X
February 24, 2017

Enviros Hype Chinese Solar Plant That’s 1% as Effective as a CA Nat Gas Plant

post-image

On Thursday, Scientific American’s Brian Kahn gushed over the “largest solar farm in the world,” a facility in China that can generate 850 megawatts of electricity from “over 10 square miles of the high desert landscape.” That’s quite a land grab.

Kahn adds that the solar plant can “power roughly 140,000 U.S. homes,” and touts China’s “massive renewable energy revolution.”

The only problem with Kahn’s glowing praise? A natural gas facility in California is producing about as much electricity (800 megawatts) with less than one percent of the land required for China’s solar plant.

More from Power-Technology:

The 800MW CPV Sentinel (CPVS) energy project is a natural gas power plant built in Riverside County, California, US.

Spread over 37 acres, the project is designed to serve as a steady source of renewable energy.

What’s more the project “is enough to protect 640,000 homes of Coachella Valley and Los Angeles Basin from power blackouts.”

Thirty-seven acres of land versus 10 square miles of land to produce a similar amount of power. Is that even a contest?