India To Build World's Largest Solar Plant 253
ananyo writes "India has pledged to build the world's most powerful solar plant. With a nominal capacity of 4,000 megawatts, comparable to that of four full-size nuclear reactors, the 'ultra mega' project will be more than ten times larger than any other solar project built so far, and it will spread over 77 square kilometres of land — greater than the island of Manhattan. Six state-owned companies have formed a joint venture to execute the project, which they say can be completed in seven years at a projected cost of US$4.4 billion. The proposed location is near Sambhar Salt Lake in the northern state of Rajasthan."
Convenient (Score:2)
When you have State funding and a free pass on environmental regulations.
Re:Convenient (Score:4, Informative)
and the sun is blazing in your land
The way of the future (Score:2)
This is what all the world should be doing if we are going to reduce the effects of global warming and climate change.
Re:The way of the future (Score:4, Insightful)
India has an installed capacity of 234 GW [wikipedia.org]. I'm not sure that adding solar power of less than 2% of that figure counts as a "big step away from fossil fuels". Necessary beginning step, sure. Commendable, arguably. Significant, maybe. Precursor to "big", possibly.
Epic-scale photovoltaic (Score:5, Interesting)
According to TFA, this will be a huge photovoltaic plant. But as I understand it, solar thermal is more efficient, and for a large centralized project like that, I would have expected solar thermal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Does anyone know why they are going photovoltaic for this project?
Photovoltaic certainly does have some pluses: it's simple, no moving parts. But for a project of this capacity I should think they would go for the most efficient solution.
Plus a thermal solution with molton salt [wikipedia.org] would provide a nontrivial amount of storage, for power after dark.
So, what am I missing? Does India have lots of factories making photovoltaic cells or something?
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Good point, especially about storage. That has always been the bugbear of renewables. OTOH, there are new storage technologies coming available in the next couple of years, such as liquid metal batteries, sodium ion batteries, water-moderated compressed air, and probably some others I haven't heard about. But of course there's no mention of any kind of storage in TFA, so who knows if/when/how it will ever be implemented.
Frankly, this project sounds like one of those feel-good boondoggles dreamed up by big g
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You don't need storage if you don't want to store the energy. It is that simple. India surely has about 100 power plants. Now one additional PV plant is added, why and for what purpose would you want to store the energy of one single plant?
Hint: the difference between demand at night and demand and highest peak over the day is a factor of 2.5. A PV plant produces its energy right at the time where it is needed the most, hence unless you want to 'replace' existing plants in a greater schema you don't need an
Re:Epic-scale photovoltaic (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what am I missing? Does India have lots of factories making photovoltaic cells or something?
Why not Solar Thermal? As I understand it...
1. Lack of local companies that make solar thermal equipment (aka CSP or concentrated solar power).
2. Lack of experience with large deployment unlike PV like 50:1 in MW to date (no experience means no reference projects to predict ROI for contracting companies or investment banks)
3. Lack of water resources for cooling (most simple solar thermal needs reliable-access to cooling water to avoid equipment malfunction).
Of course India could deploy a minimal water solar thermal solution (e.g., air cooled or maybe Heller towers), but they have even less experience with that and most government funded programs require a minimum make-local percentage.
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Re:Epic-scale photovoltaic (Score:4, Interesting)
It's cheaper.
There is a glut of photovoltaics on the world market ever since the european countries cut the subsidies. Most notably Spain and, more recently, Germany. Which is responsible for the sudden drop in prices. It is not better technology, despite what the propaganda claims (otherwise solar power companies wouldn't go bankrupt all over Germany).
And yes, solar thermal is more useful on paper. Unfortunately it takes up just as much space as PV and needs lots of water for it cooling towers. However, solar thermal depends on very stable weather patterns. It cannot tolerate cloudy days very well - so you'd best build it in a desert, where cooling water is kind of rare as you can imagine. You'd need 24 million cubic meters of cooling water per year for an equal sized solar-thermal power plant.
What would be needed for PV to work is storage. Hydrogen/methane seems to be the only plausible/scalable solution so far. Unfortunately, even with the best technology we have on the planet, you'll need at least 3kWh electricty to get 1kWh of electricity back out of storage. Thus the average power of the power plant will drop from 800MW down to about 500MW, assuming that at least some part of the power will be used directly. (The amount of storage that is necessary depends on a lot of factors, mostly what power is available from other sources and how variable the weather patterns and seasons are. So 500MW is just a ballpark figure.)
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Germany is a terrible place for solar. Minnesota gets more sun energy per year than Germany
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Nowhere is a terrible place for solar. No matter where you are on earth the panel will pay for itself and more over its lifetime.
To add to this (Score:3)
Here's a graphic example of that:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/08/solar-to-reboot.html
Even what is possibly the coldest place on Earth with a very long dark winter is a good place for solar panels - even if they are just tied vertically to poles!
Here's another:
http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/pn31.jpg
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Half of your post is wrong, as you can either answer to it or moderate it but not both the smarter moderators gave you an "overrated" after some other one gave you a undeserved 'interesting' before.
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A lot of Indian electricity is used for air conditioning, so in that respect, output from a pv solar panel will very closely match demand.
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Yes but it's more capital intensive and more experimental and nobody wants to take the first big step. Photovoltaics are very well established now so it's the "safe" choice.
There's been some solar thermal built recently for preheating steam in a coal fired power station to save on fuel costs but not much else lately.
well that's a shame (Score:3)
However, this is smarter than it seems on the surface. If you lose 60% of your electricity during transport due to crappy, outdated lines and equipment, it's a hell of a lot better if solar was the source. If it was a CO2-emitting source, that's an awful lot worse. If it's the sun, you really didn't lose anything.
I am concerned about their ability to store the electricity for night time or when it's not sunny. Even the US hasn't perfected that one.
Re:well that's a shame (Score:5, Informative)
spider web that got caught in a hurricane.
No kidding [regmedia.co.uk].
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nitpicking, but anyone who has lived in Mumbai for long enough will know that this is not a picture from that city. Mumbai is a little bit more organized.
--- feeling a little defensive because of the picture's name and the fact that i grew up in Mumbai.
I agree with the overall idea, though.
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Starting late has some advantages as well as disadvantages. Being complacent, laughing at others, then watching things burn because cheap 1930s shit is still in service has nothing but disadvantages.
Cost of transmission (Score:2, Troll)
It's not even comparable to a single nuclear plant (Score:4, Informative)
First of all: It will generate less energy than that. Averaged over the year about 800MW. The amount of energy it will generate between 6pm and 6am is roughly zilch. During the short time around noon, when it will generate on the order of 3+GW (depending on weather, season, condition of the solar cells etc.), there will be no industry capable of actually using it, because 2-4 hours of electricity a day is simply not worth the investment. (Before and after this time, the power drops off quickly.) Even 8 hours would be too short, because you'll need 2 or 3 factories working in parallel for 8 hours a day to produce as much as a single factory can in 16 or 24 hours.
Finally wrap your head around the fact that quality of service cannot be compared by using peak power generation.
P.S.: Yes, noon is just the right time to get your air conditioning started, but unfortunately, when it comes to India the question is mostly: What air-conditioning are you talking about?
Re:It's not even comparable to a single nuclear pl (Score:4, Informative)
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You claim that it will produce less energy that stated in the article. Have you seen the blueprints or something? How are you are in a position to know more about it's capacity than the people who designed it?
National Grid and bordering states... (Score:3)
Even 8 hours would be too short, because you'll need 2 or 3 factories working in parallel for 8 hours a day to produce as much as a single factory can in 16 or 24 hours.
India recently announced a National Electricity Grid with southern grid joining, the north, east and west. So its a single grid which is supposed to do all sort of wonders (which I don't know much about, but sounds good anyway.)
Plus Rajasthan borders Delhi and Gujarat...two of the most industrially developed states which will consume any electricity thrown at it, and Madhya Pradesh - one of the backward states - think of Appalachia - where your contention "what air-conditioning in India" rings somewhat tr
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Daytime industrial demand dwarfs everything else.
Faxanadu (Score:2)
Here's how it compares to 4 nuclear plants... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The solar photovoltaic power plant will have an estimated life of 25 years and is expected to supply 6.4 billion kilowatt-hours per year, according to official figures."
For reference, a single 1GWe nuclear plant operating at (a conservative) 0.85 capacity factor will produce 7.45 TW-hours/year of reliable power. So this solar plant isn't the equivalent of one reactor, much less four. Considering that nuclear plants typically last 60 years and AP1000s are near $2/W in China, the solar option costs five times as much over that time frame.
While this solar farm is idle at night and unreliable by day, the transmission infrastructure must be built to handle the full capacity of the equivalent four nuclear plants, and it will sit idle most of the time. The solar option makes no economic sense, when instead they could purchase two actual 1GWe nuclear plants, and have 15 TW-hours/year of reliable power for more than twice as long.
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Hasn't happened yet for a single one let alone "typically". BTW - where are you getting those unlikely projections from? Extraordinary claims require SOMETHING to support them.
Not actually running yet so where are you getting that from?
"For reference" is supposed to mean something more than an estimate. How about something from a plant that is actually operating? There must be a few you can give some numbers on since t
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4GW is the peak output with clear skies at noon. The 6.4 TWh/y is the expected yearly output, as quoted from the article. That yields an anticipated capacity factor of 0.18, after taking into account that the earth rotates and has clouds and such. Wind and solar look great if you compare nameplate capacity and ignore the variability. In reality though, getting useful power out of them is pure fantasy unless you have pumped hydro available nearby, and even then it is not competitive.
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If it is not competitive why are the Saudis (and other gulf states) investing so much money in it? After all, they have cheap oil to burn...
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles... [ibtimes.com]
I think you will find PV would be a hell of a lot more competitive if governments did not subsidise alternatives - nuclear and hydro by indemnifying against disaster, fossil fuels by subsidising infrastructure (and in Australia by exempting them from diesal fuel tax) and not requiring mining companies to rectify sites after they have tr
Doesn't qualify (Score:2)
It just illustrates again (Score:5, Informative)
Now one has its flag on the moon and the other has a moon on its flag.
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Before you knock it consider how close it is to what many of the "libertarians" on this site are asking for.
Re:Not impressed until it hits jiggawatts (Score:4, Insightful)
4,000MW is 4 jiggawatts...
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There was a Back to the Future 4?
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Yes. In the future, there was a Back to the Future 4.
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Its in the future.
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I don't think the power requirement has anything to do with the time.
Re:Good for them.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for them.... (Score:5, Insightful)
30 square miles of unfarmable salt flats, solar is a pretty good use of the space, really. Not to mention jump starting the local solar panel industry something fierce.
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It's hundreds of miles from Pakistan. It's also hundreds of miles south of Kashmir.
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Re:I love numbers but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to nuclear, there's no radioactive waste to dispose of, there's no nuclear proliferation worries and there's no lengthy and costly decommissioning process.
There's also no risk of Fukushima/Chernobyl/Long Island/etc
Projected Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs Are Soaring
The construction cost estimates for new nuclear power plants are very uncertain and have increased significantly in recent years. Companies that are planning new nuclear units are currently indicating that the total costs (including escalation and financing costs) will be in the range of $5,500/kW to $8,100/kW or between $6 billion and $9 billion for each 1,100MW plant.
http://www.synapse-energy.com/... [synapse-energy.com]
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"There's also no risk of Fukushima/Chernobyl/Long Island/etc"
I think you mean Three Mile Island
I don't think there is a nuclear eactor in NYC
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You're probably right. But let's be clear--we definitely don't want another Long Island [bravotv.com].
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Bingo.
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Well, I don't know if it's nuclear in nature, but plenty of people might call Long Island a disaster.
(I kid, I kid)
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Re:I love numbers but.... (Score:4, Interesting)
India already has nuclear weapons, as do Pakistan, so I'm not sure what nuclear proliferation you're talking about.
For most of December, the central European wholesale price of electricity was negative. Yes, that means people paid other people to take their electricity away. This was a direct result of reliance on wind power. This is _not_ a good thing.
The total construction and decommission costs of wind farms and the problems associated with them have not been realised yet. They may well be lower, but until we actually start taking them down and getting rid of the tonnes of concrete and other infrastructure for each turbine, we don't really know.
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LOL WUT?
I mean, I understand how it could be unprofitable for those who paid to build the turbines, but cheap electricity has got to be good for the economy as a whole.
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I mean, I understand how it could be unprofitable for those who paid to build the turbines, but cheap electricity has got to be good for the economy as a whole.
Unless the subsidies encourage people to do otherwise wildly unprofitable stuff. That money has to come from somewhere.
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Yes.
Base load and peak load are different problems to solve. Distribution is another. Lots of PV right on top of where the power is used is worth a lot more at peak times than a distant large thermal power station that has a lot of capacity idling most of the time just so that it has enough to cover the highest peaks.
So many people try to bring it all down to the level of a simplistic "one ring to bind them" pile of bullshit when the reali
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I agree that the peak power will be available only on peak summer on fine days. But disagree that the difference between peak power and average day power will be that much (4000 MW to 700 MW). The location they are talking about is desert with average annual rainfall . I would say 95% days in a year there are full sunshine with almost none or very little cloud. The summer is so hot that if you hang up soaking wet clothes, they will be dry in two hours. So without any data, I am going to venture and say the
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Talking about cost per watt is a bullshit
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4.4 billion for 4GW is $1100/KW, which is about comparable to simple cycle natural gas turbines, IIRC.
But NG is peaking and dispatchable as hell, unlike solar.
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4.4 billion for 4GW is $1100/KW, which is about comparable to simple cycle natural gas turbines, IIRC.
But NG is peaking and dispatchable as hell, unlike solar.
That's a good comparison, but it's not that simple. With each one you have to pay maintenance and operating costs, and with NG that includes the gas itself. With solar, when comparing capacity, the sun doesn't shine 24hrs/day and presumably the stated capacity is maximum and not average. So to compare costs, what's the total cost per GWh over X years?
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How much natural gas is available in India though?
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But NG is peaking and dispatchable as hell, unlike solar.
Or you could combine the two [nytimes.com]
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But NG also requires an ongoing outlay for fuel and a heft amount of maintenance. Maintenance on a photovoltaic installation is modest by comparison.
And that assumes you would want to use NG. India produces natural gas from some offshore deposits, but not near enough to power the country. The United States has produced about 20 * 10^12 ft^3 of natural gas (I apologize for the units) pretty consistently for decades. With widespread fracking,
Obviously more than just capital cost (Score:2)
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77 sqkm=77e+6 sqm
Solar constant [wikipedia.org] approx 1300w/sqm
=>total incident power = approx 1e+11 W.
Declared output 4000MW =4e9 W.
if assume this to be the peak power, the conversion efficiency is 4% - WTH??
if assuming this to be power averaged over an entire daylight period.... mmmm... let's ignore axis titl and assume equatorial position=> (-pi/2, pi/2) Sun's ecliptic travel over daylight. Cosine law integrated over the (-pi/2, pi/2) gives a factor of 2, while the max area (if the sun would be straight on to
Re:I love numbers but.... (Score:4, Funny)
Your assumption is that the panels will be edge-to-edge, covering 100% of that 77 sqkm area. Given that the panels need to tilt for efficiency, and you obviously can't tilt a single 77sqkm panel, there has to be some gap between each independently-tiltable set of panels.
Also, industrial-scale solar collection is usually done using focusing mirrors and liquid sodium, not PV panels
I like that you put forth the effort to do the math though
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Also, TFA says it's a PV installation.
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You leave out a number of critical factors (such as atmospheric absorption including weather, and angle of incidence) reducing that peak 1300 w/m^2 figure. Rather than try to identify them all, as well as errors in the factors you do consider ...
All the data collection and math for solar energy received at ground level, averaged night and day for a year, has already been done [gwu.edu]. The best locations in the continental US (by far) are around El Paso TX, southern NM, large parts of AZ, and some of southern CA. Th
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That's measured out in space. On the ground, under clear skies, normal to the incident rays, it's under 1000 W/m^2. Many things affect the calculations, which don't all fit neatly on the back of an envelope. For one: you can't ignore latitude and assume it's at the equator. Sambhar Salt Lake is located at about 28N, so you are already down to maybe 700 W/m^2 on horizontal ground at noon on a perfectly clear day. Second, the capture and conversion efficiency of most pane
assumes forcefully taking your paycheck is free (Score:2, Flamebait)
> Is 4.4 billion cost effective? Is there subsidies that make it cost effective?
Subsidies would come from whom? The taxpayers, right? The underlying assumption there is "perhaps it's not cost effective, except that forcefully taking someone's paycheck has no cost, so any tax money used is magical free money that can turn a bad idea into a good idea".
If it's not cost effective, it's not, period. Forcefully taking the citizens paychecks to pay for it, aka subsidy, does not magically make it cost effect
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Well Bruce Nuclear [wikipedia.org] which is one of the largest power generating sites in the world cost 14.4B, and has a generating capacity of ~6300MW. Most of which is sold to the US. So I guess it depends on what you define as cost effective, since the reactors have long since recouped their cost since '77.
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The Bruce station area is also the site of OPG's Western Waste Management Facility (WWMF). The WWMF stores all the low and intermediate level nuclear waste from the operation of OPG's 20 nuclear reactors, including those leased to Bruce Power. As of 2009, there are 11 Low level storage buildings.
That would be "no."
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Now add the cost of decommissioning the plant and the ongoing cost of fuel. Then the cost of storing the waste fuel for longer than civilization has existed...
That plant chews through 500 tons of fuel a year.
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I would also be prepared to bet that it is indemnified from compensation if something nasty where to happen. So add in the cost of insurance as well if you want to do a fair comparison.
Re: I love numbers but.... (Score:2)
If it is a no brainer, go start a company and make a billion dollars! No....?
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I just love the thought process you betrayed there. Don't worry you are not alone - most of the world is right there with you.
Because of course the ONLY reason you would do ANYTHING is because it is profitable right?
If you do anything that is not profitable for some private company it is branded socialist and thrown out....
We are doomed...
Re:77 sq kilos seems like a lot, but it isn't so b (Score:5, Funny)
Re:77 sq kilos seems like a lot, but it isn't so b (Score:4, Funny)
Re: 77 sq kilos seems like a lot, but it isn't so (Score:4, Informative)
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Quite well in the middle of a desert.
Paranoid Anxiety Neurosis: (Score:2)
So... Do you still lie awake at night hiding under the covers because of all the "Space Nutters" plotting against you?
Oh no! There may be one under your bed RIGHT NOW!
Re:Weather Forecast (Score:4, Informative)
Rajastan is the Arizona of India with its Thar desert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Plenty of sunshine. Not cloudy at all. Not enough power infrastructure. Cheap, non-arable land.
Solar is a no-brainer for Rajastan.
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They have robots for this now:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/e... [nikkeibp.co.jp]
It's basically a Roomba for solar panels
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The bit where the summary of the old discussion says the US military are hoping to increase efficiency from 20% to 50% ?
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Here's a clue for the clueless. Despite urban myth nonsense about US oil companies suppressing more efficient car engines and the like, if there was ANY possible real benefit to a giant solar plant, the USA would be there first. When the usual suspects have no interest in this form of engineering, you can take it for granted that it is junk science.
So no, you aren't giving a counterexample.
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... if there was ANY possible real benefit to a giant solar plant, the USA would be there first. When the usual suspects have no interest in this form of engineering, you can take it for granted that it is junk science.
The US is behind the world in a number of areas, high-speed internet being the first that comes to mind. That said, the US has multiple large solar power plants, including, but not limited to, Avenal, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada Solar One, Ivanpah, Solana, and multiple SEGS. There are multiple ones under construction, and many more planned. Most are thermal, not PV, and they are not as large as the proposed one, but solar plants make a great deal of sense in the right location (say, Arizona or Nevada
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They are installing these panels on salt flats. It's not really a waste of space if you can't use the area for anything else.
As for using the "reactor" in space: we don't have to worry about it blowing up (technically, it's already exploding), we don't have to worry about it leaking out into the environment, we don't have spend effort to maintain the reaction in any way, and we don't have to deal with the spent fuel.
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Because no one has demonstrated a commercially viable fusion reactor yet? Good enough reason?
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East to west is pretty damn good providing you with a moving peak. Not having centralized power grids is bad when the local power station drops out completely. Not having centralized power grids is bad when you have to burn crappy brown coal or oil and there's cheap hydro just off your grid.
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You know for all of the SI-wits on this site, you think they would at least take advantage of it...
4,000 megawatts == 4 gigawatts.
There, doesn't that convey the same value, but with 4 less characters needed?
If you're going to beat everyone over their heads with it, at least use the FUCKING thing..or does 4,000 of something sound much more impressive than 4 of something?
Injits.
Or they could have claimed it was...4 million kilowatts.
Even more impressive: 5,361,930 HP!