The Carbon Tax behind Ivanpah

I blogged that Ivanpah is Solyndra times three in terms of wasted money by the Department Of Energy.  $1.5 billion given for a hair-brain scheme to produce steam form concentrated solar and then generate electricity from the steam.   Here is my blog on Breitbart about Ivanpah.

My estimate of the cost of power generation from the Ivanpah project with profits to all involved in the development of the project is $250 per megawatt hour of electricity generated.  This estimate agrees with the DOE’s EIA own estimate of average and leveled costs for power from concentrated solar projects starting up in 2017 which they pegged at $242 per mwh.

Here is the US DOE EIA link to power generation costs for alternate electricity generation methods.

The same EIA report pegged advanced combined cycle power generation from natural gas to cost $63.10 per megawatt hour.  Per Siemens the emissions from an advanced combined cycle power station are approximately 730 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour.  Hence the imputed added cost (tax) to the American public is $178.90 ($242 -$63.10) divided by 730 pounds and equal to 24.51 cents per pound.  This equals a tax of $490.13 per US ton of CO2.  This is lower than the imputed tax of $2,675 per ton of avoided CO2 levied by the plug in Volt automobile.    This is a  hidden tax in utility bills for the customers of Southern California Edison and is also many times the level of emissions taxation in Europe where carbon credits are now trading for a mere $8 per US ton of CO2.

Well done Secretary Chu you supported a smoke and mirrors project in the Mojave Dessert that taxes us at a rate of 6,126% times that of those green Europeans.