Earth Equity News

U.S. Offers $1.37 Billion Loan Guarantee for BrightSource Energy. By Todd Woody, NYTimes, February 22, 2010. "The United States Department of Energy offered a $1.37 billion loan guarantee on Monday to a California company planning to build a large-scale solar power plant in the Southern California desert. The loan guarantee for Bright Source Energy of Oakland, Calif., is the largest the department has given for a solar power project. BrightSource's planned project, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, is the first utility-scale solar power plant to undergo licensing in California in nearly two decades. It would use solar thermal technology, in which mirrors concentrate sunlight to heat a fluid and generate steam. If built, it would be the largest of its kind... The loan guarantee is contingent on the Ivanpah project passing state and federal environmental reviews. Some environmental groups have objected to the site of the project in the Ivanpah Valley, arguing that the plant would eliminate habitat for the imperiled desert tortoise and other rare plants and wildlife. BrightSource earlier this month offered to reduce the size of the plant to lessen its impact on wildlife, but representatives of the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife said the move was inadequate and argued the project should be relocated... The Ivanpah plant will deploy thousands of mirrors, called heliostats, that focus the sun on three towers that will each contain a boiler filled with water. The focused heat creates steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity. The plant, to be built by Bechtel, is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs."