Comments about ‘Official flips switch on solar plant near Vegas’

I can think of no better use for the state of Nevada than to turn it all into one big solar collector... buwahahaha!

Western Utah between I-15 and the Nevada state line could be put to similar productive use.

It is exciting to see the albeit slow move to a sustainable non carbon ecconomy. There are other plants including the Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) located at Daggett which is up and running. The Solana Generating Station is a 280 MW solar power plant which is under construction near Phoenix, Arizona and Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, in the Mojave Desert, is the world’s largest solar thermal power plant project currently under construction.

Heavenly Father gave us stewardship over this planet to care for it not just exploit it for our needs without caring for the needs of future generations.

These projects are great, but please they are not base load plants, which they can not replace and their price per kilowatt is more than 3x that of carbon based power. Another example of the Obama administration's forced effort to establish an industry that is not yet ready for prime time.

A square mile solar array produces 50 Megawatts, while one coal- or gas-fired power plant produces 1100 Megawatts. Do the math -- it would take 22 square miles of solar arrays to equal ONE gas-fired plant. Solar power costs the consumer something like 10x more, and it requires a traditional power plant at night anyway. The manufacturing process for solar panels produces toxic by-products including Cadmium, and the panel material is toxic. Solar power is only economical in the desert southwest (not in northern Utah) because of the sunshine.

Now try to explain how solar power is a good idea.