Palmdale was set to be the location for a new international airport in LA. However, it never got off the ground. Today, however, there is good news! Apparently the authorities have finally come up with a plan for the location. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power wants to install a solar farm on some 4,000 (largely undeveloped) acres of the land.

Palmdale Regional Airport

With solar power becoming the energy source of choice as the most effective and environmentally friendly way to power buildings, LA official have decided to set up a solar energy structure that can generate as much as 100 megawatts of environmentally friendly energy.

The whole plan looked like a good deal considering that a pending proposition requires Los Angeles to produce at least 400 megawatts via solar power by 2014. This project alone could provide 1/4 of the energy needed to meet the city’s goal. No problems, right?

Wrong!

If all passed with no complaints, Los Angeles could be well on its way to a cleaner and greener future.

But…but… is there anyone who could oppose such a fantastic proposition? Indeed there is. Apparently there are other activists who think it is unnecessary to build such a large solar power facility and want to use the land for something else.

It’s hard enough when the environmentalists and land grubbers can’t agree. It’s even harder when the environmentalists can’t agree among themselves, eh?

Image by gtarded

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You can call this a celestial show on earth or probably the most eco-friendly display of dazzling light aimed at producing clean energy.

The Solucar solar park, near Seville, Spain, has been designed to produce 11 megawatts of electricity from the sun’s rays, collected by 624 giant movable mirrors. This is the first in a set of a solar power generation plants that will produce a whooping 300 megawatts of electricity by 2013, making it a project with potential that matches its visual spectacle and grandeur.

The project works by bringing together some very simple principles of physics. It uses giant mirrors to concentrate solar energy o to a tall tower. With Seville having bright and clear weather for over 320 days a year, the 624 moving mirrors would have enough sunlight to reflect.

Also, the tower uses water that is converted to steam which produces energy by the known method of rotating turbines. The giant solar light show in Seville is yet another demonstration of how the world is progressively discovering grand new ways to use renewable energy to the fullest.

Remember Renfe’s AVE S103? Spain is doing incredible progress to become sustainable.

Source: DailyMail

Hayword, California based, OptiSolar are trying their best to build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm (550-megawatt) 100 miles north of Los Angeles in San Luis Obispo County.

The company will produce clean and competitively priced electricity using low profile solar panels that will be placed on ballast on the ground. Thanks to the thin-film photovoltaic technology OptiSolar doesn’t need large structures that turbine-based systems require and will not result in noise pollution.

They are going to start construction in 2010 after completing the local approval process. When the solar photovoltaic farm will be ready it should be able to power up to 190,000 homes and would be a step forward to securing at least 20-percent of the State’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010.

Press release (pdf link)