We have the largest facility by energy production in the US. It happens to be Nuclear, and it still isn’t the leading source of energy here.
I’m pro nuclear energy but it is seemingly cost prohibitive.
Palo Verde (3900MW) cost $6 billion to build 37 years ago (12 billion in 2021 money) and produces 37,000 gwh annually
It currently employs 2000 full time people and produces energy at 4.3c/kWh
It requires a constant
60,000 gallons of water per minute and is a zero discharge facility, meaning the water never leaves. Most of the water is wastewater from Phoenix, but 3% is ground water. In our desert state….that sells the rest to Saudi (sorry different problem) and 3% of 60,000gpm in 24hrs is 2.5 million gallons of ground water per day
These units are scheduled to operate until 2047 at minimum. So they will reach 60+ years of service.
Springerville generating station (1750MW) burned 5 million tons of coal in 2019. This facility cost $4 billion to build
NASA graph of sulfer dioxide values around the plant:
It used 8.8 million gallons of water per day in 2020 (I didn’t check what this source ie waste or ground and it wasn’t mentioned in the articles I read)
This was set to be in operation until 2066 and will now be shut down by 2032.
It has 375 full time employees
This facility is majority owned by Tucson Electric which has a capacity of 3230MW.
They claim by 2035 70% of that will be all renewable energy
They also have 2,457 megawatts of new wind and solar power systems, including 457 MW that will be coming online over the next year and 1,400 MW of new energy storage systems. They announced 900MW of solar farms by 2025.
The Mesquite Solar Project (400MW) uses 2.1 million panels. It has a 20 year power production contract and cost $1.5 billion.
Canadian solar is opening a plant at this location and will be turning out 20,000 panels/day. (Sounds a bit like what is being discussed about the Chinese economy)
In 2021 according to the EIA private solar export to grid in AZ was 50% as much as utility solar to grid. Not too shabby
Idk what any of this means, but it sure sounds like coal and nuclear cost a lot residually as well as up front. And both take absolute tons of water. Forget the carbon/climate argument…water is kind of a big deal.
Solar sure seems to need far less of at least 2 of those items.
We should install as many panels as China lol