First Hyrbid Solar Thermal Power Plant In Florida!!

[Vox]

So FPL spent $476 M to save $178 M over 30 years.

My ass. Do you know what it means to not burn carbon and sell free energy from the sun for most of the year? It adds up to more than that pal. They'll probably have that plant paid off in five years. Imagine selling donuts and having to pay the overhead to truck in flour, sugar, salt, confections etc., energy for the ovens, the deep fryer, the lights in the display case and selling donuts to make a living. Then one day someone comes in and designs a system for you that costs maybe $10,000 [in relative terms to the outlay for the solar thermal plant] that will save you having to buy all those things in overhead to provide your customers with donuts. That's what this plant is. You sell your donuts at the same price but after that new machine is paid off in a couple of years, five maybe tops, you are selling your wares at an ungodly profit margin.

That's what's happened in Florida. They got a machine that provides free boiling water: which is the same as free energy. It's an embarassingly simple technology long known of but suppressed because boiling water with deadly radiation or polluting carbon was a much more tricky endeavor...and therefore..easier to monopolize..

and what is the problem with burning carbon?

they still burn it - at night

and how is it "free" if the amount spent exceeds any possible saving 3 times?

 

[Silhouette]

If it's a steam-turbine plant, it's worse than that: they have to burn natural gas (to keep steam up) even when the solar power plant is running at full capacity!

They were already buring natural gas to run the plant for years. It was an existing plant that they tacked on solar thermal to augment.

Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

The Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center is the second largest solar facility in the world and the largest solar plant of any kind outside of California. The facility is the first hybrid facility in the world to connect a solar facility to an existing combined-cycle power plant, providing 75 megawatts of solar thermal capacity in an innovative way that directly displaces fossil fuel usage. NREL: Concentrating Solar Power Projects - Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

So your criticism is that attaching solar thermal to existing carbon plants, saving tons and tons of yearly carbon use to produce the same amount of energy is "bad bad bad".

I'm sure the stockholders of that power plant will be sick to their stomachs to learn that their company's overhead just dropped by a truckload and profits therefore, will rise. Oh, boo hoo hoo!...lol..LOL $$$$$$$

 

[Vox]

If it's a steam-turbine plant, it's worse than that: they have to burn natural gas (to keep steam up) even when the solar power plant is running at full capacity!

They were already buring natural gas to run the plant for years. It was an existing plant that they tacked on solar thermal to augment.

Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

The Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center is the second largest solar facility in the world and the largest solar plant of any kind outside of California. The facility is the first hybrid facility in the world to connect a solar facility to an existing combined-cycle power plant, providing 75 megawatts of solar thermal capacity in an innovative way that directly displaces fossil fuel usage. NREL: Concentrating Solar Power Projects - Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

So your criticism is that attaching solar thermal to existing carbon plants, saving tons and tons of yearly carbon use to produce the same amount of energy is "bad bad bad".

I'm sure the stockholders of that power plant will be sick to their stomachs to learn that their company's overhead just dropped by a truckload and profits therefore, will rise. Oh, boo hoo hoo!...lol..LOL $$$$$$$

it is EXTREMELY bad if it is a waste of money.

repeating the question - what's your obsession with burning carbon?

brainwashed much into AGW?

 

[whitehall]

Five hundred freaking acres to produce insignificant energy? How do they get away with this stuff? You could put more than ten thousand people to work on the Keystone Pipeline if that's what you were worried about. Notice that the hype centers around how much fossil fuel it is alleged to "save" rather than how much actual energy it produces?

 

[Jarlaxle]

If it's a steam-turbine plant, it's worse than that: they have to burn natural gas (to keep steam up) even when the solar power plant is running at full capacity!

They were already buring natural gas to run the plant for years. It was an existing plant that they tacked on solar thermal to augment.

Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

The Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center is the second largest solar facility in the world and the largest solar plant of any kind outside of California. The facility is the first hybrid facility in the world to connect a solar facility to an existing combined-cycle power plant, providing 75 megawatts of solar thermal capacity in an innovative way that directly displaces fossil fuel usage. NREL: Concentrating Solar Power Projects - Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center

So your criticism is that attaching solar thermal to existing carbon plants, saving tons and tons of yearly carbon use to produce the same amount of energy is "bad bad bad".

I'm sure the stockholders of that power plant will be sick to their stomachs to learn that their company's overhead just dropped by a truckload and profits therefore, will rise. Oh, boo hoo hoo!...lol..LOL $$$$$$$

Dammit, Silly, read what I actually posted! My point (which you deliberately ignored) is that the existing gas-burning power plant has to be kept running EVEN WHEN THE SOLAR PLANT IS PRODUCING FULL POWER! Steam must be kept up to keep the plant ready to power up quickly, because restarting a cold plant can take hours (or days).

 

[Jarlaxle]

Five hundred freaking acres to produce insignificant energy? How do they get away with this stuff? You could put more than ten thousand people to work on the Keystone Pipeline if that's what you were worried about. Notice that the hype centers around how much fossil fuel it is alleged to "save" rather than how much actual energy it produces?

I wonder whose brother got the contract to build it............

 

[Silhouette]

it is EXTREMELY bad if it is a waste of money.

repeating the question - what's your obsession with burning carbon?

brainwashed much into AGW?

Yeah, not burning carbon for most of the year and getting free steam energy from concentrated mirrors from the sun, while charging the same price as if your overhead was still high just has to add up to losing money, right?..lol...

It's EXTREMELY bad to not know how to do basic math. What's your obsession with burning carbon? Do you have a recessive cave man gene that requires smudge and black soot from a camp fire in order to produce energy?

 

[Politico]

Yay now they can still jack everyone on their bills and make more profit

 

[Decus]

The nuclear power plant on Hutchison Island (St. Lucie Power Plant) provides enough electricity to power some 1 million homes and runs 24/7 on a single fuel source versus the Martin Solar Energy Center ability to power 11,000 homes.

If the Martin Solar Energy Center were to equal the the energy output based on their present levels of energy production, they would have to build approximately 90 Solar Energy Centers. 90 x $476 million = approximately $43 billion dollars. A $43 billion investment for the equivalent power production of just 1 nuclear power plant does not make sense.

Disadvantages of Martin Solar Energy Center:
- Produces carbon
- Large land area required to meet production needs
- Very expensive

The economics are interesting:
Economics of nuclear power plants - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If carbon-free electricity generation is really the objective than the Martin Solar Energy Center is not the solution.

 

[Silhouette]

Nobody complained about Martin Solar when it was Martin natural gas...lol... Suddenly you have a problem with that power plant's output when it matches the one it always had from gas?

Nuclear? Really? Would you like me to start posting Fukushima updates again? One core meltdown can ruin your whole...240,000 years and your country's food and drinking water supply forever. Children of Chernobyl? Is it time to dig those photos out again? I mean, I can if you want...

Yay now they can still jack everyone on their bills and make more profit

So? People pay what they paid before. You think all of a sudden people will sit up and start complaining that the energy they consume at the same rate they're used to is less harmful to our atmosphere now?

What strange spinning y'all are involved in. Just give up the horse and buggy already. It's a new century and new innovations mean new sources of money. Do they always have to necessarily be destructive to the environment? It's like a cult with you guys; the cult of soot, sludge and destruction. It's the oddest thing...

 

[Silhouette]

Here's more on the "horrible financial demise" of installing a solar thermal augment to your existing carbon plant:

FPL’s new solar plant in Martin County will be doing more than producing clean energy from the sun for customers – it will also help directly create local jobs for years to come.

FPL’s Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center will create substantial tax revenue for Martin County. In order to make the most of the extra funds, the Martin County Board of County Commissioners will use up to 50 percent of the funds to directly fund a new Job Creation Toolkit, designed to support future business growth and jobs in the area.

"We are the Sunshine State," Commissioner Doug Smith said. "The sun is transitioning into a huge amount of revenue – we got dollars from a bunch of mirrors harnessing the power of the sun. We are now taking sun and turning it into job creation. What an amazing sustainable source this sun gives us."

Learn more about the Toolkit on the Business Development Board of Martin County’s website. Martin County Solar

Yes, just a terrible calamity, installing mirrors to cook some oil in a tube that heat-transfers to boiling water turbines..terrible...especially in sunny places where you can rely on that lowered overhead for about 300 days a year. Just terrible, horrible, wasteful idea..

..lol..

 

[hazlnut]

And the first major hurricane here will wipe those solar panels out in one fell swoop.

Yeah, they never thought of that.

Darn, wish they had you.

Best just stick with the oil drilling rigs in the ocean, they never have problems.

 

[Vox]

it is EXTREMELY bad if it is a waste of money.

repeating the question - what's your obsession with burning carbon?

brainwashed much into AGW?

Yeah, not burning carbon for most of the year and getting free steam energy from concentrated mirrors from the sun, while charging the same price as if your overhead was still high just has to add up to losing money, right?..lol...

It's EXTREMELY bad to not know how to do basic math. What's your obsession with burning carbon? Do you have a recessive cave man gene that requires smudge and black soot from a camp fire in order to produce energy?

It is YOU who have obsession with carbon - that was your point in considering this plant's major advantages - will burn less carbon - why on earth is this good? are you brainwashed much with AGW?

I have nothing against solar - if it is COST EFFICIENT, which this one is NOT - and therefore it is extremely BAD and will fail.

What IS cost efficient and what is the best from ecology standpoint is nuclear power, and so far nothing has surpassed it.

 

[Silhouette]

It is YOU who have obsession with carbon - that was your point in considering this plant's major advantages - will burn less carbon - why on earth is this good? are you brainwashed much with AGW?

I have nothing against solar - if it is COST EFFICIENT, which this one is NOT - and therefore it is extremely BAD and will fail.

What IS cost efficient and what is the best from ecology standpoint is nuclear power, and so far nothing has surpassed it.

Someone sounds a little grumpy that stockholders of Martin Solar will be making more money from not having to pay for fuel to burn most of the year. Just adjust your investment portfolio bro instead of expecting the world's atmosphere to take a nose dive because you're too lazy to sell and rebuy in another progressive trade with a brighter future in dividends.

Your stupid cannot be the world's responsibility.

I was "brainwashed" in college chemistry. I know what happens to carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and methanes associated with burning carbons when they mix in the atmosphere, the dynamics of specific heat and the blanket properties of gases that trap heat in the upper atmosphere that normally would escape.

Plus, on a vacation this year I noticed that the Ocean that used to sit way way off shore at my favorite beaches is now lapping at the ramparts along the board walk at high tide. A large stretch of highway that used to be high and dry now sits snugly up against the lapping high tide just ready to breach the levees.

You don't need an advanced degree to see the ocean encroaching closer and closer and closer...

 

[Decus]

Nobody complained about Martin Solar when it was Martin natural gas...lol... Suddenly you have a problem with that power plant's output when it matches the one it always had from gas?

Nuclear? Really? Would you like me to start posting Fukushima updates again? One core meltdown can ruin your whole...240,000 years and your country's food and drinking water supply forever. Children of Chernobyl? Is it time to dig those photos out again? I mean, I can if you want...

Yay now they can still jack everyone on their bills and make more profit

So? People pay what they paid before. You think all of a sudden people will sit up and start complaining that the energy they consume at the same rate they're used to is less harmful to our atmosphere now?

What strange spinning y'all are involved in. Just give up the horse and buggy already. It's a new century and new innovations mean new sources of money. Do they always have to necessarily be destructive to the environment? It's like a cult with you guys; the cult of soot, sludge and destruction. It's the oddest thing...

You must not be in the group of scientists concerned about carbon dioxide and global warming. Fukushima is an older Generation II design, and improvements are continually being made - google Generation III plants if in doubt.

Here is part of an open letter released by a group of energy and climate scientists back in November 2013:


"As climate and energy scientists concerned with global climate change, we are writing to urge you to advocate the development and deployment of safer nuclear energy systems. We appreciate your organization's concern about global warming, and your advocacy of renewable energy. But continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change."

Top climate change scientists issue open letter to policy influencers - CNN.com

"The point being that Fukushima went through absolutely the worst natural disaster that the world could throw at a nuclear plant: and yes, that plant was wrecked but wrecking the plant hasn’t killed anyone and won’t do. The amazing thing about nuclear power is not how dangerous it is but how safe it is. And given that we do indeed need to have some power if we’re to keep this civilisation thing on the road, given that renewables simply cannot scale up in time, we’re going to have to replace some of our fossil fuel fired generating capacity with more nuclear. Which is exactly what Hansen et al are pointing out."

Despite Fukushima Nuclear Power Really Is The Only Way To Beat Climate Change - Forbes


If it's good enough for the climate scientists, than nuclear deserves serious consideration.

 

[Silhouette]

If it's good enough for the climate scientists, than nuclear deserves serious consideration.

The risks, permitting process , waste processing and monitoring for 200,000 years [how many societies in your history class lasted that long intact enough to monitor nuclear waste continuously?] and unspoken costs of nuclear make the endeavor a loss for any country who is foolish enough to substitute radioactive plutonium/uranium to boil water instead of just using the sun with a carbon backup like Martin solar.

*sigh* I didn't want to do this but here we go. It's all so depressing to boil water this way..:

Fun fact, the exclusion zone around Chernobyl where no person is allowed to go or at least not live is larger than the country of Japan. Fukushima was many times more deadly and disasterous than Chernobyl. Notably, Russia quickly evacuated all towns within the exclusion zone immediately upon the disaster. Japan still tells residents of Tokyo that everything is just fine.

It isn't. And it will never be, forever. Don't EVER bring up nuclear water boilers again. They are a dead proposition.

 

[Vox]

Fun fact, the exclusion zone around Chernobyl where no person is allowed to go or at least not live is larger than the country of Japan.

are you an idiot or you have no idea about basics in geography?

Japan's territory is 377,923.1 km2

The Exclusion Zone covers an area of approximately 2,600 km2

are you really THAT stupid?

 

[Decus]

Don't EVER bring up nuclear water boilers again. They are a dead proposition.

Sounds like you really should fire off an angry letter to the climate and energy scientists who are advocating nuclear.

Seriously - if you are going to sound off on solar and "environmentally friendly" solutions you will have to face a disturbing reality:

"The letter admits "today's nuclear plants are far from perfect." However, "... there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.""

Environmental scientists tout nuclear power to avert climate change - CNN.com

 

[hazlnut]

I know they're mirrors. It doesn't make a difference. How long can they be effective in the harsh sun, wind, and salt air?

They didn't think of that either??

What's with these scientists, they're as dumb as Tea Partiers.

 

[Spiderman]

500 acres to power 11000 homes?

One small molten salt reactor buried underground in a footprint smaller than a football field would power more than twice that many homes.