Featured Image Credit: Myung J. Chun/ Los Angeles Times/ Getty Images
Topics: California, Technology, Environment, News, Money
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: California, Technology, Environment, News, Money
A multibillion-dollar solar plant is set to close down next year because it's supposedly not 'serving its purpose', which has left everyone saying the same thing.
An eye-watering $2.2 billion was reportedly spent on the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a solar thermal plant based in the Mojave Desert in California.
The plant, made up of three 459-foot towers and nearly 174,000 computer-controlled mirrors called heliostats, opened in 2014, but it will be switched off for good next year after failing to meet its energy targets despite hopes it was going to make America 'a world leader in solar energy'.
Next year's closure comes 13 years earlier than planned. The likes of Pacific Gas & Electric and NRG Energy Inc. were supposed to have contracts that lasted until 2039, Associated Press reported, but news broke back in January that they were ending their respective agreements early.
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"PG&E determined that ending the agreements at this time will save customers money," the company said in a statement on its website at the time.
Meanwhile NRG dubbed the project 'successful' but that it unable to compete with rival photovoltaic solar technology.
Plans for the planet were approved back in 2010, and a year later, former President Barack Obama’s Department of Energy issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees.
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With this in mind, Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System's upcoming closure has left a lot of Americans saying the same thing: that the whole debacle was a waste of taxpayers' money and government funding.
"Both a waste of money and an environmental disaster that will take decades to clean up," somebody said on Twitter, as another fumed: "Yet another left-wing taxpayer-funded boondoggle turns out to be a useless waste of money."
A third added: "Another total failure and waste of taxpayer dollars by Gavin Newsom. Guy fails at everything he does."
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As another person insisted that the solar power plant 'was always a boondoggle'.
Julia Dowell of environmental organization The Sierra Club echoed similar sentiments earlier this year.
"The Ivanpah plant was a financial boondoggle and environmental disaster," she said, via AP. "Along with killing thousands of birds and tortoises, the project’s construction destroyed irreplaceable pristine desert habitat along with numerous rare plant species.
Dowell continued: "While the Sierra Club strongly supports innovative clean energy solutions and recognizes the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels, Ivanpah demonstrated that not all renewable technologies are created equal."
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UNILAD have approached Governor of California Gavin Newsom for comment.