Press Release
Concentrating Solar Power Is Ready to Replace Fossil Fuels Say Colorado Ratepayers:
New Technology from Australia has Clear Economic and Environmental Benefits
Contact:
John O'Donnell 408-821-3062 (see Expert Testimony on Concentrating Solar Power attached.)
Dan Friedlander 303-499-0300 an individual intervenor in the rate case
Alison Burchell 303-499-2717 for Ratepayers United of Colorado
Boulder, CO., August 18 – In what is thought to be the first time ever in the United States, utility ratepayers in Colorado have asked that the burning of coal to produce electricity be replaced with concentrating solar power. Concentrating solar power (CSP), unlike the more widely known photovoltaic form of solar power, can be used to produce the steam that utilities use to run baseload plants day and night. A new form of CSP that is very cost competitive with fossil fuel combustion will soon be coming to the United States from Australia, according to the testimony submitted Friday at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
"The Southwestern United States has superb solar resources," says John O'Donnell the expert witness who submitted the testimony on Concentrating Solar Power. "This solar energy can be used to heat water and produce steam--thereby directly replacing the burning of fossil fuels," says O'Donnell.
The technology favored by O'Donnell is referred to as Concentrated Linear Fresnel Reflectors or CLFR. "CLFR is a long name for boiling water with sunlight and mirrors," says O'Donnell. It is a new technique developed by engineers and industrialists in Australia and is substantially cheaper than earlier versions of CSP, according to O'Donnell.
"By using CSP technologies like CLFR to produce steam," says O'Donnell, "we avoid air pollution and the production of carbon dioxide, protect utility ratepayers from increasing costs of fossil fuels and keep energy investment dollars in the state producing jobs and promoting in-state industries."
Dan Friedlander, an individual intervener in the Colorado utility rate case says, "Utilities are not giving careful analysis to future costs of coal and carbon regulation because they intend to pass all of these costs on to their ratepayers--especially here in Colorado," says Friedlander. "When we add in the incalculable costs of climate change," says Friedlander," the ability to use sunlight and mirrors to replace fossil fuels becomes all the more critical."
Alison Burchell, a geologist and spokesperson for Ratepayers United of Colorado, the group submitting the testimony says, “It is clear that trying to sequester the massive amounts of carbon dioxide that come out of coal plants will be both very difficult and very expensive. If we build CSP plants, we avoid both the upfront costs of paying for the coal and its transportation and the monumental backend costs that would accompany any effort to sequester carbon."
In January of 2006, the Western Governor's association released a Solar Task Force report documenting the key role that Concentrating Solar Power technologies can contribute to electric generation in the country. The report concluded that with appropriate state and federal policies, the sunshine of the southwest can become a plentiful source of low cost electricity.
"We either have to spend a lot of money building new railroads and carbon sequestration pipelines and risk the potentially catastrophic release of carbon dioxide" says Friedlander, "or we can invest in this country's abundant solar resources in the southwest and transfer the electricity through transmission lines. With the seriousness of climate change becoming apparent to the American public, we believe investing in a solar infrastructure is the best legacy we can leave future generations."
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