Army plans 500-megawatt solar thermal farm

The Army plans to install a 500-megawatt solar thermal power farm at a Fort Irwin, Calif., base as part of its bid to reduce a $3 billion annual energy bill, spent mostly on installations.

Nellis Air Force Base solar panels.

(Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Larry E. Reid Jr.)

The Mojave Desert plant would feed electricity to the grid by 2014 for savings of $21 million and 4,015,000 tons of carbon dioxide over 25 years. Construction is set to begin in 2012.

The Army's solar thermal system would eclipse the 14 megawatts at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, the largest U.S. solar photovoltaic installation.

"By making greater use of alternative and renewable energy, Army initiatives will bring energy savings and security to the Army, reducing the risk of power disruption," said Keith Eastin, the Army's assistant secretary for Installations & Environment, who is charged with reporting the progress of energy projects to Army Secretary Pete Geren.

The solar project is close to the scale of the 550 megawatts planned to come online by 2013 by OptiSolar of Hayward, Calif., for what would be the world's largest thin-film photovoltaic plant. Utility Pacific Gas & Electric inked a deal with that company in August to use electricity from the target site in San Luis Obispo County.

The Army's Monday announcement came as it establishes an energy council to advance a collection of projects, including:

• A joint geothermal initiative with the Navy to provide 30 megawatts at Hawthorne Army Depot, Nev., by 2012.
• Biomass-to-fuel demonstrations at six Army posts: Forts Benning and Stewart in Georgia; Fort AP Hill, Va.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; and Fort Lewis, Wash. A one-year test will begin in 2008. Waste for potential conversion for use as diesel or jet fuel would come from wood and grass clippings and cardboard.
• Plans to buy 4,000 electric vehicles for maintenance and operations at Army posts, replacing 800 petroleum-powered vehicles. The Army aims to phase in the vehicles over three years, reducing the use of more than 11 million gallons of fossil fuel.

[Joe Real]

A most appropriate photo for this article would have been at least one of the leading various solar thermal plants instead of the solar PV panels.

[ss_Whiplash]

I was just riding my motorcycle through Mojave on Sunday and wondering why all that open, flat land is not COVERED in solar panels yet. We could plant enough of them out there to probably power the whole state

[Joe Real]

Why limit ourselves with just the state of Claifornia? We can definitely produce a whole world's electric energy value with an area the fraction of Mojave Desert.

[RompStar_420]

ss_Whiplash - hahaha that's funny, " I was riding my motorcycle through Mojave ", do you do that casually ?

I wish I could say that, yep, I rolled a big blunt, they we smoked it and we went riding in the Mojave, yep we did that.

[Manhattan2]

Solar only works if the cost to deploy and capture that energy makes sense. Our solution is the only solution that does. Email us if you are still waiting for the solution. [e-mail]

[masonx]

When you see a solar panel that will pay for itself in less than three-five years (practical life - and a long way off) you will start to see them contribute in a significant way to energy needs. We all need to be a lot more aware of the economics of alternative energy and to the actual real cost of petroleum energy - which is a fraction of the market price. It will never be economically practical to develop alternative energy sources until they are less expensive than the real cost of petroleum (less than $20 a barrel) - or until the powers that be fix the price of petroleum at a price that alternative energy can compete with - or until we actually run out of petroleum (not even in the foreseeable future). Face it, petroleum prices are totally and artificially manipulated and as such, they can economically dump the best alternative energy efforts we have.

[willdryden]

Masonx - The guaranteed life is 20 years. The actual practical life is more like 30 to 35.

[TheMANN1980]

That's a great idea why not cover the ENTIRE desert with solar panels and wind farms and completely eliminate the beauty of the desert and whats left of the few remaining recreation areas.

[mangcamej]

Confusing article. Is the plan for a solar thermal or PV plant? The article says solar thermal, but the picture is of PV, and Nellis Air Force Base, which the article mentions as a solar thermal installation, is actually a PV installation.

[elsa.wenzel]

Thank you for writing, and sorry for the confusion. We've updated the post.

[Joe Real]

To replace 1 cubic mile of oil in terms of energy, we needed only 0.3184% of total desert land area of the entire world. That is a fraction of 1%!

Square miles needed: 34,068 sq miles of desert
Total Available: 10,698,600 square miles.


i've done my tally from all the known deserts of the world:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial_na.html#desert
Here are the various groups and their are in square miles.

Neartic
Baja California desert 30,000
Central Mexican matorral 22,900
Chihuahuan desert 196,700
Colorado Plateau shrublands 126,000
Great Basin shrub steppe 129,700
Gulf of California xeric scrub 9,100
Meseta Central matorral 48,400
Mojave desert 50,400
Snake-Columbia shrub steppe 84,200
Sonoran desert 86,100
Tamaulipan matorral 6,300
Tamaulipan mezquital 54,600
Wyoming Basin shrub steppe 51,100

Australasian
Carnarvon xeric shrublands 34,900
Central Ranges xeric scrub 108,800
Gibson desert 60,200
Great Sandy-Tanami desert 317,800
Great Victoria desert 163,900
Nullarbor Plains xeric shrublands 75,400
Pilbara shrublands 69,400
Simpson desert 225,700
Tirari-Stuart stony desert 145,500
Western Australian Mulga shrublands 177,800

African
East Saharan montane xeric woodlands 10,800
Eritrean coastal desert 1,700
Ethiopian xeric grasslands and shrublands 58,800
Gulf of Oman desert and semi-desert 24,100
Hobyo grasslands and shrublands 10,100
Kalahari xeric savanna 227,100
Kaokoveld desert 17,600
Madagascar spiny thickets 17,100
Madagascar succulent woodlands 30,800
Masai xeric grasslands and shrublands 39,000
Nama Karoo 135,600
Namib desert 31,200
Namibian savanna woodlands 87,100
Red Sea coastal desert 21,700
Somali montane xeric woodlands 24,000
Southwestern Arabian foothills savanna 106,100
Southwestern Arabian montane woodlands 33,600
Succulent Karoo 39,700

Indo Malayan
Deccan thorn scrub forests 131,400
Indus Valley desert 7,500
Northwestern thorn scrub forests 188,500
Thar desert 92,200

NeoTropic
Araya and Paria xeric scrub 2,000
Atacama desert 40,600
Caatinga 283,600
La Costa xeric shrublands 26,400
Paraguana xeric scrub 6,200
San Lucan xeric scrub 1,500
Sechura desert 71,400
Tehuacán Valley matorral 3,800

PaleArtic
Afghan Mountains semi-desert 5,300
Alashan Plateau semi-desert 260,000
Arabian Desert and East Sahero-Arabian xeric shrublands 714,800
Atlantic coastal desert 15,400
Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe 24,700
Badkhiz-Karabil semi-desert 51,600
Baluchistan xeric woodlands 111,500
Caspian lowland desert 103,200
Central Afghan Mountains xeric woodlands 53,800
Central Asian northern desert 255,800
Central Asian southern desert 218,800
Central Persian desert basins 224,300
Eastern Gobi desert steppe 108,800
Gobi Lakes Valley desert steppe 53,800
Great Lakes Basin desert steppe 60,700
Junggar Basin semi-desert 117,500
Kazakh semi-desert 261,900
Kopet Dag semi-desert 10,200
Mesopotamian shrub desert 81,500
North Saharan steppe and woodlands 646,800
Paropamisus xeric woodlands 35,800
Persian Gulf desert and semi-desert 28,000
Qaidam Basin semi-desert 74,100
Red Sea Nubo-Sindian tropical desert and semi-desert 251,500
Rigestan-North Pakistan sandy desert 107,100
Sahara desert 1,791,500
South Iran Nubo-Sindian desert and semi-desert 135,700
South Saharan steppe and woodlands 425,400
Taklimakan desert 286,400
Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands 31,700
West Saharan montane xeric woodlands 99,700

Oceania
Fiji tropical dry forests!! 2,700
Hawaii tropical dry forests!! 2,500