In June, the OpenSolar team embarked on a road trip across the southwestern United States along fabled Route 66. The route takes you through the epicenter of solar thermal power plants in the Mojave desert region, including the original SEGS plants at Kramer Junction, Harper Lake and Daggett.
Central station solar thermal is hot these days and there are gigawatts of Mojave desert solar projects signed up and currently under development. But the SEGS plants at Kramer Junction and Harper Lake are still "collectively known as the world's largest solar site with a generating capability of 310 megawatts".
The nine original plants were built by solar power pioneer LUZ from 1984-1991 and "have generated more than 11,000 gigawatt-hours and produced more than 1.7 billion dollars of revenue over the past 22 years." The plants remain profitable today but the business climate for solar in the US has not always been so kind. Luz filed for bankruptcy in 1991.
Florida based FPL Energy currently operates the plants and offers public tours once a week. Drop in unannounced though and you'll have to get creative if you want to see much. Meanwhile, Luz has re-emerged from the dead as Luz 2 - aka Brightsource Energy and are currently developing a bigger and better concentrated solar thermal plant nearby.
For the solar enthusiast, visiting these original SEGS plants feels like a religious pilgrimage. The plants are quiet, clean and beautiful. This is Erin Brockovich country so the abandoned, arid desert conditions are a little creepy, but seeing these solar power plants in person is inspiring. You will be astounded by how much solar potential we have in the southwest United States. Some argue that the large footprint of a solar power plant makes it inefficient in terms of land usage, but the reality is that there is NOTHING here. It's an endless, barren land that few organisms can survive in amidst the harsh climate.
Covering the entire Mojave desert region with massive solar plants would be a boon to the dismal local desert economy and would establish the United States as the world leader of solar power. It could ultimately help save the rest of us from ourselves, but if the licensing history of SEGS (3-7,8,9-10,11-12), or recently proposed initiatives to stop solar development in the Mojave are any indication - we may end up spinning our wheels into oblivion.
With so much at stake, well meaning citizens and politicians in the southwestern United States need to take a hard look at themselves and their own hypocrisy. Is saving a few desert tortoises or "keeping Route 66 looking like it did in the 1930s" really worth the millions of casualties and displaced people around the world that we are sure to encounter if we don't act soon to address global climate change?
Central station solar thermal is hot these days and there are gigawatts of Mojave desert solar projects signed up and currently under development. But the SEGS plants at Kramer Junction and Harper Lake are still "collectively known as the world's largest solar site with a generating capability of 310 megawatts".
The nine original plants were built by solar power pioneer LUZ from 1984-1991 and "have generated more than 11,000 gigawatt-hours and produced more than 1.7 billion dollars of revenue over the past 22 years." The plants remain profitable today but the business climate for solar in the US has not always been so kind. Luz filed for bankruptcy in 1991.
Florida based FPL Energy currently operates the plants and offers public tours once a week. Drop in unannounced though and you'll have to get creative if you want to see much. Meanwhile, Luz has re-emerged from the dead as Luz 2 - aka Brightsource Energy and are currently developing a bigger and better concentrated solar thermal plant nearby.
For the solar enthusiast, visiting these original SEGS plants feels like a religious pilgrimage. The plants are quiet, clean and beautiful. This is Erin Brockovich country so the abandoned, arid desert conditions are a little creepy, but seeing these solar power plants in person is inspiring. You will be astounded by how much solar potential we have in the southwest United States. Some argue that the large footprint of a solar power plant makes it inefficient in terms of land usage, but the reality is that there is NOTHING here. It's an endless, barren land that few organisms can survive in amidst the harsh climate.
Covering the entire Mojave desert region with massive solar plants would be a boon to the dismal local desert economy and would establish the United States as the world leader of solar power. It could ultimately help save the rest of us from ourselves, but if the licensing history of SEGS (3-7,8,9-10,11-12), or recently proposed initiatives to stop solar development in the Mojave are any indication - we may end up spinning our wheels into oblivion.
With so much at stake, well meaning citizens and politicians in the southwestern United States need to take a hard look at themselves and their own hypocrisy. Is saving a few desert tortoises or "keeping Route 66 looking like it did in the 1930s" really worth the millions of casualties and displaced people around the world that we are sure to encounter if we don't act soon to address global climate change?
