News & Views item - October 2007

 

US Multi-billion-dollar Expansion of Solar Power Supply Using Australian's Technology. (October 2, 2007)

  David Millls

A report filed by the ABC's Matt Peacock opens with "Solar takes off with US power supply deal".

 

What's the big deal?

 

Mr Peacock writes: "The company at the heart of the development is Ausra. It was started by Australian solar expert David Mills, who left this country for California earlier this year to pursue the further development of his ground-breaking work." And one of the claims made by the consortium is that solar power will soon be providing baseload electricity - that is, day and night - at prices competitive with coal.

 

Can't possibly be true... can it? After all our federal Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has assured us: "You cannot run a modern economy on wind farms and solar powers. It's a pity that you can't, but you can't," while our Prime Minister, John Howard, knows that it's nothing but: "a nice, easy soft answer. There's this vague idea in the community that solar doesn't cost anything and it can solve the problem. It can't. It can't replace baseload power generation by power stations."

 

But baseload power supply is just what Ausra is now being contracted to supply for the insatiable US market. It says that within two years it will be able to economically store its hot water for more than 16 hours.

 

According to Mr Peacock, last week at the: "Clinton Global Initiative, giant US power companies were pledging billions of dollars of investment into solar power."

 

The solar technology developed by Dr Mills already exists as a pilot plants attached to the Liddell coal-fired power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley. Flat mirrors tracking the sun and focused on a central tower to generate steam.

 

And Dr Mills says: "we want to aim for gigawatt-style plants," while  Sustainable energy expert Mark Diesendorf, who lectures in environmental studies at the University of NSW, told Matt Peacock large solar power plants are the way to go. "It's important to get a large scale for the development to bring down costs, and the United States offers a magnificent opportunity for large-scale solar development."

 

The venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who made his fortune in IT, is prepared to back him and says solar power is developing rapidly and will be cheaper than either nuclear power or 'clean' coal. "We think we can move much faster than nuclear and on an unsubsidised basis, we will be cheaper than nuclear power, and we should be cheaper than IGCC [integrated gasification combined cycle] coal-based power generation."

 

Dr Mills predicts: "In five years time, we'll have very large plants and I would say gigawatt-style plants already commissioned, able to run 24 hours a day and completely replace the function of nuclear and coal plants."

 

 

[CLFR = Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector]