11 thoughts on “Ivanpah”

1. Good riddance indeed!

2. But but but wait!. They’re replacing a reliable natural gas fired plant @night for unreliable PV solar that will also be affected by clouds and desert sands?

   Maybe they’d be netter off with the natural gas fired bird incinerator. Or better yet convert to 100% natural gas and ditch the mirrors! If you still need “streamers” might I suggest high powered infrared CO2 lasers? Put that horrible deadly gas to use!

3. Back in the day I was flying into Vegas regularly for work, and those stupid heliostats could be seen 50+ miles away, if the sun was out. And in monsoon season, the Sun often wasn’t out, so they weren’t making much energy. Glad this boondoggle is going away.

4. Another child of that loan guarantee program that produced Solyndra.

   But the question remains: Who’s going to pay for this transition? The same taxpayers who funded this failed experiment in the first place? That part hasn’t been answered, but if history is any guide, the bill will find its way to the public. Socal Edison is begging the Department of Energy to buy them out. The same DoE that wasted money funding this boondoggle in the first place.

   The loan is guaranteed by the federal government so taxpayers will be on the hook for what remains of the loan. Past that, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up on a future episode of Mysteries of the Abandoned. They can hire someone to go through and shatter the mirrors, but it’s no conernoff any of the parties involved if it’s a pile of broken glass in five years.

5. Ivanpah sounds like where Ivanhoe lives.

   1. Or a reference to Ivanhoe’s father.

6. Before they dismantle it, they should run some experiments. I can think of a great many.

   Get some target drones from USAF Air Targets Command, fly them at 60,000 feet over the plant, and see if you can shoot them down. Everything from F-4 Phantoms to C-141 transports could be tested. Then run some beamed power experiments. from Earth to space. See if it will drive a solar sail rapidly, or greatly increase the output of satellite solar panels. Too good to waste!

   1. When I was 12, I performed a great many high relative altitude experiments on clear, sunny days with a magnifying glass and ants. The issue, as discovered, was dwell time.

   2. Alas, all the flyable F4 airframes have been blown up and are in the Gulf of America. On the bottom.

      And I think the -141s were converted to Bud Light cans.

7. Huh. I didn’t know the place existed. When I saw pictures, I thought it was the place outside of Barstow, but that seems to be long gone now. Guess they needed more publicity. 🙂

8. Speaking of experimental art. My friend Ric Werme posted on Watts Up With That an article on how Ivanpah could be converted to Christo like purposes on moonlit nights! Here for example, a tribute to Apollo’s Margaret Hamilton.

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