Comments on: Air Force Puts the Brakes on Solar Project

By: J

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:02:56 +0000

Old news indeed.
Some history.
In the 1960s there was the nuclear rocket and nuclear aircraft engine programs. That had a reactor that could fly a playne that was the size of a 55g drum. The engines were about the size of a small jet engine today. The work was done by Sandia and the likes of the lab troika — LASL, LLL, and Sandia. They built a facility right next to Mercury behind the NTS gate of Highway 95 from Remo to Vehas. $600,000,000 or thereabouts. They had dormitories, labs, offices, you name it.
All was mothballed in the early 70s — brand new. The engines were hung on hoop stands in the desert to cool for a thousand yers or so — they were very radioactive. You could drive the roads behind Mercury and see them hanging there by the big office buildings.
Sandia took over the site in the late 1970s and but up an alternative energy lab/site/government funded troth. All part of the first alternative energy go around that was killed by Reagan — because oil was cheap and the scaling issues with alternative energy were well known even then.
There were also big towers like the one you talk about further east in Cal-e-fornia — they are old hat too.
What goes around comes around again.
We need thie work now and the salt towers too. Uneless we want to keep paying our “frineds” the Saudis forever … and the Russians … and Hugo Cahvez … and Nigeria …

By: quellish

quellish — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:06:13 +0000

I am surprised no one has mentioned this. “The Box” is Groom Lake, the Air Force’s Special Projects Test Flight Squadron, Detachment 3 AFFTC. The name comes from the box-shaped no-fly area covering it on navigation charts for Red Flag, part of the R-4808 restricted area (it is, in fact, a restricted area inside a restricted area).
No nuke testing, sorry. Just aliens and special projects.

By: The Cenobyte

The Cenobyte — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:30:17 +0000

1) It’s not ready yet: So what we wait doing no work on it until magicly someone comes up with a solution that is good enough for you?
2) It’s to big: the 100 acres it takes up is less total space that is required to run a coal plant, including all of the external infustructure to run that plant.
3) it’s to big: It’s in the middle of the desert. Who cares?
4) it’s to expensive: It’s a private company. Why do you care?
5) it’s to expensive: Turns out they can generate power for around $.07 per kwh. Which is about the same price as other power.
6) Does generate enough power:100mwh is 100,000 kwh. With the average home using about .93kwh(California) thats 100,000+. Or about 1 in 1000 homes in the US.
7) We still have lots of coal: It’s true we do, but anyone that has driven skyline drive in VA knows, coal is not the greatest fuel around.
Listen I know that Solar as it stands now will not fix all our problems. But to just say, well screw it then we shouldn’t even try is just silly. It’s not costing us money, it’s not taking up land that we want, it’s increasing our domestic energy output (Even if only a little), and allows us to try and see what works.
I don’t understand why anyone would be against this unless they have some vested interest in keeping the status quo. It doesn’t hurt anything and might turn out to be just what we need. It’s like refusing to take a bet where if you win you get more money and if you loose you get your money back.

By: Wembley

Wembley — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:35:58 +0000

“rumored to be where the nuke testing goes on“
Nuke testing???!!
That’s a way bigger story than the solar power one. Nuke testing has been banned for years, if the US are doing any, well…

By: Valcan

Valcan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:42:43 +0000

WHAHAHAHAHAHA.. we should build a very bid circle and wait until aliens will came and drive it on! nice joke dude!
Posted by: flying fart proudly joned at June 21, 2009 03:58 AM
———————-
What exactly is so funny or unbelieveable about that?
There was once a man like you saying men would never fly and that theres no reason to try.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:08:33 +0000

Big difference between powering your house on a solar or wind array and powering commerce and heavy industry. Slight issue of scale, which brings us back to the slight issue of location.
As far as the rarity of the location goes, I’m speaking specifically of CONUS. In CONUS, with our sue happy neighbors protecting their precious views and the environmentalists trying to protect every endangered slug and bug, this pretty much is the last viable place to stick such a large plant.
Speaking of scale, You’re building the worlds largest, state of the art array, and you’re still only getting 100MWe out of it. Your covering approximately 100 acres of land, and only getting enough juice to run to run a town that’s barely bigger then the array itself.
Solar is not “Ready right now” its still got a lot of development to go before it can take over any sizeable portion of our energy infrastructure. And by sizeable, I mean something on the order of 5–10 percent, by itself. all alternative energy systems combined only make up 6.8 percent.
Now, if I had the choice of placing solar arrays, I’d try to find some nice places in the middle east, northern Africa, and southern Mexico. I hear that “Equator” location is kind of big on sunshine. And those “lesser developed” nations don’t have near as high an energy demand as CONUS. We could build arrays in those nations now, and wait until the tech is further developed before building arrays in CONUS.
Wind faces the exact same challenges. Massive footprints, pissy neighbors, and all for an abysmally small output of energy.
As far as the “developed world” goes, I think our best hope is probably going to be Fusion. Shame its still almost a hundred years off, and its facing its greatest challenges from a bunch of environmentalists who want to use the money for wind and solar arrays.

By: murc

murc — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:39:18 +0000

flying fart proudly joned — I wasn’t joking smart@ss.
The the provate industry finaly spending money on space, its only a matter of time before what I said will be a reality.

By: Charles

Charles — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:36:38 +0000

Considering it’s for testing, why set it up in the boonies, pay a bunch for infrastructure, only to discover that someone’s pulled the plug and you’re out for billions?
(Apparently the SolarOne project might not be related to SolarReserve’s project at all. And thus the picture displayed may not even be appropriate).

By: The Cenobyte

The Cenobyte — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:04:41 +0000

BTW, this is not the last good place in the country for this plant. There are hundreds of thosands of square miles of good space in the south west alone. There is a good working modle of this type of plant in Spain in a place that the weather conditions would not be much better than if they built it in VA. However this spot (Which if you RTFA you would know) clean, easy (Access to existing power lines), has no enviromental concearns (So they could skip that part), and isn’t in anyones way (even the airforce). So it’s not that it’s the only location, it’s just that it seemed like the easest and best at the moment.
I live in Richmond, VA and get about 95% of my power from PV on my roof. I have about 2 years left until it pays for itself, so don’t tell me you can’t do solar almost anywhere. (Hell they do it on Mars)

By: flying fart proudly joned

flying fart proudly joned — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:58:27 +0000

@murc
we can just seal it in containers until the day (a couple decades) that access to space is much much safer and cheaper—
WHAHAHAHAHAHA.. we should build a very bid circle and wait until aliens will came and drive it on! nice joke dude!