US Pays $2B To Develop Concentrating Solar Power Projects

coondoggie writes "The US Department of Energy today said it was conditionally committing $2 billion to develop two concentrating solar power projects that it says will offer 500 megawatts of power combined, effectively doubling the nation's currently installed capacity of that type of power. Concentrated solar systems typically use parabolic mirrors to collect solar energy."

Why not more?

[MoldySpore]

Really? Only $2Bil? When we are spending $708 Billion on defense? Why are we only putting up 0.0028% of the annual defense budget towards renewable, clean energy like this? Not sure how this makes sense. While it is nice to see a number in the Billions being put towards a project like this, I have a hard time taking the initiatives seriously when there are so many other bloated budgets we could chop down in size to put towards initiatives like this...

Re:A link to the actual press release

[timeOday]

if you read the press release, it's pretty clear this is a helluva lot less about producing clean energy than producing jobs in California

Just because a press release is phrased a certain way doesn't mean a project is actually "about" that. The press release is just a gauge of today's political winds.

Look at Secretary Chu's statement:

"These projects represent an important step in the development of solar as an affordable, clean energy resource in this country," said Secretary Chu. "By investing in the commercial-scale deployment of solar technologies, we can create greater efficiencies that will lower the cost of solar power while creating jobs and increasing our global competitiveness in this key industry."

What part of that is incorrect, or admits the possibility that this is "basically just a jobs program?" I don't see why Concentrated Solar can't be scaled up affordably.