BLM Gets it wrong

I dont really support solar as a power source. I use a solar panel in my truck now, because the battery tended to go flat if I didn't drive it for a while. And I think solar panels for boats and cabins are pretty damn cool. But solar does not and never will (at least in the next 50 years) make sense for large-scale electrical generation.

However - that is not to say we should prevent people from trying, especially if idiots in CA are willing to pay for it.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sets the rates that companies have to pay to lease federal land to build their solar plant on. They recently set out their rates, and they, well, totally screwed up. Really idiotically screwed up. I mean, is anyone there or in the administration even paying attention to this? The POTUS spouts off about alternative energy all the time, and on his watch this is what we get:

There are two costs to the lease, the first based on the cost per acre of the land, tied to local land values. Fair enough.

But the second is a megawatt fee. And this is where it gets stupid. The agency is charging different capacity fees for different solar technologies. Photovoltaic power plants, which deploy solar panels like you played around with in a science kit once, are assessed $5,256 a megawatt.

But more efficient solar thermal power plants, using mirrors to heat liquids to generate steam that drives a turbine, pay $6,570 a megawatt. The same rate is charged for concentrating photovoltaic farms that use mirrors to focus the sun on a highly efficient solar cell. So if your technology is more efficient, you get charged more. WTF?

The kicker is that if either technology uses energy storage systems, so that they can you know, provide baseline power, the fee jumps to $7,884 a megawatt. Why?? Who the hell knows.

What this regualtion does is encourage using old-school solar panels with no energy storage. Way to go BLM. In addition, wind plants are charged a flat fee of $4,155 per megawatt. Why? Who knows. It is an idiotic system, and totally at odds with the administration's stated goals, and yet it barely gets a mention, because lets be honest here - this would require follow through and ability, two things sorely lacking in the current administration.