Meaning the intensity of the sun on average over the course of the year is excellent. That means youll produce more energy per square foot than you would in an area with less intense sun. It also had an existing gas Trance Mission line going through the property and we consume a little bit of natural gas, 2 a year, allowing us to start up and capture the first Morning Light by getting pipes warm. We make use of the flux and produce that steam quicker reducing and improve the overall performance. Thats one. The third is that there were existing transmission lines. In fact, the two lines that ran through date back all the way to the hoover dam, and by upgrading transmission lines, we can driver the power into the grid and help strengthen the reliability in that particular area. The land is owned by the bureau of land management. How could you build on governmentowned land . Guest you submit an application, form ss299, and in that, theres a lease. Theres been recent efforts to look at auctioning, but, basically, we lease the land from the federal government, and at the end of the lease, we are required to restore the land exactly the way it is, and to that end, we have collected four tons of seeds that sit in storming that came from the native grasslands in the lay down area where we had the tower to replant at the end. Its leased on federal land. The federal government leases land for oil and gas drilling, for wind development, for solar, and the deserts are public lands and you get multiple uses from that land, but comparison, there are 20 million acres in the deserts, i think its 21, and were on 3500 acres. Compare that to maybe only 25 Solar Projects licensed or leased by the blm on federal land. Onshore oil and Gas Exploration and drilling, they process about i want to say 2,000 leases a year, maybe for 7 million acres. I could have the figures off, but its a significant difference. What i point out, though, when you look at the solar plant like ours, what you see is the collection of the resource. In this case, the suns raid yept energy, and that transformation processing that in a product of electricity thats delivered to the grid. With a natural gas power plant, how it worked better with the technologies, but when you look at the power plant, you see the production of the electricity from the gas. What you dont see is the land used for exploration, extraction, processing, and transportation in the form of pipelines, so its a very efficient use of lain provided that youre identifying the appropriate land and habitat, and you take special steps to protect the spee species including plants and animals. Host you said at the end of the lease you restore it back to the original look. Does that mean the installlations go away at the end of the lease . Guest yeah. Host why . Guest thats the requirement. Host this is not a permanent solution . Guest when you say permanent, this power plant has a rated life of 30 years. The lease that we have is 50 years. I could be off a little. When a plant is reaching the end of the useful life, you can repower. Thats common with hydroplants, and you repower, upgrade, replace the turbine. Thats a question that will be asked at the end of 25 and to years whether it makes sense, but legally, were obligated to restore that, and we posted bonds in order to ensure that happened. What i point out is you bought a car, and once you pay for it, the gas is free for the life of the car. Thats here. You have high capital cost, and the economics that you look at about the plant the is fixed and vairnl costs versus something thats capital costs only. Host corpus christi, texas on the line, republican, arthur, good morning. Caller good morning, yall. I think you answered one of the questions. Ives just curious, one, how many mirrors are there, and, two, your towers are there limits as to how much heat they can take and is that guest great, great question. Ill walk you through how they operate. Theres three tours. Each tower is 459 feet tall or 140 meters on the metric system. Its one meter taller than the great pyramid, but each of the towers, we have a total of 173,000 mirrors, and the towers are roughly 133, 133, and 127, i think, megawatts in rating, and the difference in the rating size had to do with adjustments we made to accommodate Environmental Concerns going through the permitting process on one of the units, but each of the mirrors is individually controlled so at any given point in time, we dont need all the mirrors, but enough to maintain what we call flux, reflective sup light, on to the top of the tower, to maintain the appropriate temperature and pressure, and that temperature exceeds a thousand degrees fahrenheit or, i think, 538 degrees celsius in there in 25 00psi. Thats the conditions that we create, and having a Tower Technology allows you to achieve higher temperatures, higher pressures, in turning, allowing you to have a more efficient turbine to lower the cost of energy. In the solar fields, three fields, individually controlled, and thats how we get it dope. Host do you think this is the future of solar power, that this replaces the traditional panels that people think about . Guest again, excellent question, greta. No, not at all. It is one of you think about Energy Policy, its always all the above, meaning we need a mix in a diversity of resources whether its fossil fuel, nuclear, to make use of the investments we have already. What i can tell you is that different different Solar Projects have different attributes meaning a pv plant is variable. A wind power plant is variable, although, you can predict with fairly accurate numbers how much it will produce over the course of a month, and in the case of the solar plant, what were able to do is marry that technology up with thermal storage, and so we can capture the heat of the sun and use that to produce electricity when the sun goes down. Its a combination of the two. What the grid needs to operate reliably are resources that are flexible, dispatchable, created with thermal storage, but this is solar steam, and we can use steam in other applications like reducing the Carbon Intensity of natural gas plants, reducing the use of coal plants, using this for other parts of the world where they need it as well as enhanced oil recovery as we demonstrated in coaling in california. The future of clean energy is supportive of solar steam to compliment what happens elsewhere. Host a tweet from a viewer. Guest sure. Host what is your yearly maintenance burden, explain. You talk about expected lifetime, but is your hardware friendly to replacement and upgrade . Guest it is. We actually built onsite a building that is essentially think of an automotive plant, fabricate it, we installed the 17 3,000 on average at the rate of one per minute over the course of the construction. We have excess there. The maps, this is steel and glass and its just pretty much standard mirrors you expect to use and they figure, and the Hundred Acres includes cleaning the facilities, but the operation and maintenance in a power plant is very, and a thermal plant is wellknown and wellunderstood, and comparing, lets say, the number of workers in construction, we have, at the peak, 2100 craft workers, and theres 90 people on a goforward basis. Thats 90 people to operate all three units for the next 2530 years. Host what is the effect of all of this going into the atmosphere . Guest oh, theres nothing going into the atmosphere. When you reflect sunlight thats radiation that already exists. You dont p heat the air because its not dense at all, and you get intense strength if you think of a focusing mirrors, people use magnifying glasses or a photographer, you understand the idea of focal length so were pointing at that tower, and then the tower, the rates diverge. Theres no e possessions other than the small amount used for the natural gas, but we recycle the water, minimizing the foot print, and thats the reason that you look at renewable investments like con accept traiting solar thermal. Host there was concern over a desert tortoise. Guest great question again. There were concerns. We selected the land in part because the blm said it was a class three tortoise habitat, the least sensitive. We did the surveys. They indicated few tortoises would be onsite when we began construction. However, we found more. They are not exactly sure why that was the case. It was a drought year probably that contributed to that, but nonetheless, people legitimately had concerns, and weve taken great steps to ensure their protection. Ill give you an indication of what that involves. We have desert fencing that of the p es them from burrowing back in. At one time, we had 150 biologists, and they go through the system sorry, they walk through the solar field. Any tortoise identified was movedded to a iners ri where it was nursery tested for and had medical care, ensuring there was not respiratory disease. Theres two times a year to move tortoises. We found roughly 140 in total, but while in the nurseries awaiting the next window, we had 55 juvenile tortoises born in captivity so we have a Head Start Program, and the Head Start Program provides shelter because the survival rate of the tortoise, the desert tore tees in the wild is 2 meaning 98 dont make it to adulthood. They are part of the food chain. In this case, the survival of the Head Start Program because they are protected from predators is 98 . We lost two to some red ants early on. Thats exact opposite. Its another way of saying as a result of the project, we will return more adult desert tortoises into the valley than if they had been no project at all. I know people have a hard time sometimes understanding that, but thats exactly whats happening. Additionally, we are tracking for science with transmitters, 400 of the tortoises that were moved as well as control population, the recipient population, and its yielding a wealth of Scientific Data that was not known about it. The concerns were legitimate. They have conditions imposed on the project. Everybody has worked hard, and im happy to say that so far there has been no statistically significant difference between adults moved and the others in the controlled populations and their new neighbors. Its been a tremendous success. Host lets end with this email from greg in sioux falls, south dakota. How many square feet of pams or mirrors does it take to support a single perp with everything electric the average person uses and owns daily. The country that has 320 Million People. Guest i can fell you the average annual consumption in california is 750 kilowatt hours a year. Thats california consumption. Taking into account big screen tvs, stereos, lights, and cooking. We have roughly we serve 140,000 homes, but think of it is one mirror serves one home, and so thats another way of thinking about it. In terms of the solar pv, i think theres an installlation going in at one every four minutes right now in the country, and projected to be 12 billion dollars of investment, but on the concentrating solar side, its roughly given the size of the mirror is one per home, and two and a half people a home. Do the math that way. Host the project is called ivan paw, the largest Solar Project in the world costing 2. 6 billion with taxpayers giving 1. 6 billion through the federal Loan Guarantee program. Thank you very much, appreciate your time. Guest great, thank you, okay. Host were back talking about Renewable Energies here on washington journal today focusing on wind energy. Joining us from denver, the chief economist, director of industry, data, and analysis for the American Wind Energy association. Lets begin with what is your organization and who belongs to it . Guest hi, thanks for having me. The American Wind Energy sorbs is the National Trade group for the entire u. S. Wind industry. Were somewhat unique in that we represent all sectors of the u. S. Wind industry including project developers, but also the supply chain, all of the companies that supply components for our Wind Turbines, the electric utilities that buy power, the Transportation Companies that move the components, Service Companies that vie operations and maps, and 10 we have about and so we have 1300 businesses involved in the association. Host you had a recent report out that said the wind industry experienced, quote, a painful slow down at the beginning of 2013. What happened . Guest yeah, we had the industry saw a lot of uncertainty in 2012 that caused us to halt investment, slow down development because of that uncertainty making it very difficult to justify future investments in new wind projects or innovation or research and development, and the consequence of the uncertainty around our policy, the production tax credit, and whether or not it was going to be in place in 2013 and beyond, that really caused that uncertainty, and the consequences of that were we saw very limited installations during the First Six Months of 2013, only one turbine was installed in the First Six Months of this year, and thats a consequence of the uncertainty that we felt during 2012, and the way to break free from that cycle is really put in place clear and consistent policy that lets us make the long term Business Investments for our industry and innovation and projects. Were lucky that it was extended, the production tax credit, in early 2013, and were seeing the impacts and benefits of the extension today with electric utilities purchasing a significant amount of wind power because of the affordability. Were starting to see turbine orders come through to the wind industry and ramping up our Wind Manufacturing and were seeing jobs start to pick back up. Host lets show the viewers from your website, the American Wind Energy association, the numbers, what happened in 2012 by quarter. You can see wind installations measured by megawatts and what was happening with those being put into place, and then take a look at the First Quarter of 2013. As a comparison, the Fourth Quarter of 2012 had 1695 megawatts, 0 in 20 13, and now up to 68. 3 in the third quarter. What do you expect for the Fourth Quarter . Guest well, as the industry responds to the extension of the production tax credit and ramp up development, and take investments and see manufacturing get back to work, we do expect to see a significant amount of activity in the Fourth Quarter in terms of new construction of new projects of responding to the ptv, and that will continue into 20 14 and beyond the the challenge here continues to be the lead time for capital intensive wind projects, you know, 1824 months, and in order for investments, we need clarity and consistency over a much longer period of time in order to make those investments, and so its uncertainty continues it rule the day. Well continue to see impacts like we saw in 20 13 in the First Six Months. Host what parts of the country, what states are contributing the most in wind power . Guest we, you know, around the country, we have 38 states, actually, that have utility scale wind installations at this moment. The number one state is texas with far more wind energy than any other state at the moment followed by iowa and california. Whats interesting is with iowa, on average, over a given year, 20 of the electricity produced in the state of iowa as well as south dakota is actually coming from wind energy today. In texas, were approaching 10 of the electricity coming from wind energy. One of the more exciting areas for development in the wind industry is actually some of the areas that havent been historically our growth regions, places like michigan and ohio with the new technology of win tour bines. Weve been able to enter the regions and scale up wind power at a very affordable rate. Weve seen some of the utilities, for example, in michigan actually cite wind power as one of the least cost resources to build today. Its actually more affordable than any other form of Electricity Generation that they have available in the state of michigan, and this is also happening in the region of the southeast which maybe we all dont think as a traditional area for wind energy development, but because of the low affordable rates that wind Energy Provides today, utilities in the southeast are actually bringing in the affordable waipped power from places like kansas and oklahoma and texas citing the fact that its the best choice for their consumers right now. Host what do you say to critics who say that the wind industry is too dependent ob the production tax credit and cant stand on its own . Guest you know, its an interesting point that we do hear often, and, you know, we dont have Energy Policy in the country. Our de facto Energy Policy is using tax policy to support domestic, clean, affordable, secure energy in the country, and weve been doing it for about a hundred years where we provide tax relief to Domestic Energy resources in order to make sure we have access to domestic and affordable electricity and other forms of energy, and so the production tax credit is really just the form that tax relief takes for the wind industry. Theres different forms depending on what Energy Source you are, but for the production tax credit, its been such a successful policy over the past few years where it las leveraged over a hundred billion in private investment and new wind projects, and what that led to is a whole new Manufacturing Sector that we didnt have five or ten years ago in the country. The components