A small fire was reported yesterday morning at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in California, forcing a temporary shutdown of the facility. It’s now running at a third of its capacity (a second tower is down due to scheduled maintenance), and it’s not immediately clear when the damaged tower will restart. It’s also unclear how the incident will impact California’s electricity supply.
Putting out the blaze was not easy task, either. Firefighters were forced to climb 300 feet up a boiler tower to get to the scene. Officials said the fire was located about two-thirds up the tower. Workers at the plant actually managed to subdue the flames by the time firefighters reached the spot, and it was officially extinguished about 20 minutes after it started.
Located on 4,000 acres of public land in the Mojave Desert, the sprawling concentrated solar thermal plant is equipped with 173,500 heliostats—each with two mirrors—that focus sunlight on boilers located on top of three 459-foot towers. The tremendous heat created by the concentrated solar power produces steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. The plant, the largest of its kind in the world, features a gross capacity of 392 megawatts, enough to power 140,000 homes. Each of the computer-controlled solar-reflecting mirrors is about the size of a garage door.
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4 comments:
inconvenient facts missing from article - Ivanpah is owned by GOOGLE who received FEDERAL FUNDS for this project!
most of everything is owned by google you moron... Hell if you did the research you would see that most of the worlds, companies, yes the worlds companies are all owned by 11 corporations which is owned by some of the worlds reserve banks... But instead you people will just say something to the tune of conspiracy yet you won't even do the research that will prove you wrong...
How convenient since they are getting ready to file bankruptcy because they cannot meet the minimum required power output.Solar and wind are a waste of tax dollars and the money is used for enriching a few and democrat campaign contributions.
I am a libertarian so while will agree that federal funds should not be available for energy projects like this I have to say that brilliantly simple energy solutions like this one are going to be nessasary as our energy demands grow. The fair market is what is required to determine our energy future.
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