#2 There are a lot of companies involved with this: Solar Reserve and ACS Cobra are two on the finance end. Those companies are, in turn partly owned by various holding companies, hedge funds, legacy asset corporations, etc. The construction is being done by mainline companies. The company got an essentially free easement from the Dept of Interior to use federal land for the site (although there was some cost to prepare the environmental documents and much of that was borne by the solar finance companies).
The project is a big step up from one completed back in the late 90s. That one was a 10MW (peak) plant which demonstrated the technical feasibility of using molten salt to store solar (from mirrors) energy. There have been no scaling problems reported yet but off course the project will not be complete until 2013. The Tonapah plant scales that up to 110 MW (peak). Nevada Energy has agreed (actually been coerced via various renewable/green laws)to buy the electricity from the plant. Although the peak electricity generated will be 110MW, the average will be about 30 MW. The electricity will cost about double or triple what a similar output coal or gas plant would cost depending on assumptions of discount rate, fuel, labor, etc. |
Q: Did the Energy Department give a loan to an energy company connected to Nancy PelosiÂ’s brother-in-law?