So, our favorite Houstonian Represtative Gabby "Miss Pink Sweater Set" Giffords, posted this to her twitter account this morning:
"The long-term outlook for solar energy is bright in the right public policy environment http://bit.ly/aQJ55"
So, I decided to see if I could find an example of what she thinks is a good solar array or solar farm. A quick check of her flikr stream found this picture of Nellis Air Force Base:
So, with some help from another tweeter I tracked down this report on the Nellis installation. 15 Megawatts over 140 acres. That's .11 megawatts per acre. Palo Verde Nuclear can produce 3200 Megawatts on 4000 acres. Thats .8 megawatts per acre. When you break it down to megawatts / per area, it takes 7 (YES SEVEN) times the area of Palo Verde Nuclear to provide the same amount of power.
Does she REALLY want 28,000 acres (43.75 sq. miles) of our desert to look like the land above? This is what she is pushing, people, and this is what we are going to end up with! No, she just wants 16,500 acres of it to look like this.
Next to find out is how much it cost to build and install, how much to run and convert from solar to usable power, shelf life of panels, disposal,then we'll have something to put in front of Gabby. She was willing to pass cap and tax just for a sandpile of power. Amazing how much she is willing to tax us for this measily dream/nightmare.
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