California’s massive Ivanpah solar plant shutting down over high costs, low output

Ivanpah solar [credit: Craig Butz @ Wikipedia]

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The nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon uses far less land, produces far more power on a continuous basis, and is lasting multiple times as long as weather-dependent solar. Also, as the article below notes, ‘Diablo Canyon doesn’t have massive mirrors that work as bird death rays.’ But somehow climate miserablists see fit to oppose nuclear power, preferring uneconomic part-time alternatives.
H/T Washington Examiner
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California politics are synonymous with many things, but failed energy policy might be the most relevant, says Climate Change Dispatch.

The Ivanpah solar power plant is on its way to being shut down, just 11 years after it opened. PG&E pulled out of its contract with the plant, leading to a planned closure of two of its three units by next year, while Southern California Edison is also working on buying out its contract.

The plant cost $2.2 billion to build, and the Department of Energy said taxpayers will receive a refund of an undisclosed amount for the $1.6 billion in department loans.

The contracts were supposed to take the plant through at least 2039.

In all, the energy from the plant costs too much money. It produced around 70% of what it was projected to produce annually.

The sea of mirrors that the plant relied on to produce the energy led to the plant catching on fire in 2016, after mirrors were wrongly positioned in relation to the sun.

The plant struggled with energy production due to weather, clouds, and jet streams, and was also pretty bad for the environment, what with the whole burning-birds-to-death thing.

Full article here.
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Image: Ivanpah solar, California [credit: Craig Butz @ Wikipedia]