This Billion Dollar Solar Plant was an EPIC Failure

Billion Dollar Solar Plant Failure. Huge Thanks to Lutema! Get 20% off your USA Made Masks Today: lutema.com/discount/tbdv20
Solar power is often talked about as a great savior in our efforts to clean up our grid. But when an adventurous company set out to build a massive 1 Billion Dollar solar farm in the Nevada Desert, things... didn't work out too well. So What happened? Is solar power doomed, a terrible idea, or is there something we can learn from the Crescent Dune's Solar Thermal Power Plant?
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[@johnpoldo8817]

As an engineer, I find this blunder fascinating. Very surprised they didn’t anticipate leaks from welding techniques, didn’t design for automatic lubrication and auto mirror cleaning.

[@warrensteel9954]

Probably contracted to lowest bidder to cut costs so the shareholders were happy 🤷‍♂️

[@westt1988]

Moisture and salts cause stress corrosion cracking of stainless and nickle based alloys needed to work at those temperatures. So it's a design and materials selection issue, not entirely a welding issue.

[@davefoc]

A good point. The failure here might involve more here than failing to anticipate the drop in the cost of PV. Sometimes technology based companies headed by non technology people have problems related to that. That might have been a factor here.

[@xinfuxia3809]

The leak makes the prospect of molten salt nuclear reactor more scary.

[@steveperreira5850]

Not only that. Look how complicated this goddamn System is. Only the department of energy would be stupid enough to invest in such a debacle. Everything is stressed to the limit here and there are so many moving parts. Compare that to photovoltaic, where there are, absolutely zero moving parts. Everything about the US government leads economic and practical disaster….. 50 years ago when I was growing up they put in an egg beater shaped wind turbine near the San Luis reservoir in Central California, financed by the government, at the time governor moon beam, also known as Jerry Brown. …. Design was so stupid that it wasn’t even self starting. You had to motor it up to get the windmill going, and once it got spinning a little bit, the wind would take over…… The goddamn project, the thing was rarely ever running, eventually they tore the whole thing down, it probably cost the government $1 million or more and it produced basically zero electricity….. How many egg beater windmills do we see around the world today. Well about the same number as the IQ of governor Moon Beam …. Zero!

[@MrAlfable]

One thing to point out, the video states something like "by the end of its time the plant was costing NV Energy $135/MWH," this makes it sound like costs ramped up to an unexpected level, but its important to note the reason the plant was costing NV Energy $135/MWH is because that was agreed upon purchase price well before the plant was even built (a purchase agreement for 25 years), not because operation costs ramped up to some unexpected level. NV Energy cancelled the contract because the power plant wasn't producing power at the levels that were promised, not because the price of power had run away from them (its possible NV Energy used low production as an excuse to get out the purchase agreement in light of cheaper agreements it was signing with new solar farms, but that'd just be speculation). Also worth noting, after bankruptcy, restructuring, and some improvements, the plant is up and running again.

[@rcpmac]

Wow! Interesting. Da Vinci sometimes misses the trees ... or is it the forest

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

So the conclusion that the costs of maintaninance were too high to be worth running it are incorrect then? I was wondering whether the running costs claimed in the video included the cost of financing the construction in the first place. If they have claimed bankruptcy then the new owners may have gotten out of some of the construction debt.

[@kevinjackson4464]

At what price are they selling electricity?

[@MaxMisterC]

There is another giant solar thermal energy station in Morocco & it works...

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

@@MaxMisterC their labour costs for the maintainance workers will be lower than in the us. CSP may be something that gets done in places with low labour costs like manufacturing.

[@frankyg6906]

I got to work there as a contractor installing an evacuation alarm in 2017. The operators, PIC and Cobra were always in a pissing match. And we heard all about the maintenance issues. It’s no surprise it failed

[@hootinouts]

Isn't it just incredible how the human ego is capable of ruining just about everything?

[@mykestorm1]

On another note,the first CSP to use molten salt was located at the COOLWATER Generating station in Dagget,Ca. After years of testing and modifications, all funded by the DOE they sold the plant to SCE for $1.00. SCE closed the plant shortly thereafter because they realized it would never be profitable. EOL

[@erictam7014]

Meanwhile back in my home town in Michigan there is a Nuclear plant that has been running flawlessly since 1976.

[@spider0804]

Wish the stigma for nuclear would go away, it is the safest, cleanest, and easily the best form of energy that we have currently. All of the waste ever produced up to today could fit in a football field sized hole a few meters deep. All of the people injured in some way are a tiny fraction (less than 1% of 1%) of the amount of people killed by fossil fuels. Solar is good but we need mega scale storage options for power and wind turbines cause massive pollution when the blades wear out.

[@scottydu81]

Huuuuge fan of nuclear. Families, energy, bombs, all the schnidt. Love nukes!

[@traildude7538]

@@spider0804 My cousin is a nuclear engineer and he just shakes his head at the mention of the "waste problem", which he says was solved back in the late 1980s: mix everything with sand from desert dunes, run it through a shredder to get the waste particles down to the size of the sand particles, stir to get an even mixture, then add more sand until you get the radiation per unit volume down to a desired threshold; then melt it all and make mildly-radioactive crude glass. This glass can be crushed in an ordinary rock crusher into the preferred size of rock for constructing the foundations of highways -- and when used that way, by the time the layers of smaller crushed rock followed by layers of gravel of decreasing size have been put on and the pavement itself applied, the highway's own material is a more than sufficient shield so it would be perfectly safe to park an RV on top and live in it, so definitely safe enough to drive on. The same would be true if the "nuke rock" were used for airport runway foundations or new rail line foundations. That the U.S. is still arguing about what to do with nuclear waste is a tragic joke.

[@ultraali453]

@@traildude7538 In Pakistan we have 3 small Nuclear reactors. One of which was shut down after 50 years of successful operation with no problems. If Pakistan can do it, then they're probably safe and reliable enough.

[@bg6217]

So said the horse owner when the horseless carriage came out.

[@meh.7539]

Once you mentioned those mirrors and the adjustability and intelligence behind them I instantly realized the maintenance costs were going to be insane.

[@raygud]

but idea is good..

[@meh.7539]

@@raygud totally, it's a cool idea, but maintenance was the thing that sealed it for me.

[@gregtoman7678]

No...it is the cost for the capital equipment! Money has a time value, but this is always ignored for green energy. This was a complete failure before it was ever built.

[@LordOfNihil]

i dont think its the heliostat maintenance that killed it. they dont all fail at once. you might have a couple offline at any given time and a small team fixing them. they could have retrofit this thing with a steam generator and ditched the whole molten salt system, and it would have still been able to deliver power at peak daylight hours.

[@georgevue8175]

LOL - It's like saying healthcare should be free for everybody "Obamacare" until reality hits & it actually cost a freaking fortune.

[@marshja56]

I recently drove past this plant (9/2022) and the mirrors were aiming sunlight onto the tower. The brilliance of the concentrated light was impressive, like some sort of sci-fi futuristic special effects scene. It was seriously awesome to see. I don't know if the plant was actually in operation but I would assume it was, otherwise why concentrate all that heat.

[@joewilson1733]

Same with me. I went by this during 1/2022 and it appeared to be in operation still. Coal run at losses too but the losses are allocated across rate payers.

[@OldSneelock]

Like a broken clock is right twice a day even if the mirrors nevermove they willstill hit the tower fr some time during daylight hours. That makes me wonder. Where is the beam of light going during off hours?

[@mattroberts86]

Maybe you saw the one near Primm, NV.

[@AS-we9xi]

@@OldSneelockNo. The sun is out for half the day so it would only be right once per day. Also the height of the sun changes every day so at best it would be once per year. And when it is not working it shines to an area scattered in the rough vicinity of the tower.

[@bonsaimoldova]

It operating again from 2021, I heard it in another video and also read it on wikipedia.

[@davidlarson9125]

To be clear, Crescent Dune is not Ivanpah which many people do see on Interstate 15 to Las Vegas from LA. Isn't Ivanpah still in operation and if so why didn't it suffer the same fate?

[@wallyballou7417]

The plant by the freeway is Ivanpah 1,2,&3. Crescent Dunes is located in the center of the state, north of Tonopah.

[@craigweems]

I worked with a guy Jim Parks the head of QA who often said "Some of my best ideas don't work". I never have forgotten it. Too often people fall in love with an idea and assume that all problems can be overcome. Maybe they can but not at a competitive price.

[@thecocktailian2091]

This video needs a part two as many things were missed or neglected. A deeper dive into why the plant failed to reach its 40% yield is a super important leg. achieving only 25% at its height is indeed an epic failure, but what caused it?

[@bretttobin9632]

belief in woke grifters and globalist doom spreaders whom strangely enough made money whilst their scams cost nations billions.

[@DarthRambo007]

Yeah he should talk more about how the equipment kept failing and wasnt at its peak capacity Questions like . If it was at peak capacity from the get go would it be able to self be sustaining ?

[@excidedous]

Part Two: Still a failure

[@CHAS1422]

Over-selling

[@bricaaron3978]

*"...but what caused it?"* Are you serious? I'm not being facetious. If one understands that the underlying motivations for such a project are illegitimate, it is entirely _expected_ that the _outcome_ of such a project will be unimpressive (if not harmful).

[@calebcliftonmastersefyroth6563]

If you wanna be successful, you most take responsibility for your emotions, not place the blame on others. In addition to make you feel more guilty about your faults, pointing the finger at others will only serve to increase your sense of personal accountability. There's always a risk in every investment, yet people still invest and succeed. You most look outward if you wanna be successful in life.

[@lucialuzgilosluz2114]

Sure! Is a better way to counter this foreseen inflation, because all this wars everywhere are politics.

[@janiceluckyspring6979]

Living in one's "comfort zone" is a contributing cause to the plight of young people.

[@patrickwalter5742]

Fear is a total failure when you give up Ambitiousness; and Success is a game of dice, you throw your $coin while your investment decides your goal.

[@tinagottschallcunningham4691]

@@samiraabubakar2963 they said when you invest little money you earn big,

[@tinagottschallcunningham4691]

Can't even imagine how it is possible

[@1paultv22]

I remember this plant as an example of, the future of solar energy. It was on one of those science/technology shows on TLC or The Discovery Channel before it was completed. They never seemed to follow up on those stories/episodes like this and now I see why. It's kind of sad to see it was a failure.

[@poorpuppy]

Don't be discouraged I'm sure we'll get there

[@texanplayer7651]

Well every invention needs fine tuning.

[@georgecurl1328]

P

[@shanebluebutterfly]

@@poorpuppy Solar is a joke. We are so close to fusion that any act that isn't a step towards fusion is a step towards destroying the planet.

[@poorpuppy]

@@shanebluebutterfly hey man I'm no expert on that stuff I'm also Christian so I'm confident Christ will restore everything before we destroy ourselves like he said. I'm not opposed to being more green but I've heard so much about so many "green" stuff I don't who to believe anymore. There seems to be a propaganda push for green recycling efforts that aren't actually true and just a ruse to satisfy those concerned about the environment. And idk man I've seen ice melt in cold water in cold temperatures so I doubt global warming is as urgent as people say it is. I think the politicians just want more control over us. Everyone is so greedy anymore and so I have no hope in humanity to actually do anything. I really don't. I've given it up. But I applaud everyone who's genuinely making efforts to preserve humanity like Elon musk for example. Idk about him but I'm sure he feels the same as I do and as hazardous as Mars is I'm thinking it'll be good for us if we ever achieve it because it will require work and discipline that the common folk just don't have and honestly as much as I doubt evolution I'm sure our race will improve in a way that will be beneficial for our self sustainment. That's just my take but if you're confident in fusion (which I don't know much about but have heard good things about) then I say go for it. I've just lost all my hope. It's kind of like natural selection honestly and if Elon Musk succeeds well clearly all those that follow him will also be successful and because we're not as fit as they are we will die off and the people who went further will ultimately be the group of our race that moves up in evolution.

[@mikeanderson2956]

As a maintenance guy the only thing I think of when I hear about molten salt is how hard it is to fix things if it ever freezes inside the equipment Wonder how much of their missing capacity came from the power needed to keep the stuff hot.

[@syberphish]

Or how about if you need to do a repair, or something springs a leak? You can't exactly work on the issue while there's molten sodium spewing out. It sounds like a terror to work on.

[@morgan5941]

Molten salt just seems like a maintenance nightmare. I've worked on equipment with parts that cost 10x the standard equivalent, but I have no doubt that the requirements for molten salt would cost even more.

[@MarcBeaulieuisGreat]

I second that thought ⚙️

[@qweqqweq2090]

I know right? I built and replaced tracks in an alchali plant in Henderson Nevada and I know the gas there was so deadly they said if it ever blew the deaths in the surrounding areas could be in the hundreds of thousands or millions. and salt is so incredibly corrosive too. you have to replace everything around salt at least twice as fast as usual. and I also worked in a foundry and I know it's insanely difficult to maintain a furnace! no matter what you do you're going to have to entirely rebuild all or parts of an aluminum furnace and that's just at around 700 to 850 degrees ferenheight. I'm guessing molten salt is going to corrode stuff like crazy and in also guessing the gasses released are no picknick either. the aluminum furnace I worked with was bad enough, one time when rebuilding it for yearly maintenance a guy thought to pulour water in it to cool it off, my God! the gasses it started releasing would make you feel like dying in one breath. we had to evacuate the building for the rest of the day, and it still smelled horrible the next day.

[@eljuanman999]

in continuous operation, barely no energy is needed to keep it hot, since the thermal insulation of the tanks is excellent, and the power block doesn't return the molten salt at a low temperature, usually way above its freezing temperature.

[@nfsmith51]

@Two Bit da Vinci: At about a minute into the video you talk about seeing the Crescent Dunes plant while driving from Southern California to Las Vegas. NOPE!!! The solar plant you can see from I15 is a similar but distinctly different facility called the Ivanpah Solar Concentration plant which is actually in California (not Nevada) about 40 miles south of Las Vegas. Cresent Dunes is near Tonapah, Nevada about 190 north west of Las Vegas. The Ivanpah plant does NOT use molten salt as a heat reservoir and is unable to provide power at night. It also uses a lot of Natural Gas to keep the water from cooling down too much at night and to speed up heating the water to boiling in the early morning hours. It still cooks birds flying nearby in the daylight, though.

[@drrobairebeckwith3687]

The Ashalim solar plant in the Negev desert, Israel seems to a very similar design using molten salts but appears to be functioning effectively. It would be interesting to know where the specific problems occurred in comparison with the operation and design of similar plants elsewhere and how those were overcome. Perhaps more international collaboration would help accelerate efficient solutions

[@Moses_VII]

I'm here to correct your English. The Ashalim plant in Naqab, Occupied Palestine.

[@joshua-ov4ne]

@@Moses_VII God decided that your ancestor would not get the promised land the human tradition of first born rights are irrelevant the land belonged to god still belongs to god and god decided your traditions are meaningless in comparison the land belong to Israel and you should bow to their right as it says in the good word "the older will kneel to the younger

[@danielhurst8863]

You left out a couple of key points. 1. It incinerated hundreds to thousands of birds a day. Literally, charred debris from birds and litter being burnt into ash covered the solar reflectors causing daily issues. 2. Misalignments caused actual damage to the structure. Each solar reflector producers so much heat that minor alignment issues can serious damage, and in 2019 the main tower was taken out of commission because of solar panel alignment issues causing a fire. There were huge amounts of manpower required to keep the panels clean and aligned, and it wasn't ever going to be cost efficient. But Harry Reid's family made tons of money, so the actual purpose for which it was built was completed.

[@texanplayer7651]

Hundreds of thousands of birds per DAY? Really?

[@ericmcconnaughey2782]

@@texanplayer7651 Hundreds TO thousands, not hundreds OF thousands. Please reread original post.

[@Phat737]

It was another “Green Energy” money laundering scheme.

[@mrbinky7]

And cats, cats, airplanes and hunters don’t do the same each day X 1000 😂😂😂😂

[@billhuman448]

ah yes OLD Crook Harry the demo Don of B S !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@BaghaShams]

It's clear from many of the comments that this video gave viewers the impression that this was a theoretical plant that jumped the prototype stage. In reality, this type of plant already existed in a couple places around the world. The science and process were well understood--they were not Inventing something new. The video should have done a better job of explaining this.

[@nasis18]

Exactly. Project management was the biggest issue, not the technology.

[@milktobo7418]

@@nasis18 Also the cost of photovoltaics has nothing to do with this plant failing. That has more to do with the pay-back period. This channel is really two-bit.

[@Majora96]

It's what happens with government funded green energy projects. They are often taken by people seeking a cash cow with no real intention or ability to competently complete the project. Even when they fail the person in charge still got millions from the gov and the politicians in charge still get to pat their own backs and say they did something green because it doesn't cost politicians anything only tax payers.

[@danstrayer111]

Nothing new about this. A similar one has been in operation just out of Barstow, CA, since the early 80s.

[@GSimpsonOAM]

@@milktobo7418 If it is not even covering it's operating costs there is no pay-back period. It just becomes a money pit.

[@ats89117]

This is just one of a continuing saga of green boondoggles that we will have to pay for before we end up with good old nuclear power plants... As far as PV being cost effective, if you look at the countries that are getting the highest percentage of their energy from this technology, you will find that these same countries have the most expensive electricity. This is not a coincidence...

[@reverendbarker650]

I love you guys, for you , nuclear is ALWAYS just round the corner and is going to save us, its not , and for your information dollar and wind is FAR cheap but so far, er than new cola or gas plants, the decommissioning of nukes, the length of time it takes to build and their danger when society is no longer in a spot to maintain them safely are all reasons why they aren't being built. The vaunted small reactors are reportedly dirtier than the big ones. Nuclear will only be adopted when its problems are solved, there is no imminent sign that this is going to happen, BTW this plant failed because the price of conventional solar has FALLEN so much, not because its MORE expensive. you didn't watch it did you ? or if you did, you didn't understand it . 🙂

[@kenbellchambers4577]

See 'mass fish and wildlife deaths' due to Fukushima meltdowns. They have killed billions of creatures and the leak is still going on. Nuclear is too dangerous to risk. What happens to a nuclear power station in a war? The beauty of solar panels is that they are on your roof saving lots of transmission expenses. The key, I believe, is in making really durable solar panels that last for generations, then integrating them into the construction of all suitable roofs and walls that are exposed to the sun. Solar panels will reach perfection in a few more years, and they will be many times more powerful than current technology, but even current models of photo voltaics are providing millions of people with safe power.

[@ats89117]

@@kenbellchambers4577 Fukushima occurred because of a huge earthquake and tsunami. Solar panels incorporate hazardous materials that you don't want in soil or water. It's not clear whether the same event would have caused less environmental damage if hundreds of thousands of panels ended up in the surf zone. The cost of stand alone PV systems including sufficient battery storage, is also considerably more expensive than the standard nuclear base load with natural gas peaking power solution for most people. Finally, the statement that PV will become "many times more powerful" seems questionable. Current panels are in the 20% to 25% efficiency regime. 30% efficiency might be possible but 40% is unlikely. Ultimately you are limited by the incident energy and how much area you are willing to cover with PV panels.

[@kenbellchambers4577]

@@ats89117 Yes, a tsunami, earthquake, war, and lots of other factors can destroy solar panels and nuclear plants, both. New emerging solar panels can use thermal energy, and there are many inventors working on panels with wider ranges of operation. I have heard of panels that are 1500 times more efficient than current models. This sounds pretty far-fetched to me, but values of 75 0r 80% are almost a certainty in the next decade or so. I believe road surfaces are potentially the greatest usable surface for solar energy collection, and one day roads will be used for collecting either solar gain or heat, and then distributing that power to the immediate area. It is transmission costs which are the primary reason for keeping power generation decentralised. How many miles of land do you want to see covered with transmission towers? Regarding pollution, every modern electronic device is loaded with toxic metals. Solar panels made in a vacuum sealed stainless steel frame and using hardened glass covers could last for a century without any difficulties, unlike a phone, computer, car or plane. I would much rather have a solar panel in my soup than a lump of plutonium.

[@ats89117]

@@kenbellchambers4577 If you believe in conservation of energy, then you realize that you can't generate more energy from sunlight than the energy falling on the panel. Current panels are generally between 20 and 25% efficiency, and getting over 40% efficiency in the future is unlikely. Roads are terrible places for solar panels. Many solar roadway tests have been performed. All tests of solar roadways have been expensive disasters. Solar panels on roadways are quickly damaged and get very dirty. In addition, they are expensive to procure and install. Transmission towers take up a tiny percentage of land area, usually in areas where they already have right of way, e.g. near highways. Solar panels are already generating much more hazardous materials in landfills than nuclear power plants. This will get worse as PV panels become more widely used. Current solar panels last 20-25 years. 30 to 40 is a possibility. A century is highly unlikely. I would much rather have cheap and reliable power, so I live within line of site of a nuclear power plant which has been operating for almost 50 years and has an extendable operating license for 32 more years. My radiation levels are the same as yours. Germany is the world leader in renewable energy and has shut down most of their nuclear power plants. As a result, they are paying ten times more for electricity than I am, and if they aren't lucky, they may have a very cold winter. Germans are reacting by buying wood stoves and as much coal as they can get delivered. Renewables will be an unmitigated disaster until there is sufficient energy storage available. Approximately 14 days of supply are required. Only a few minutes are available...

[@regulator8276]

I've wondered this for too long now. Thank you so much for all the effort you spent explaining it!

[@HalsPals]

Thanks for this video. I've wondered what happened to that plant. I was working at the hospital at Tonopah while the plant was under construction and I heard of constant problems from the plant workers like the reflectors not withstanding high winds.

[@loktom4068]

Don't worry its usefulness has already done as funds already gone into your politicians and their buddies wallets. That's where it COUNT$ 🐮😈💰💰💰.

[@Ausfailia]

Just sounds like the engineers building it weren't good enough

[@rosswitte]

An early issue with the mirrors was using a cheaper glue than recommended by the engineers. The mirrors started peeling off after a short while as it could not withstand the sun/heat/desert.

[@Novous]

Reminds me of the Challenger disaster. Evil businessmen, dictating engineers to run designs outside of spec, killed astronauts while the whole world watched.

[@dilvishpa5776]

@@Novous You should read Richard Feynman’s report on the Challenger explosion (he was on the investigative committee). He did not find it was “evil businessmen”, as you claim. It was politics. You may recall that the Soviets were visiting the Whitehouse on the day of the launch. I was in Boston on business that day. After repeated launch delays, my thinking was that the shuttle would launch that morning no matter what, for political reasons, and that turned out to be the case. The heads of these organizations also believed the political line that a catastrophic failure was a one in a million probability, compared to the NASA and Morton-Thiokol engineers who believed the probability to be one in seven. The disaster was caused by stupidity, not greed.

[@MP-zf7kg]

@@dilvishpa5776 I do remember being concerned about launching outside of temperature specs because of the effects on coefficient of thermal expansion. However, no way I had any idea at all what might fail, thinking more along the lines of performance drain or guidance failures.

[@dilvishpa5776]

@@MP-zf7kg The Morton-Thiokol engineers begged management to delay the launch of Challenger, probably because of what Feynman demonstrated in his Congressional testimony. Feynman had an o-ring made of the booster seal material (buna-n, I believe) c-clamped in a glass of icewater to demonstrate its loss of elasticity. I also recall watching the launch that morning in the hotel breakfast area, and seeing the plume of fire emerge from center of the booster at the joint just prior to the explosion. It was clear to me what had happened in that instant (though not why). Most of the hand-wringing and “investigation” after that was, in my view, an attempt to cover the asses of the responsible parties.

[@snapsna3567]

@@dilvishpa5776 This was "only" a few astronauts. It so sad the media is always following the political line. Even if the sceptics were right and billions of people were killed by wrong political data or got chronic illness, the media won't talk about it but parrots the political line. So sad. 😥😥

[@bonsaimoldova]

This is from wikipedia (attract attention to the last phrase): The first three months of 2019 (January, February and March) showed good progression, topping all previous monthly data, but in April the plant was shut down because the project's sole buyer, NV Energy, terminated the Power Purchase Agreement for failure to produce the contracted power production. The power generated also cost NV Energy about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh available from a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm.[40][16] But to compare fairly, it must be taken into account that the Tonopah solar project power is dispatchable whilst photovoltaic power is intermittent. Truly levelized cost comparisons must include the capacity payments for generating capacity available to supply power during peak hours. By doing so, low-to-high hourly wholesale electricity prices have been shown to vary by up to four orders of magnitude.[41][42] In July 2021, the project restarted production.[21]

[@joklakulatog3710]

I have to agree at 1 point that the price of Solar PV way back 2010 was far expensive compare to present year 2022. I started my 1st trial of PV way back 2020 due to the reasons that price of Solar PV is already cheap. I think this Green Energy project was invested at a wrong time and at the wrong place and felt the design is over killed.

[@judgedredd8876]

Even in 2022 a PV energy generation array produces 10 times more expensive power than nuclear. Unreliably too.

[@drewberrynews3875]

@@judgedredd8876 the reason many nuclear plants have halted is storage of nuclear waste and longevity of the site. But the main thing thst skills nuclear power is the scale up time. To build one of these large plants it takes a minimum of 20 years. Once built it does provide lots of power and the price per kWh is pretty decent. I hope in the future nuclear could be downsized and the waste issue would be solved.

[@bxlobert1]

I am usually very excited to watch your videos and impressed with the detail. But I am concerned about what appears to be a aged or canned video, and the lack of recent research. The Crescent Dunes plant came back online in July of 2021 (BLM statement reported on October 14, 2021 by local News 8). The shut down was due to issues as you stated, but also due to the bankruptcy of the company. Your comment about the numbers of employees needed to operate the plant was significantly incorrect. The employee numbers you stated appear to be an exaggeration of construction employees, not routine workforce needed to run the plant. The reference to the millions of federal dollars spent does not include or reference the “clawback” of $200 million in the bankruptcy by the federal government. This could still have been a very interesting topic, but I would suggest relevant and current research of the facts. This oversight helps to fuel the wing nuts on both sides that will use this and other failures like Solyndra. These significant federal investment have risk, but when issues or failure occur, there is never talk of the financial recoveries or the long term increase in local value including property taxes of the building and infrastructure that will continue to create local value going forward. The Solyndra plant is now leased by Tesla and provides property taxes to Fremont. Please don’t feed the crazies, we have enough troubles in the world. All taxes are not evil, and everything green is not always good.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

I appreciate the insights! Yeah you some great points.

[@walter2990]

@@TwoBitDaVinci Perhaps with the insights this post contains, you'll try to post another updated version in the near future? It'd be such a sad waste of technology, materials, time, money, and engineering if this project doesn't regain some traction, and go forward. Just my opinion. Anyway, thanks for the video, I'd lost track of this project.

[@Kiyoone]

@@TwoBitDaVinci An update to this video pointing your mistakes would be nice man. Or just don't make it looks like a click bait crap.

[@alanduncan3710]

I think he was not just including the people to run the plant, but also the workers needed to clean up all the dead bird carcasses.

[@DrTed3]

@@alanduncan3710 I think those workers were paid by allowing them to have all the roasted chickens they could collect.

[@M0rmagil]

I don’t “hate” green energy, I just hate how it’s sold by concealing the true cost of the technology, while ignoring the limitations. Putting ideologues in charge of an engineering/economic problem is never a good idea. Nuclear done right (i.e. not warmed over 1950s tech PWRs) obliterates all other competitors.

[@purplemonkey649]

It's the cheapest, cleanest, safest method per Kwh. But the waste along with incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima turned public opinion. When it goes wrong it doesn't fk around... The technology has came a long way. Breeder reactors for example. Unlike normal reactors which only use uranium-235 as their fuel, which is only available in scarce concentrations of around 0.7% of natural uranium without enrichment, breeder reactors also make use of natural uranium-238 which is much more common. They can use approximately 70% of the uranium-238 for production of power, whereas normal reactors can only use around 1% of it. They can also use thorium-232 to breed uranium-233, another fissionable product.[1] I tired posting a link to where I got this...seems to be a no no on this platform nowadays...

[@steffenrosmus9177]

@@purplemonkey649 well, who is paying for the nuclear waste when stored for 100 000 years with the company ist bancrupt ? Future generation will pay for our ignorance. With that in mind, the price will be at app 15 000$ per Kwh. So 135 is quite reasonable.

[@purplemonkey649]

@@steffenrosmus9177 All difficult questions. That are going to require difficult decisions. Anyone that thinks renewable technologies are anywhere near to ready to meet demand must have rocks in their head. Forgot the fact the sun doesn't always shine and wind doesn't always blow there's plenty more downsides to both solar and wind. In the UK they're cutting down 1000's of hectares of forests to put up turbines. Wildlife is being decimated by spinning blades. The very things green energy is supposed to protect. I have no doubt this will be happening everywhere. Any idea the toxic elements that make up solar panels? These things are everywhere, cheaply made and easily damaged or broken. There's no forward planning how to decommission the millions of them already out there other than to ship them off to developing countries to let them burn them or throw them in the sea, just like all the computers and plastic we do just now. Feel good about putting your shit in the recycling bin, there's a 90% chance it's on its on its way Bangladesh or somewhere. Same can be said for batteries Hopefully the technology gets there one day...but it's not today. So what do we do in the meantime? Difficult questions require solutions...

[@SLow-fb3qm]

Nuclear has never costed radioactive waste.

[@bdb1052]

@@steffenrosmus9177 how much nuclear waste are we talking about? We can power a city for a decade with the amount of waste that would fit in your coffee mug

[@vwbustube]

It's funny that the cost of solar has gone down, and yet, local residential dealers are unwilling to come remotely close to several quotes for solar I received between 2017 and 2019.

[@user-fg7wu5vf6m]

In Australia we had a plan to build a thermal power station based on a 1km radius black disk with a 1km tall tower/chimney in the middle. A turbine in the chimney was intended as the power source. I don't know why, but it was canned before it was built - perhaps for similar reasons to the failure of this system.

[@leideedileonardo2569]

Close to my school there is a small plant like this. It is done by hyperbolic mirrors concentrate rays on a tube, where a liquid flows (may be liquid salt, but not I am sure). They have never gone forward with this technology. Built a small prototype, measure efficiency and point out problems seems to be the best approach. I was wondering if they did it before going to the real plant. Differences in efficiency like the one described would have to have be found easily.

[@neilnapier4750]

Hi! Quick question. I’m a location scout, looking to contact a similar facility. Can you tell me where to find this little one that is close to you? Cheers!

[@alk315]

As a private small business developer, I seen this as a total disaster from its plan. 1.) They failed to build a working long running micro scale plant to prove its viability. Which would have saved taxpayers $737 million dollars. 2.) They failed to consult with mechanical maintenance engineers. Had they done so they would have received a report outlining all the real maintenance man hour and parts costs before tax payers were screwed out of $737 million U.S. Dollar government loan. 3.) Anytime you allow a Senator Harry Reid and his family of political corruption to be involved expect epic financial and engineering design failures of massive scale!.. As happened at the Cescent Dunes Plant.. 4.) If your going to do a report on what the total failure of a project is and why,,,,, do your complete homework! As the total corruption of this from the beginning was much more than you stated Mr. Two bit..

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

This is the logical result of a twisted "natural selection" rewarding people whose greatest strength is winning a popularity contest or having great PR with power over these matters.

[@solarmande7280]

While far from perfect, this plant is once again up and running as of 2021, and this and other similar technology is continuing to be developed and implemented elsewhere with success.

[@bobbygetsbanned6049]

Hey hey hey, this is for green energy, so it has to be good. We are supposed to ignore the new class of green trillionaires being created because they are saving the world, they are totally 100% altruistic! No research required, if it's marked green energy we spend the money!

[@bobbygetsbanned6049]

@@JB-lp9xr My first thought was corrosion also but apparently the issue was the salts solidifying in the pipes and the heat source for the pipe not being adequate to reliquefy the salt. So they have the issue of requiring huge amounts of energy to keep the "cold" salt hot enough to stay liquid, and also kept having to replace entire pipes where the salt solidified.

[@solarmande7280]

@@bobbygetsbanned6049 Yeah that's so much worse than funding big oil, they're already stinking rich and DEFINITELY need the money!

[@cputeq007]

When I first read about this method (I think it was a scientist that had affixed many mirrors into a concave dish and could instantly burn through a 2x4 wooden beam) I immediately thought about how great it would be to localize that tech using just water and a turbine -- Small dish in a yard that rotates with sun, constantly boiling water in a loop for power generation. Sure, there's no inherent storage, but it would be simple-er. I remember reading up briefly on this farm, but had no idea they were using molten salt. Whereas my 'small-scale' idea would move an entire dish to follow the sun (think of an old-school satellite dish rotating to follow the sun), this farm was using hundreds of tracking mirror arrangements. The maintenance costs must be astronomical, not to mention the salt storage problem.

[@arthas640]

there are some ideas on how to store energy and they mainly rely on heating up something that stays hot for awhile after the sun goes down or by storing mechanic energy but both arent great. I felt the same way about all the tracking mirrors, seemed like a logical nightmare, which is why most engineers usually try to minimize moving parts on anything that needs to run long term with minimal maintenance

[@LachskoenigIV]

That small scale version is actually on the market already. Some are additionally equipped with highly efficient solar panels at the point of concentration to make use of the heat as well as the light.

[@HDApex]

Did you ever calculate how many batteries and space it would need to store a certain amount of energy to power a small town? How about the life of the parts, like the PV or batteries before having to dispose of all of them?

[@petitio_principii]

The garbage disposal thing seems to be quite a neglected thing with the idea of a future of transport that looks the same, but with batteries instead of gas. With gas, the used gas is dispersed in the air. With batteries, they'll got to be somehow recycled or disposed. And then there are more tire and road wearing, with the added weight (at a lower autonomy that can't ever improve meaningfully). But I'd guess the problem even starts earlier. How many batteries will be needed if all cars were to be battery-electric, plus the additional cars of a increase in demand, from population increase, and even economic growth of populations that have less cars/person right now? I have never really done the math, but I'd find surprising if we'd even have enough raw materials for complete replacement and universal adoption of battery cars to last more than 50 years, and I really think I'm being extremely optimistic with this wild guess. I think they'll be an artifact of history, with much more limited use in the long term, which probably will require massive adoption of trains, trams, and trolley buses (that can be electric without batteries), in parallel with combustion engines based on less problematic fuels or maybe embedded systems of capture, but probably for more exceptional cases, in a world where there's a dramatic reduction in ownership of cars.

[@shepdogsd]

@@petitio_principii Can't you recycle the materials in batteries? But to answer you question, we could have hydrogen cars whose exhaust is clean water vapor. The problem is we have electrical infrastructure EVERYWHERE and no Hydrogen infrastructure.

[@igorurbanek8217]

@@shepdogsd My Benz diesel SUV exhaust is just water vapor also.

[@russellcole3139]

The plant being discussed in this video didn't store energy in batteries it stored it in the form of molten salt.

[@HDApex]

@@russellcole3139 The comment was addressing the point covered in 10:58 of the video.

[@johnredford942]

The plant is now running again, so it has not been shuttered. It's now run by its builders, ACS Cobra, a Spanish company with a lot of experience in these plants in Spain. Other CSP plants like Ivanpah are doing fine. That's the one you actually see on the road from LA to Las Vegas. It's true that PV solar has made them uncompetitive for daytime generation, but if CSP can replace gas peakers in the evening, that's worth quite a lot.

[@90Beater]

Watching this I was thinking wasn't there an earlier one in California? Ivanpah it is. Thanks.

[@SargentoDuke]

I dont understand the meaning of this video too, Spain had 50 operative thermal-solar plants, few of them the same as this video one... ALL WORKING even at night because its way cheaper than PV solar+batteries.

[@olebloom1641]

The rapid decrease in cost of PV is what killed an invention my friend and I had for a thermal power plant in a 53' container. It worked and was reliable however could not compete on cost. Noticed the S curve when investigating REC's.

[@nader31]

This technology is very interesting. May you share more on your experience?

[@spazoq]

I'm glad you didn't do what the initial backers of this Nevada plant did and overstate its operational potential just to fleece the US taxpayer. I wish more people were as honest as you.

[@aggibson74]

Hopefully you got some government money for it..

[@donaldkasper8346]

@@spazoq They probably had a modeled range of efficiency and used the highest number.

[@DavidKatz]

Thanks for this great video. Didn’t know about this style of power generation, and this was very informative

[@handbananaistherapist642]

When I was a kid, we had a 16 " reflector dish which would shine upon a steel bladder with antifreeze pump thru. The coolant would go to a heat exchanger to provide heat and hot water. The dish would track the sun throughout the day. It worked for several years and needed much maintenance.

[@garethblake544]

Excellent video and commentary. Sadly I have seen this on far too many occasions where the running cost of a project out way the forecasted gains. Keep up the good work and stay safe.

[@louf7178]

Weigh

[@Xyquest]

Every failure is a learning experience. It shows entrepreneurs what doesn’t work and moves us forward.

[@Mrbfgray]

What usually doesn't work is government initiatives for industrial operations, how many times do we have to repeat that experience before we learn?

[@RyeOnHam]

That's a cool story, but the government is not an entrepreneur. They throw money at shysters on a continual basis.

[@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765]

That might be true if this was not a kleptocratic idiocracy, and if stupid tech didn't become addictions that corrupt wonks keep selling for decades.

[@ricechido1089]

The issue has more to due of us not having the power grid infustructure powerful enough to transport energy. This idea and project still needs to shone

[@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765]

@@ricechido1089 > I think it has to do much more with neurotic/psychotic egos addicted to greed & illusions of socioeconomic power (of folks who like to exploit human stupidity with large central power companies), and the stupid cities, buildings, vehicles, and agriculture that waste nearly 85% of the energy used.

[@brakstrongarm9551]

Really enjoyed this video. Thx. You talk so well.

[@codediporpal]

Seems like a good idea, but thermodynamic entropy is a beast.

[@moozillamoo2109]

Solar-thermo plants in the desert also use incredibly precious ground water to clean the mirrors. Further, they roast birds instantly. Many birds mistake the shinning mirrors for water and try to land, and are fried instantly. Score of eagles are killed every year.

[@chasingthefish9042]

Scores of eagles are killed by wind turbines too

[@grinpick]

The shift in relative costs (PV becoming cheaper) was obviously problematic to this project. It may have doomed it under any circumstances. But it sounds like there were other problems in design and execution. Perhaps it is misleading to blame the failure entirely on the former.

[@donaldkasper8346]

The molten salt system never worked, caught fire, just was a mess. Think of how corrosive salt is.

[@ianross225]

I used to insure this type of plant until I saw the failings and backed away. These are ludicrous monuments to form over function. They owe their existence to ideology and massive subsidy.

[@eddieschwab864]

I would venture to say that solar thermal systems to some degree could work on much smaller scale simply because I have some experience with it. Certainly not with molten salt but solar heating water. Several years ago we were vexed with trying to figure out how to extend the usual season for our pool at the house. I came up with a panel with copper tubing through it running water off the filter before it goes back into the pool. The panel I built is 4 ft x 8 ft and while it is not a movable panel that tracks the sun it is aimed at Peak Sun as well as having some reflective material around it to draw the sun's energy into intensify it. Using this setup I'm able to heat the water up about 15 to 25° above ambient temperature, and this is an above ground pool not an inground pool either. It's got a separate pump and filter for the water to run through so not all the water that is being pumped in through the pool is heated in this manner but it effectively allows the pool to start being used much earlier in the season and finish out much later. Instead of only being good from Memorial Day to Labor Day it's usually good from Easter till Thanksgiving at least. A friend of ours for their place has used a system that they built that's bigger still to preheat the water going into their hot water heater for reducing how much fuel they use on their hot water heater as well as preheating the air for their HVAC system and their system is big enough that they can do so for both their house and the adjacent shop. However watching this is giving me some inspiration to while I'm certainly planning myself to expand my solar water heating to similar potential that my friend uses for their house and Shop with one other thing I have seen fairly recently wanting to attempt to see if I can successfully bring water up to and Beyond boiling point to produce Steam to be able to produce electricity from the Sun. I would say as far as PV solar power the only practical solution to solving the primary disadvantage for it would be to put solar panels where they are capable of being exposed to the sun 24/7, in space. Beaming the power back to Earth through microwave transmission, based on the method as described by Gerard O'Neil in the High Frontier..

[@ricoman7981]

All through time no matter what the level of atmospheric CO2 may have been, a portion of the incoming solar radiation has been absorbed by the surface of the earth, land, water or ice and life existed just fine. Now we’re told 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is heating the earth to the point of existential death and destruction. It seems to me that with all the glass covered buildings and office towers, small and large scale solar panel farms and the massive reflecting mirrors in the Nevada project, mankind is causing far more atmospheric heating than if the ground was left in its natural state.

[@Gr3nadgr3gory]

Wouldn't the mirrors reflect most of the waste energy back into space?? Especially the glass buildings and such.

[@ricoman7981]

@@Gr3nadgr3gory If you want to make a career for yourself, simply apply to the government for a billion dollar grant to study the phenomenon. Just make sure you put the words “climate change” in the application. They fall for it every time.

[@Gr3nadgr3gory]

@@ricoman7981 I'd rather do something useful. Like work on LFTRs.

[@ricoman7981]

@@Gr3nadgr3gory Agreed. Will thorium break through, I don’t know much about it. Technology will lead the way. As I understand, wind and solar have limited efficiency upside, we need something much more energy dense and reliable to support the grid.

[@highlight99]

This particular project was a failure… but haven’t you seen other projects in full operations running. One of them is Cerro Dominador in Chile! Which is a total success and there’s already planning of building two more for export.

[@gregtoman7678]

A total success? Really? I suppose using the fake economics that is normally used with green energy, you can make anything look good. The reality is the opposite, but point this out, and you will be cancelled.

[@highlight99]

@Todd under 3 dollars the MWh

[@nickmartin123456]

@Todd the plant by Vegas is operating. It's called Ivanpah. Crescent Dunes is 200 miles north.

[@dj-kq4fz]

Thanks, I used to fly by these on my way in and out of LAX frequently. They were annoyingly bright even miles away and thousands of feet above. Always wondered if they were worth it. Great vid! Dave J

[@geoffhansen9969]

The lesson here is that the energy you can harness from the sun is very small compared to coal or gas and tiny compared to nuclear. That is why "renewable" energy is backwards in regards to producing energy efficiently.

[@carle8267]

If pioneers followed that negative ethos wed still be cave men.

[@alexconroy8695]

Thank you for this video report. I always wondered how it went.

[@fgxw8]

Not a massive failure, it's a massive mistake. What do we do with mistakes? We learn from them! We learn from massive mistakes...massively!!

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

so very very well said!

[@jjackson3240]

The problem is, they didn't learn from previous mistakes. This same type of system was installed in Southern California probably better than 30 years ago now and it had the same problems. Molten salt corroded the pipe lines and leaked. What a waste.

[@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765]

@@jjackson3240 Thanks JJ! Also, because "they" ignored what I failed to make clear before, is that the inventor realized his concept & design was obsolete shortly after the first prototype project (probably for all the reasons we've seen posted here). Who were the deliberately ignorant "they"? White-collar scammers, Big Power freaks, kleptocrats, and engineers who should have known better, but sold their soul.

[@rwhunt99]

@@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765 Money is a great motivator and produces many geniuses who scheme not for power (deliberate play on words) but money - investment from people who are greedy. That is the number one issue for these types of investment. What the real story and what they are promising. Gamblers will gamble. As it goes, the power plant does work, it just doesn't work as well as promised.

[@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765]

@@rwhunt99 LOL!!! U skewered the root of The Problem (us + greed + anti-ethical egomania), but the whole basis of centralized Big Power solar-thermal tech, wind-E tech, etc., is as obsolete and corrupt as it was 30 years ago.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

As an engineer we’re often taught “more moving parts means more stuff can break.” So I’m not surprised to hear that it eventually cost more than PV farms. Regardless of cost, I’m still surprised that they’re not using it as a backbone in their renewable energy goals. Maybe someone will tweak the price issue in the future.

[@saumyacow4435]

Well that's another thing. Why don't they arbitrage? Buy electricity while its cheap during the day and sell it back during the night? Or is their molten salt system delivering the efficiency it was designed for?

[@MrInnovativeEnergy]

Solar Distillation of seawater/waste water and grid tied power as a side effect. Pump the water into inland estuaries, and take the pressure off the Colorado river. Sell the minerals to other industries as another side profit.. Just an idea......

[@johnnymonsters9717]

But it had a cool mock up showing how easy it is

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

@@johnnymonsters9717 hahaha thanks for the laugh! I constantly have engineers try to pitch me on new wonder machines and they go “look how well it works in this video!” To which I often have to explain to them that they’re watching a marketing video….

[@KurtQuad]

I could imagine the maintenance nightmare for the control valves and associated instrumentation with holt molten salt. Expensive materials, expensive trims, everything needing high-temperature isolation and then pulling things out of service for repairs. Long lead times for everything and exceptionally high prices. Yeah, I can see why this would not be an efficient plant. And you would need tons of spare items on hand for critical systems as almost nothing would be off the shelf except for perhaps the steam plant.

[@goatface6602]

Any time an industry is so massively subsidized opportunists will jump in for the plunder, without regard to the success or failure of the project. Don’t subsidized anything, ever.

[@organicvids]

Solar combined with wind feeding the grid, no batteries. Done

[@RicksPoker]

You didn't mention all the 'smokers'. A smoker is a term used at the plant when a bird flew close to the target. It was blinded and caught fire, fell to the ground, and died in agony. New employees would walk around putting the animals out of their misery, after a while they didn't bother. Too depressing. Warm regards, Rick.

[@jk-wp9lp]

Imagine how many ants die every time you walk on grass. The horror. The agony.

[@zombiestory6353]

@@jk-wp9lp that is so dumb

[@bustersgarage]

We have a massive pumped hydro here in Ireland and it's very good with being the ballast to keep up during the day and even gets a little boost from the serious amounts of rain we get every year... But it definitely doesn't work for all situations.

[@philiprivera8542]

I could have predicted this from the start. Liquid salt is such a difficult and corrosive media to control. Though they can convert it to just use water only. They will lose the night but possibly another storage media may emerge . Another possibility is to heat water then heat the salt with water then heat the second loop of water at night. Losses have to be calculated.

[@ceu160193]

It's just not stable enough for such system with multiple cooling circuits. Main trouble with renewable energy is always in how unstable it is, and many mechanisms hate constant reconfigurations, as it reduces their lifespan.

[@JoeSmith-cy9wj]

Yea, I've got a great idea. Let's use something like radioactive sodium metal, or radioactive hydroflouric acid.

[@bricaaron3978]

@@JoeSmith-cy9wj *"Yea, I've got a great idea. Let's use something like radioactive sodium metal, or radioactive hydroflouric acid."* Can you explain? Genuine question---I don't know enough to know if you are being facetious or serious.

[@JoeSmith-cy9wj]

@@bricaaron3978 sarcasm directed toward those who would suggest nuclear power as a viable alternative to our energy crisis. Liquid sodium is used in some naval and compact propulsion systems. Hydroflouric acid in used in the extraction and purification of plutonium for H bombs. Infamous for many leaks in Hanford,Washington state causing a superfund contamination site. It threatens drinking and irrigation water and residential property there and down stream.

[@bricaaron3978]

@@JoeSmith-cy9wj I got a notification, but your reply isn't showing up in the thread...

[@theredscourge]

PV farms suck too, it's way better to put the panels directly on people's houses and factories, which is where the demand is, rather than buying a ton of land and then having to transmit the power a long distance.

[@unclefester6501]

These things are blinding to drivers and pilots passing by. Plus they ignite any bird between the mirrors and tower. Lots of issues.

[@iancormie9916]

Five Points. A) Makes one wonder why they need so many people to keep the system running. B) identify the corrosion/ mechanical issues and fix them C) determine if software can correct for mirror alignment problems. Solar thermal systems seem to work else where. E) if the thermal aspect cannot be salvaged - mount PV panels on the mirror pedestals, install batteries and turn it in to a conventional. solar farm.

[@WaffleSSSSSPLUS]

if we could convert renewable energy into gas or oil, that would solve a lot of problems

[@mahatmagaand]

How will we store gas? We have problems with volumetric density Container embrittlement Round trip efficiency

[@WaffleSSSSSPLUS]

@@mahatmagaand its better than hydrogen, lithium batteries and hydrobatteries. it also helps that it can be use in most conventional infrastructure already. but doubt we have the tech to do it cost effectively if not we'd already be doing it. would be nice if we could get LPG from solar/ wind/ hydro

[@chrisstott3508]

"In great efforts, it is glorious even to fail." I applaud the attempt, and hope that parts of the technologies developed for this project provide lessons useful in other projects.

[@ewutermohlen]

I highly agree, although it did costs a lot. Humans learn from mistakes, that's also a big part to engineering. In my eyes relying on fossil fuels is the true failure and we are only starting to realize what a big "mistake" it actually is. It will cost us a lot of time, effort,money and political drama to convert our energy resources. Attempting structures like this will fuel us with experience and knowledge in order to have great inventions in the future.

[@edfederoff2679]

This was pioneered by Rockwell Intl., Martin-Marietta, and McDonnell-Douglas in 1982 - called "SOLAR 1", it was located off I-40 outside of Barstow, CA. I was working at Rocketdyne at the time, and I think we were involved in the collector and thermal storage portion of the pilot project. I remember the first time I saw it - as bright as the sun - glowing white-hot, very impressive. As engineers, we discussed whether or not the concept would ever be cost effective. As I recall - the consensus was, it was similar to desalination - a good-sounding idea that just had too many daunting problems and ROI issues.

[@chargehanger]

At the time it was probably due to become cost effective. But it got overtaken by simple PV

[@diegogonzalez9086]

I loved the part where the crew or the person behind the camera is able to ask a question and him answering so openly and nicely

[@u235u235u235]

that was planned for effect don't be silly

[@bipl8989]

Most of us know we often learn more from failures than success. Here's hope that the knowledge base was proportionally increased and that it will contribute to many future success.

[@deydraniadiancecht8298]

As you said, solar still requires oil. It still requires fossil fuels. It also requires rare earth elements that must be mined.

[@markchapmon8670]

I'm glad you put this information out here. The movie Sahara a few years back had one of these in it and the concept fascinated me. Shame it didn't work out as well as hoped. All new ideas have ups and downs and some don't meet expectations. It's a shame for the investors that this failed so badly that it was a better bargain to completely shut it down rather than simply have a smaller / slower ROI.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Not all solar thermal plants leak; there's a "List of solar thermal power stations" over on Wikipedia

[@markchapmon8670]

@@williamchamberlain2263 Pretty sure I didn't get the wording just right. Perhaps I should have made myself more clear with, "It's a shame this specific solar thermal plant failed so badly it was a better bargain to completely shut it down....." I suspect that often new types of projects have differing methods of completing a variety of processes. Some can benefit or hinder the ability to correctly perform the function intended. Until all the detrimental variances are identified and techniques are perfected, things can fail that looked very promising on paper, so to speak.

[@dbuzman]

The one in the movie Sahara was not a power generator, it was supposed to be for toxic waste disposal.

[@NathanEllery]

Wasn't it a Bond movie?

[@hayorge27]

The Mathew McConaughey movie? Thought that was about...a civil war naval vessel in Africa???

[@shadowwars357]

How sad. I remember reading a story about this plant being built years ago. I was wondering how it was doing all of these years. This plant was an example of investors being Wowed by technology that wasn't really going to turn a profit if they thought about it. Also an example of something being way too technically designed when things can be much simpler. There probably aren't a lot of people who are old enough to remember the Honda commercials from probably the 70s and the 80s. Their catchphrase was 'we make it simple'. I was watching a video about a fusion reactor that is being built that needs a element that is so rare that by the time the plant is finished in 10 years it will probably not be financially feasible to even work. I don't know why the hell anybody would spend tens of billions of dollars on technology like that. Just yesterday I watched a video about a fusion reactor that is a much simpler design and the fuel source is abundant. This makes sense and it will come online in less than 5 years. It was the same story with electric cars. People think they are a new invention but they have been around as long as fossil fuel powered cars. Obviously they didn't take off because electricity was barely a thing 100 years ago. Gasoline was super cheap and pretty much was a waste product of kerosene production so they went with that.

[@aimee-lynndonovan6077]

Helium-3 is the substance to be mined for these reactors. The Moon is the most abundant source. Look it up. 🧐

[@Babihrse]

Well the fusion does have an abundant fuel source but we haven't done that because it doesn't work yet. In order for fusion to be viable it needs to put out more than it takes. There's a shit ton of energy required to make a fusion reaction happen and while what happens generates a significant amount of energy we have not gotten back the energy that was spent using conventional power to get the heat up to the levels to get the fusion to occur. Right now they're just building tests and bigger reactors and modifying as they learn from their non commercially viable reactions. We hope they solve it but it has not yet been solved

[@Hank520Tube]

@@Babihrse reseach into fusion "reactors" has been on-going since the late 70's when Carter (a nuclear engineer) was president. There is a larger Tokamat fusion reactor being built in France. The reality of cheap electricty is just around the corner...sometime in the next 30 years...(sarc), that is if all of Europe doesn't freeze to death this winter.

[@Babihrse]

@@Hank520Tube I did not know carter was a nuclear engineer

[@htf5555]

30 more years fusionbros

[@gijbuis]

Energy storage is the next big thing... Storing energy in the form of heat is still looking promising (e.g. heating sand to around 500 degrees Celsius) although insulating the containers is probably the biggest problem.

[@TheAtticusFinch]

The thunderfoot boogie man is real. Nuclear is the greenest, safest and most cost productive.

[@michelhegeraat5430]

You did not explain why, at the best moment, they were only producing 50% of their estimated capacity. Would they have been able to break even, if the price of electric power did not drop like it did? Also, the price of photovoltaic energy seems always to be calculated without energy storage, while nobody wants to wait until the sun comes up before using electricity. It's a bit like comparing apples and lemons. It does not make sense. Things wear, just by being out in the desert all day, every day. This must be foreseen. It seems they make some bad assumptions, causing regular outages. Still, maybe a v2 version of this plant, could have a lot lower operational costs.

[@davidbea3711]

this whole channel sounds funded by OIL INDUSTRY CABAL . EXCUSES...EXCUSES... MORE WEAK UNFOUNDED E X C U S E S .

[@StormGod29]

@@davidbea3711 this channel is very clearly pro green alternative energy and always has been. Are you basing your comment off just this video or something?

[@davidbea3711]

@@StormGod29 this & 1 other vid

[@matthewv789]

@@davidbea3711 I don’t get what you’re saying. The point of this video was that one form of renewable solar seemed to be, at least in this particular case, more cost effective than another (though it wasn’t as clear if that was still the case once equivalent storage was included with photovoltaics, and also didn’t point out that its high electricity price was specified in a long-term contract, not necessarily its actual operating cost, and that under new ownership it is operating again). It did leave out one thing that made the case for this plant even worse from a climate perspective: concentrated plants like this need a natural gas system to keep the salt molten later at night (or I guess in heavily cloudy conditions) after it cools off. So they have some significant amount of carbon emissions routinely just to operate.

[@matthewerwin4677]

I worked on the project. The mirrors are covered with frost and snow in the winter and dust the rest of the year. The plant is at 7000' altitude.

[@kemalgorgunel4810]

Great video, thank you. I just have a question; why they didn't replace the mirrors with PV panels? They could get the max sun light utilization with this kind of position/angle controlled arrangement. Since they already have the infrastructure they could just turn it into normal solar farm by scrapping the rest of the boiler, turbine, pumps, pipes etc. etc. and doing some wiring.

[@michaelsmithers4900]

If it’s 30% more efficient than PV changing to PV would be a downgrade. (30-40% efficientcy stated in video vs. low 20s for PV.

[@suunraze]

That's a sweet idea

[@kelvinstrachan7331]

Exactly what I was about to comment. The entire cabling infrastructure is there. They even have the support structures and the machinery to do a follow system. Including software, that just needs to be reprogrammed. Turn everything to face South, and realign the structures. So, there's no storage? Big deal. Easy job. I'll get my check book. Who's with me?

[@shrujanamsyama9940]

@@kelvinstrachan7331 There is no wiring between the current mirrors as mirrors don't need wires. There is no inverter or any PV infrastructure

[@darrencassie1978]

Mi

[@SAPPERJASON1]

You need to do a more in-depth video about this system and what failed. Awesome video and I can’t wait to see some of your other videos

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

will do!

[@tesmith47]

@@TwoBitDaVinci you seem to have a bias against green energy, like this project some obvious management decisions were the real problem i.e. storage instead of just daytime generation. and you quote maintaince as a issue. but did not note that was for the storage part!!

[@rainerkinzinger555]

Nice content! I just stumbled upon your channel, 2 thumbs up for you.

[@mOOOp42]

Well, this is embarrassing... I made my senior thesis on this power plant because I spent a lot of time driving in-between Las Vegas and Arizona and I always found this fascinating. Our question was that Microsoft wanted to build a new HQ in Arizona but wanted to be energy independent, so what is the best clean energy option that they could be completely energy independent? Well I heard this system powered the Las Vegas strip at night based off the heat in the desert in collected in the day which was a perfect application in my mind. Microsoft's main concern was that this system was too expensive for what their goal was.

[@johnkraus4]

Microsoft will want a government handout from wherever they go. It's all about shaking down the government rubes.

[@johjoh978]

oh i thought this was the one down by jean like south west of mccullough

[@nickmartin123456]

There's a mistake in the video. The Crescent Dunes plant is in northern Nevada. Ivanpah plant by Las Vegas is still working.

[@Mrbfgray]

You can trust governments to back failures more often then not.

[@rcpmac]

Don't be stupid. Funding decisions are based on good faith engineering which produced a competitive proposal at the time but not after PVs dropped in cost by a factor of 12

[@Mrbfgray]

@@rcpmac Private enterprise didn't do that alone now did they, most likely they'd have projected the cost decrease in PV, it's been well known for decades. When cost discipline is absent, as it always is with tax monies, this is typically the result. Same goes for California's hydrogen fuel fiasco and any number of other examples, the worst being corn ethanol disaster which won't end until gasoline is obsolete. Less government interference the better.

[@N0N0111]

Why did all these towers have molten salts leaks? The ones in Africa had the same major issues (Desertec). Seems like the construction was the major issues with many faults and less with the other financial issues, I dare to say same company design the molten salt system made the same mistakes. If the plant was operational longer with a lot less issues I think the profits would still make it run today, but cause of the major engineering design issues it was a huge flop.

[@christopherchapman9505]

Great video, lol you even let your son have a cameo!! Kudos to a very interesting and informative video….

[@mtn1793]

I always thought that they were duplicating the megalomania that was also a problem with 1st generation nuke plants. Giant size in just about anything creates giant problems…

[@SkepticalCaveman]

This clearly shows that it's not efficiency that matters, but cost. Photovoltaics is so cheap that it will dominate the future of energy together with wind. A national, high voltage, supergrid for the US would reduce the need of energy storage since electricity could be transported wherever it's needed to balance out peak consumption more efficiently over the whole continent. It would also save a huge amount of money in the long run.

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

yeah good point

[@johndoh5182]

I'm going to add an addendum to this. In the western half of the US, large solar farms should be built and at this point we shouldn't be too concerned with using arid space to do this. While I understand the stupid logic of environmental harm to land that's pretty much unusable and we might risk putting a certain lizard in danger of extinction, that totally ignores the fact we REALLY ARE causing extinction of multiple species due to global warming and HAVE to change what we're doing. We can't wait for the "perfect solution" and need to evaluate what are SMART solutions, and solar panels where the sun shines almost all the time and using wind turbines where there's consistent winds are good solutions, with the caveat that wind farms need to do their best to avoid migratory paths or get wind farms on the edges of these migratory paths for birds. But, we cannot afford to lose almost all ocean life to "save" birds. I think birds will figure out migratory paths and start avoiding wind turbines, but ocean life cannot avoid the build up of carbon in the oceans and what that's doing to them. So it's not an argument that should stop wind turbines. There was an infrastructure spending plan that was approved, and there should be a lot of money put into improving the grid in general and long range transmission of power. If we fix the grid, then we can use the western part of the US to power a good chunk of the US with solar panels and grid storage. Then, we can use wind turbines in Texas, OK and a handful of other states for wind power for another good chunk of the country and I believe we can use off shore wind generation off the east coast in some locations where once again the winds are pretty consistent. With environmentally friendly grid storage, ESS's iron redux flow batteries this is not just feasible, it's SMART. I'm thinking this would be enough power generation for at least 80% of the US's power needs. But, we may need to add nuclear to the list, along with some natural gas plants as a backup for wind and solar. Not a complete backup, but enough to give around 10 - 20% of the US's power needs. While this isn't completely carbon free it's WAY better than what we've had and should be enough for US emissions to be very low compared to most the world, with the transition to BEV, and a more friendly concrete for building. It would probably be enough to take US emissions down to early 1900s levels, or maybe less since even then we burned a lot of wood and coal. Yeah that would probably get us to 1800s levels really.

[@kfl611]

When I was working (I'm retired now PRAISE THE LORD !!) I used to ask "why in the world did they do that, and whose stupid idea was that"..........99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of the time it came down to money - aka more money for the big wigs, and less money for the grunts.

[@blueckaym]

Besides the hard competition from PVs (which are still capped at about 20~22% efficiency) it seems this power plant problems were its own poor efficiency compounded with poor implementation. Imho CSP-thermal power production & storage plants have huge potential, they just need to be well designed and implemented. There are several alternatives, with ranging temps from -200C to +1414C some of which claim efficiency around 60% (ie about triple the one from PVs), while PVs are currently cheap because of economy of scale, their efficiency is already capped, and still require exotic materials and toxin releasing processes to produce (still very far from the ones released by fossil fuels!), and limited (even though long) life-cycle. CSP+thermal-storage (using heat-engines for conversion) have the advantages of not requiring any exotics materials, and having no life-cycle limits to the parts that are scaled (ie mostly the pumps need regular maintenance, and are subject to replacement at their life-cycle)

[@DEEPAKSEHRAWAT11]

Bro. you are right. You must be some engineer or else its not possible to reach right conclusions. I too agree that CSP with thermal but no storage is the future. Everything in the plant was good except the molten salt, they need a different thing to store the heat and convert it to electricity with cyclicity of the process without leakage in a closed system setting.

[@ReadTheShrill]

Very few people "hate green energy initiatives". Personally, my only opposition to green energy initiatives are government subsidies, and government mandates. If you come up with a green energy initiative that produces abundant power at comparable costs to traditional power production, great! You build the plant, and we'll buy the power.

[@jasonhaynes2952]

Yes! The problem is, when Government gets involved, so do big money interests, lobbyists, and political donors. Instead of the technology improving on it's own, or even becoming a reality to begin with, subsidies often prop up technologies that were destined to fail, sometimes squeezing out better technologies from the market. So now instead of the best alternative "winning", it's all driven by politicians and special interests. And who pays for it? We do...with higher energy bills and taxes. Imagine if Tesla and Edison's "current wars" over AC vs. DC had just been fought with lobbyists in Washington? I'm pretty sure Edison's DC current, which was backed by JP Morgan, would have won out. Thank god that didn't happen!

[@bennywilks9367]

I think that this is a very important point: When driving from SoCal, the solar towers one sees right before crossing into NV are not Crescent Dune. Crescent Dune is located near Tonopah NV, about 2.5 hrs. NW of Las Vegas. I think it is very irresponsible to publish a video with blatantly untrue data.

[@PrinceOfSilla]

Driven past it a dozen times going between Reno and Vegas. Pretty cool to look t

[@nfsmith51]

You'd think that the author would have at least figured out that the plant you can see from Interstate 15 on the way from Southern California to Las Vegas (the Ivanpah Solar Concentration Plant) is actually in California, not Nevada. Tonapah is 190 miles north west of Las Vegas, and definitely not on the way from Southern Cal. . .

[@insomnia20422]

The great thing about storing electrical energy at your home is that weight isnt really a factor. So a lot of battery types that are useless for mobile applications due to weight per storage can come in handy due to lower cost. And cost and availability will ultimately decide what you use for your home.

[@jackwills7092]

You can't store electricity

[@zpettigrew]

Looks pretty cool. Great general concept too.

[@FrancescoDiMauro]

waiting for thunderf00t... to get a proper job

[@claudiaroy9455]

😂

[@spiderdude2099]

The whole “storage” method using molten salt seems super sus. I can imagine it would solidify in the pipes quite frequently, and unlike oil or steam, you can’t pump it out, it solidifies and destroys the entire piping. I know the whole “storing the energy” thing is a huge selling point so it can run when the sun isn’t out, but molten salt seems like just asking for issues. I know it’s used elsewhere in power plants, but they only have limited operating hours when the heat is at its max and you can confidently keep the salt molten.

[@warbrain1053]

Well here in morocco we habe one working soo.. a thing that could be in play is corruption and higher ups

[@randgrithr7387]

All this effort when governments could just go nuclear for clean energy.

[@MP-zf7kg]

Physical engineering in the real world often fails in initial applications. That's why it's "engineering", because it takes reassessing the project and constant improvement.

[@FirstLast-vr7es]

It was a neat idea, but is far too complicated for what it provided. I thoroughly believe that the new generation of nuclear power is FINALLY going to take center stage and be the world's main baseload power source. I'm a big fan of thorium, but there are several competing nuclear reactor designs now that promise so much more than in the past.

[@Oneness100]

After the 9/11 attacks, there was concern raised with nuclear power because it would be a target for a terrorist attack and if the nuclear plant can melt down and cause radiation in a large area, I'd be VERY concerned about using nuclear.. Yes, Thorium does seem promising, but I still think it's not ready, YET. I know in China they are setting up some prototypes that aren't commercially available yet. I just don't think nuclear is the ready yet.

[@westt1988]

Sounds like a material selection nightmare. You have salts on one side of a vessel, steam (water) on the other operating at temperatures that the go to high temperature stainless and inconel (nickel based) materials suffer from chloride (salt water) stress corrosion cracking.

[@Hank520Tube]

I agree, it does sound like a nightmare! as the old saying goes, "What could possibly go wrong".

[@wlsnpndrvs8593]

I lived in tonopah Nevada and I really enjoyed a comment one elderly lady made in letter to the editor at the local newspaper she said that plant will just ruin our desert's beautiful nighttime sky. I think she's confusing it with the Luxor.

[@DagoRuiz]

I liked watching the birds catch fire and fall to the ground leaving smoke trails. This was such a great idea!

[@wjhann4836]

- For me it would be interesting that those plants are also built in other areas of the world (for example Spain). How do they do? - Next: Wat was the problem to that huge difference in efficiency? - Maintenance cost: Would be interesting, if that particular plant was built poorly or might it be development issues that lead to so high costs.

[@BaghaShams]

Yeah, this video bizarrely made no mention of the fact that these plants already exist in operation in a few places. They made it sound to the viewer as if it was a theoretical plant that skipped over the prototype stage. There are several commenters who clearly got that impression from this video

[@gregtoman7678]

Spain is your example? Spain has failed completely with its green energy! Put green on it, and you can sell it to anyone, especially a liberal government, but the reality is that it screws everyone, and especially the poor who pay a larger percentage of their income in necessities like power.

[@wjhann4836]

@@gregtoman7678 Your' right - but I only cited that there was a salt driven power plant.

[@wjhann4836]

@Azur ii I don't think so. IMHO there are some 3 individual planed projects based on liquid salt. It seems, the theoretical - and practical feasibility will be given. The problem seems the daily live with an aggressive salt and plumbing materials. For me that's typical difference between labor an field.

[@teagueman100]

The real reason this plant didn't work is that CSP don't work too well with diffuse light and the salt cools and solidifies very easy. The plant needed to burn natural gas to keep the salt hot and the turbines going. Because solar at best has a 20% capacity factor the CSP plant was mostly a natural gas power station.

[@Heavywall70]

This project has a hard and firm , no fossil fuel beyond a specific deadline, rule. So the timing of when the salt was introduced and heated and ,then by contract the fossil heat source was removed , and what stage of construction Cobra actually had accomplished by that point was wildly miscalculated. By the time the salt went up the tower it had been months since it had seen an external heat source.

[@SandCrabNews]

Failure is a good teacher.

[@billcarruth8122]

I came for the epic twelve o'clock sunlight. I stayed for the epic five o'clock shadow.

[@michaelnaak]

In the meantime, until the technology grows, it seems like solar thermal to just heat water to turn turbines during day light hours would be a great way to support areas where energy use during the day is so high, like deserts with so many homes using air conditioning.

[@ihatehandles6969]

It's not a terribly new technology. the video is a little misleading on this point. The reason it failed was more about management than about new technology.

[@genef1027]

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System near Primm NV, about 31 miles SW of Las Vegas does generate steam directly. It uses the mirrors and thermal receiver but does not store heat like in the Crescent Dunes design. Its drawback is they need to preheat the water before sunrise for it to perform as designed. It's not a zero GHG emissions design. They burn natural gas to do that, and it's taking 4x the design spec amount to do the preheating.

[@WrathChild-NZ]

Can you make a video on Solar recycling? With millions of solar panels being made for solar farms, they will inevitably will need to be replaced after 20 or so years. will this be a massive issue?

[@TwoBitDaVinci]

Great questions. Adding it to the board, thanks for the idea. 🙌🏻

[@ernestgalvan9037]

…used solar panels sell like hotcakes…. Just like used EV battery packs… used Tesla battery packs are worth Big Buck$…

[@300ddsrt3]

How much energy and non renewable resources went into making this facility? How much waste was created and how will it be disposed of now that it is a loosing proposition to keep operating?

[@Dylan_Marshall]

The major problem with molten salt is that it's EXTREMELY corrosive. Nuclear engineers ran into this problem when performing the molten salt reactor experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. A lot of material science has to go into containing molten salts and preventing leaks.

[@Hossak]

Remember when you build a huge, capital intense plant like this, it wears out and will need a complete replacement in several years. You cant change the laws of thermodynamics.

[@johndododoe1411]

Don't confuse economics and thermodynamics.

[@Hossak]

@@johndododoe1411 tell that to the bank :(