March 5, 2012

GE Backs Solar Desert Projects

When we first saw this story we wondered what the fuss was about. It seems that GE invested $100 million in a 127 megawatt solar farm near Arlington, AZ, whose population is a mere 194. Another one built was serviceable to Desert Center, CA a town of only 204. It seems that the farms are almost as large as the cities that they support.

So what is the big whoop? The two Sonora Desert projects together generate more than half the power produced by a single unit of the nearby Palo Verde nuclear power plant. It should provide hundreds of new construction jobs and displace 515,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas, the equivalent of taking about 98,000 cars off the road.

(Thanks, Amber)

Via GE