I was WAG'n it.

I have a hard time believing that number though. I think they will run into far larger costs than most anticipate.

The dust, if not regularly cleaned off, will diminish the power production capacity by a large amount. Now just how much labor is needed, hard to say. I though I was being generous at 2 man-hours per acre.

What about replacing the parabolic reflectors ad they lose their luster from the winds blowing sand, and effectively sand-blasting them.

I see nothing but huge maintenance costs. Being a maintenance technician for more than 30 years now, I think I have some understanding of various concepts involved here. I'll bet the low advertised employee numbers are probably to make labor happy by requiring more than other operations, and tax payers not concerned by low-balling what the true ongoing operational cost will be.

Oh well...

It's a done deal, and time will tell.

[RandomGuy]

For comparison, coal requires 0.18 employees per MW.

Hmm. Seems incomplete.

Compute tons of fuel used per Mwh.

Add employees need to mine/transport per ton of input.

Might need to add employees needed to process/manage waste ash as well, depending on whether that is counted as a "power plant" employee.

[coyotes_geek]

Like I said, I was WAG'n it.

I have a hard time believing that number though. I think they will run into far larger costs than most anticipate.

The dust, if not regularly cleaned off, will diminish the power production capacity by a large amount. Now just how much labor is needed, hard to say. I though I was being generous at 2 man-hours per acre.

What about replacing the parabolic reflectors ad they lose their luster from the winds blowing sand, and effectively sand-blasting them.

I see nothing but huge maintenance costs. Being a maintenance technician for more than 30 years now, I think I have some understanding of various concepts involved here. I'll bet the low advertised employee numbers are probably to make labor happy by requiring more than other operations, and tax payers not concerned by low-balling what the true ongoing operational cost will be.

Oh well...

It's a done deal, and time will tell.

Given the political and economic climate of today, the last thing in the world I can envision is someone deliberately underestimating the number of green jobs that a project would create.

[RandomGuy]

Then their output will suffer.

What is the daily dust level in the winds at that desert anyway?

If I assume 280 of those jobs to be typical maintenance for the farm, and 150 to be management and other higher pay jobs, how does $28 million annual labor cost sound? What will the spare parts, supplies, fuel, cleaning equipment, etc. cost? Those are costs I really don't care to guess.

Another though...

Is there any contracted work not factored in? The another possibility.... Normally a manufacturer will supply a labor force while the warranty is in effect that will have to be replaced by more permanent employees later.

We have seen time and again that costs are far more than estimated.

28m annual labor sounds in the ballpark. It is also about .5% of construction cost.

Seems like 1-2% of build costs as annual operating costs is a reasonable figure.

[coyotes_geek]

Hmm. Seems incomplete.

Compute tons of fuel used per Mwh.

Add employees need to mine/transport per ton of input.

Might need to add employees needed to process/manage waste ash as well, depending on whether that is counted as a "power plant" employee.

I was only looking for the "apples to apples" comparison for employees required to O&M the power plant facility itself. No arguement here that if you want to bring in coal's production and transport chains into the equation that number goes up.

[RandomGuy]

I seems we are on the decline for oil. Not coal or natural gas though. It will still be decades before a resource we use for electricity will become too costly without "Cap and Tax."

Further, the price of oil will directly impact the price of electricity.

The price of oil will drive demand for coal and gas, increasing demand for them, as we start winding down our oil supplies.

Once again, the physical impossibility of increasing coal/gas production by some % every year will rear its ugly head.

Let's assume that present and future predicted reserves of say, gas, will last for 100 years at current production rates.

Then assume that production goes up by 3% per year.

That 100 years gets cut to 46, and at year 47 production goes to ZERO.

This is simplifying it a bit, but it does show how assuming things in the future will be the same as in the past can bite one in the ass, if one does not pay attention to the math.

[RandomGuy]

I was only looking for the "apples to apples" comparison for employees required to O&M the power plant facility itself. No arguement here that if you want to bring in coal's production and transport chains into the equation that number goes up.

Sorry. Just being a bit thorough. The topic interests me, obviously.

[boutons_deux]

Sure, TLC costs of coal is value of land, injuries/deaths from by strip or other mining,
transport to the the generating plant,
the cost/deaths due to methyl mercury and CO2 pollution,
water inputs to the plant,
cost of transporting and storing coal ash.

Coal is only "clean" when the coal industry lies about it. Same with nuclear.

And the same TLC approach should be taken with solar-voltaic and solar-thermal.

[RandomGuy]

Sure, TLC costs of coal is value of land, injuries/deaths from by strip or other mining,
transport to the the generating plant,
the cost/deaths due to methyl mercury and CO2 pollution,
water inputs to the plant,
cost of transporting and storing coal ash.

Coal is only "clean" when the coal industry lies about it. Same with nuclear.

And the same TLC approach should be taken with solar-voltaic and solar-thermal.

Yup. Coal has a LOT of hidden costs. Not the least of which is mercury in seafood. icky.

You also missed the nastiness of the mine trailings.



Given the snits over water going on, I can't see a lot of support for ing up more water tables with this .

[Wild Cobra]

I found the numbers stated by the final commission decision of the project. their calculations are less than my 25% rated. On page 78, they put the 1,000 megawatt plant at 2,100,000 mega-watt hours net annual electricity. That becomes 239.73 megawatts, or just below 24% efficiency. I calculated at 25%. Didn't see too much else useful in that one. Several pieces of material are at:

Solar Millennium Blythe Power Plant Do ents Page

[boutons_deux]

"mercury in seafood."

... very often completely "natural" in the top predators, as mercury ac ulates in all the stuff down the pyramid. eg, tuna from the Mediterranean is often very full of mercury due to the undersea hot springs around Italy's earthquake zone saturated with all kinds of nasty metals.

methyl mercury found in nearly every river and lake and their fish in USA is NOT natural and comes exclusively from coal-fired plants.

[RandomGuy]

I found the numbers stated by the final commission decision of the project. their calculations are less than my 25% rated. On page 78, they put the 1,000 megawatt plant at 2,100,000 mega-watt hours net annual electricity. That becomes 239.73 megawatts, or just below 24% efficiency. I calculated at 25%. Didn't see too much else useful in that one. Several pieces of material are at:

Solar Millennium Blythe Power Plant Do ents Page

I also found the information on pg 89. Nifty.

You made a mistake there as well, actually.

You divided the generating capacity by 24hrs of operation to get your figure.

A better baseline generation capacity would be to divide that by 12, or essentially multiply that by two for 479 Mw average peak production.

This kind of project would simply provide additional peak production, with production ing at the time of peak demand. It would, in essence, displace natural gas generating capacity.

Using that metric it is best to compare costs/alternatives for this type of power plant with that form of power generation.