Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News

According to the New York Times:
The world appears to be on the verge of a boom in a little-known but promising type of solar power.

This type involves covering acres of desert with mirrors that focus intense sunlight on a fluid, heating it enough to make steam. The steam turns a turbine and generates electricity.

The technology is not new, but it is suddenly in high demand. [The viability was established in the 1980s, when developers in California built a series of plants in the Mojave Desert, eventually reaching 354 megawatts of capacity. The ... plants grew more sophisticated and costs shrank.... But then the price of a natural gas collapsed in the 1990s and building new solar plants became uneconomic.]
..
After a decade of no activity, two prototype solar thermal plants were recently opened in the United States, with a capacity that could power several big hotels, neon included, on the Las Vegas Strip, about 20 miles north of here. Another 10 power plants are in advanced planning in California, Arizona and Nevada.

On sunny afternoons, those 10 plants would produce as much electricity as three nuclear reactors, but they can be built in as little as two years, compared with a decade or longer for a nuclear plant. Some of the new plants will feature systems that allow them to store heat and generate electricity for hours after sunset.
...
Eight plants are under construction in Spain, Algeria and Morocco. Another nine projects are in various stages of planning in those countries as well as Israel, Mexico, China, South Africa and Egypt....

Experts say that solar thermal plants could meet most of the galloping growth in power demand in ...[the southwestern United States. Some say that such plants could] power the entire United States. But that is a far-off dream, since it would require big new transmission cables.
...
The power they produce is still relatively expensive at a cost per kilowatt- hour of 15 to 20 cents. With a little more experience and some economies of scale, that could fall to about 10 cents, according to a recent report by Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Newly built coal-fired plants are expected to produce power at about 7 cents per kilowatt-hour or more if carbon is taxed.

The solar plants receive a federal tax subsidy...

Solar plants do tend to produce peak power during the hottest part of the day, when demand is highest and electricity is costly.
...
[Aside from cost, desert biodiversity and lack of power lines represent obstacles to proliferation.]

By Matthew L. Wald

The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/business/06solar.html?em&ex=1205038800&en=2d73a651a7216de1&ei=5087%0A
Marh 6, 2008