Earth Equity News

Reclaiming His Place in the Sun. By Eric A. Taub, NYTimes, September 23, 2008. "In 1989, Arnold J. Goldman was the world's undisputed sun king. His realm was a desolate patch of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, where his company, Luz International, created the world's largest solar energy installation. At the time, Luz's plants generated roughly 90 percent of the solar energy on the planet. Two years later, his reign was over, done in by an uninterested public. While the solar field that Luz built for Southern California Edison still runs today, the company went kaput, unable to compete profitably with the lower costs of companies producing electricity from traditional sources... After 20 years wandering outside the desert, he is back, with a reconstituted company and a contract from Pacific Gas and Electric Company to purchase up to 900 megawatts of power while creating more efficient solar plants at Ivanpah, Calif., on the Nevada border. Mr. Goldman named his new company Bright Source Energy, based it in Oakland, Calif., and created a subsidiary called Bright Source Israel in Jerusalem... BrightSource has raised $160 million in operating capital from traditional energy company subsidiaries like Chevron Technology Ventures, BP Alternative Energy and Norway's StatoilHydro Venture, as well as from Google. At the original Mojave solar plant, row upon row of 750,000 precision-made curved mirrors reflected the sun's rays to an oil-filled pipe; the heated oil drove turbines that created 354 megawatts of electricity. BrightSource's new California installation, which is being tested in the Negev Desert in Israel, uses fields of flat mirrors, each measuring 7 feet by 10 feet, called heliostats, that direct the sun's rays to a tower that holds a boiler. The resulting steam powers a turbine to create electricity. The new approach increases solar to electrical efficiency from 11 to 20 percent, and decreases the cost of producing power to 70 percent of the old plant."