US approves world's biggest solar energy project

[RandomGuy]

Then their output will suffer [since they only have, according to my estimate, 280 employees for maintenance, when I my previous calculations say they need 2,000+]

"their output will suffer"?

You really want to go there?

Their output will suffer because they disagree with your estimate as to how much labor is required?

They do this for a living and the en ies building it have revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars per year.

I take it you have extensive experience at managing parabolic solar power stations to be able to place your judgment over theirs?

[RandomGuy]

[It] 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.

Of course my response here does not reflect reality.

Reality is that as the cheaper sources of natural gas are used up, what is left gets progressively harder to get at. This leads such things to have the same bell-shaped production curve as oil.

In the above scenario, you would not be able to increase production 3% every year, and you really would get much more than 47 years out of it, and that is precisely the point I keep making.

Long before you get to ultimate exhaustion, you will get a massive run up in price simply due to supply/demand imbalances, as you get to the tail end of that production curve. One saving grace that allows for a more "plateau'ed" curve is technology that allows greater production over time, but that can only do so much to delay the inevitable.

If you go back to the California exchange report, they spend a great deal of time talking about natural gas prices, which ed in 2009 at prices 3 times above normal for a few months, mirroring recent es in oil and coal.

[Wild Cobra]

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.

Actually, the 1000 megawatts is the peak capacity, at high noon and a clear sky. What I did was divide the annual 2,100,000 megawatts by 265 days then by 24 hrs.

The parabolics are fixed in that they will only point south. The do point up or down to stay aligned to the sun however. They will point up higher in tghe summer, and close to the horizon in the winter. They will get maximum solar power near noon. 50% power 60 degrees away, or about 8 AM and 4 PM.