Re: OT Gas Prices and the Blame Game

On Wed, 21 May 2008 10:27:29 -0700, Jim Thompson
<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 21 May 2008 10:17:29 -0700 (PDT), mpm <mpmillard@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

On May 21, 11:16?am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 20 May 2008 20:20:40 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 20 May 2008 11:31:56 -0700, Jim Thompson
<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]
Well! ?Well! ?Well!

I sent an E-mail to APS asking about the Saguaro Solar Trough.

Didn't really expect a response but...

I just got a call from an APS engineer, about my age, got his nuclear
experience in the Navy, has built gas-fired steam plants, and is now
involved is solar heat-exchanger and solar steam plants.

He referred me to this...

http://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/tec_ccp.jsp

Abengoa has built a plant here in AZ that APS will be buying power
from... 3?/kWh.
I've been seeing references to costs more like 17-20 cents.

The APS engineer, who was _very_ straight forward, as soon as he
realized I was an engineer (and I got all kinds of structural
details), asserted that APS would be _buying_from_ Abengoa for 3?/kWh.

It may be what APS are paying Abengoa for the electricity, but someone
somewhere must be making up the difference. The lowest real world price
I have seen quoted by the optimists for 2015 is around 0.04Euro or US
6c/kWh. That's twice the number you have just quoted. Smells fishy...



So, High Horse Larkin, show me your references ;-)

I'd like to believe they have the engineering solved for 3 c/kWh, but
looking at proponents of low cost thermal solar power websites I have
only found numbers for existing solar plants even higher than John's. eg

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=51889

Which gives $0.2-0.3 /kWh as a rough guide.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No, that number is too high.
Even the Arusa project for California is projected at just slighly
higher than $0.09/kwh in 2010 when the plant is completed. And for
you numbers, traditional forms of energy are likely to be inflated by
the time we get to 2015.

Like I said, we (United States) should start building these solar-
thermal plants immediately.
The US Government should secure a couple hundred square miles of the
best desert land and make it happen.

Even if the US threw $1 Trillion dollars at this - what % of GDP is
that? - , if it solved our dependency on foreign energy, we'd be much,
much better off. (We spent about that on the war with Iraq, for
comparison.)

So Jim, maybe now is the time to start buying up some bigger chunks of
Arizona??

-mpm

Arizona is virtually all Federal lands.

...Jim Thompson

Except for those parts that are indian reservations. Plus it is tough
to do stuff in national parks.

.

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