8/17/2008

Other stuff
Filed under: Books, Energy, Technology — nobrainer @ 2:51 pm
  • My reading of Innumeracy [my review here] represents a pause in my reading of Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman. My mid-book review is that Free to Choose is so good, important, and valuable that it is hardly worth reading because it is so widely read and regarded by economists that I’ve already absorbed most of the book through them. However, the amazing thing about this book, which was originally published in 1980, is how well it reads in 2008.
  • Two huge solar plants are being built in California and something smells fishy.

    The plants… in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

    I’ve never seen power-consumption related on a per-Wal-Mart basis. It’s like the Times is trying to say something about Wal-Mart without saying something about Wal-Mart.

    Of course, skip a few paragraphs and we get to the first reality check:

    Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.

    And then a WTF moment.

    The companies said they were forbidden by contract terms to talk about price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for ratepayers by not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay.

    A huge utility building two big power plants and nobody is saying what the cost is? Yikes.

    We all love big deals where no one has any idea what the cost will be. Although when the deal is being made to conform to a government mandate, good deals are going to be off the table anyway. So good luck with that, California. If you want to (foolishly) subsidize the development of solar power for the rest of us, then who am I to complain?