Renewable resources are great if done correctly. Kinda hard to extract fossil fuels correctly - it's inherently a dirty job.
This place was not done correctly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah...Power_Facility
Quote:
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the California Mojave Desert, 64 km (40 miles) southwest of Las Vegas, with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW).[5] It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors, focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar power towers.[5] Unit 1 of the project was connected to the grid in September 2013 in an initial sync testing.[6] The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014,[1] and it is currently the world's largest solar thermal power station.[7][8]
The project was developed by BrightSource Energy and Bechtel.[9] It cost $2.2 billion; the largest investor in the project is NRG Energy, a power generating company based in Princeton, New Jersey, that has contributed $300 million. Google has contributed $168 million.[10] In 2010, the project was scaled back from the original 440-megawatt (590,050 hp) design, to avoid building on the habitat of the desert tortoise.[11]
In November 2014, Associated Press reported that the plant was producing only "about half of its expected annual output". The California Energy Commission issued a statement blaming this on "clouds, jet contrails and weather".[12]
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I'm not sure why they didn't just build a traditional solar panel farm instead of a solar thermal plant. At a cost of $2.2 billion no less.
More along the lines of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_E...rating_Systems
Don't get me started on that stupid desert tortoise either.