Great premise. Too bad that we’re handing the brass ring to another foreign firm. I don’t blame Abengoa, they’re doing what any self respecting company should do… make a profit!

I can lambaste the domestic investors for funding wild and ridiculous concepts when there are so many rational ways to generate energy from sunshine. By playing the old-boy game, they keep their friends happy while selling the nation out.

I can also criticize the entrepreneurs for putting forth so much technical crap, but that’s also understandable… chase the $$$.

The regulations that exist are there to protect the utilities from wholesale disruptions, but there doesn’t mitigate the need for more energy. And there are 100% reliable methods that can assure that the flow of energy into the grid is uninterrupted.

The greatest threat to continued stability of supply is the economic decisions that can be made to idle a plant simply because the profit margin isn’t thick enough — note: I didn’t say unprofitable

The BLM is an act of government schizophrenia reversed itself. But there are millions of acres of rooftop & developed land exempt from the BLM that can successfully covered with solar collection. Covered, not converted. We can turn rooftops from thermal liabilities into electrical assets.

While the bean counters certainly feel it’s easier to finance huge projects, we’re seeing the quote/unquote “downturn” of the fledgling industry simply because a few project are hitting a few hurdles.

There are small ventures that can start to make significant impact with just a few million dollars of capital investment. There are also superior technologies that are ready to explode into production. One company is ready to produce parabolic troughs at >350MW per year, with a capital investment of ~$5MM. There isn’t a mirror factory on Earth that can come close!

These systems can be optimized in the 50-400kW range, for rooftop deployment on just about any big-box, strip mall, warehouse, office building, school, factory, even parking lots. They can go in ‘turnkey’ and transparently. They will last 20+ years almost without maintenance.

Each kilowatt (kW) of capacity delivers ~100 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy. You buy the capacity once, and you earn the energy forever. The unit pays for itself in from 3-7 years, the rest is profit. And with the rising cost of oil, and other energy sources, It’s easy to see that the payback can only get shorter. Finally there are still incentives available; big-solar seems to need them, we can make do without!

For more information please visit:

http://www.solarandthermal.com/

The Light is Green!