Re: Solar Thermal

I'd like to take the tour! Not because I expect to learn anything about the facility that I don't already know, but to see what the visitors (if any) are actually taking away front the experience.

Something bothers me with that picture and the numbers, the total mirror area seems like the ground area under panel, not the actual 'glass' area... but that's not really important, not when it can be spun away.

But seriously, 15 +/- acres of Arizona desert...  jstack, what would you say that'd cost?  In my neck-o-the-woods (Fairfield County, CT), it would probably be in the low 7 figures, if you could find a plot that large...  8 figures would not be out of the question...  Then again, in New Haven County I could likely find it for less than $1MM, but I really don't know what it cost APS / Solargenix.  Is it possible that the land was less than $100,000?

I also noted that the O&M costs were allocated at $30/MWH, that's almost as much as a coal plant charges for power on the open market.  

I realize it sounds like I'm poisoning my own interests here, but I can't seem to find any recent info since the press releases on 2006.  Ormat is very hush-hush, they tried to get my collector designs back in May '06 through a third party... 

About the only info I have is that it cost $6.1MM to create the plant.  It's a pilot, so that's really not that expensive.  But I'm e really anxious to find out what is coming down the pipe since the initial contracts in 2003.