Solar Power Plant Construction Starts

This is an awful lot of money to spend
on a plant that produces a measly 11 MWs
(maximum) only during the daylight hours. I wonder if it's mostly a test plant?

It is a lot of money Kerry but education is expensive. It takes money to develope and engineer ideas but with each iteration we see improvements. We see efficiency improvements. We see watts per gram of silicon improvements. We see fabrication improvements. The world market is approaching 2000 MWs of production per year thanks to the contributions of 11 MWs here and 5 KWs there. I think the "measly" nature of solar will turn out to be an advantage as incremental improvements on 3 watt cells and 200 watt panels multiply over GWs of production. Imagine it...

I don't agree with Michael's carbon and hurricane comments. We don't need to fear ourselves into solar. There is already too much fear in our culture.

Some people think we can continue spewing out carbon dioxide without any ill effect. What is the cost of a cat 5 hurricane hitting land?

Solar Electric Generating Stations VIII and IX were completed in 1989 and 1990 respectively. They are both 80 MW in size so the Portuguese project is not the "world's largest solar project." It's not even in the top 10 because in addition of the nine SEGS plants, there is a 64 MW project under construction in Boulder City, NV.

I think it's odd to use Photo-voltaic cells on such a large scale system, instead of a thermal system, but it is a good thing since it adds to the incentive for large corporations such as GE to invest record amounts of money into the development of new technologies. The potential for carbon nanotube photocells or some other non-silicon based idea, for instance.

This project may become the largest solar-PV power station in the world, but it surely is NOT the largest solar power station, because the SEGS stations built in 1989 and 1990 in California of 80 MW each are solar power stations too. Their technology is solar-CSP (Concentrating Solar Power). This technology is much cheaper than solar-PV and better suited for large plants. PV is excellent for decentralized purposes.
So, please, don't confuse solar-PV and solar-CSP anymore.

Just think It cost over $3 million for a concept vehicle to be manufactured. But as technology gets moving and mass production is set in place. That same vehicle only costs about $25,000.00
Same thing for a CD for CD players, DVDs, and computers. They said only ten years ago that it would cost over $10,000.00 to just make one CD and look you can go to Wallmart and get them 20 for $5.00
I believe what I am saying is if technology was to improve and the only way is to get it out on the market. Hopefully it won't take to long for the price to go down.