McCain absence could end Ariz. project Ryan Grim
Wed Jul 30, 5:35 AM ET
Barack Obama and John McCain have both spoken forcefully about the need to develop renewable energy resources, but their campaign-related absences from the Senate could help spell the death of a massive solar energy project in McCain’s home state of Arizona.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to hold a vote this week on an extension of renewable energy tax credits that officials for the company behind the Solana solar plant say are necessary to make the project economically viable.
In June — with Obama, McCain and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) absent — a vote on the credits fell seven votes short of the 60 needed. Kennedy, who is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor, isn’t expected back in the Senate until September. Clinton, who supports the tax credits, is expected to be on hand for any votes this week.
Obama, who supports the extension of the tax credits, would supply one of the missing votes if he were in the Senate to vote. McCain, who hasn’t said whether he supports the extension, could be another vote in support. As the new leader of the GOP, he could bring other Republicans along with him.
But neither campaign would commit to having the senators in Washington for the vote. Without them, the credits aren’t likely to pass. And if the vote fails, officials for Abengoa — the Spanish company planning to develop the project — say they would have to take it overseas.
“We’re looking at other places around the world,” said Fred Morse, senior adviser to Abengoa’s U.S. branch, citing projects the firm is considering in Spain, Morocco and Algeria.
The renewable energy tax credits are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, dealing a devastating blow to the renewable energy industry just as politicians on both sides of the aisle cite the need for it as a solution to America’s energy woes.
If the effort fails, energy from the strong Arizona sunlight will continue to pound directly into the desert, and the fate of renewable-energy projects worth billions of dollars elsewhere will be uncertain.
“The fate of Solana is in the hands of the investment tax credit,” said Steven Gotfried, a spokesman for Arizona Public Service. “With that investment tax credit, a future with renewable energy becomes a reality. And without it, it puts it in jeopardy.”
McCain has missed nearly 400 votes in the 110th Congress, and there may be good reason for him to miss another. If the presumptive Republican nominee were to return to Washington to save the project, it would come at a cost to the business community. The renewable energy tax credits are offset by a mixed bag of tax hikes on businesses and the elimination or postponement of some tax breaks, offsets that the Chamber of Commerce opposes.
McCain would have to choose between a significant tax increase or a major solar power project in his home state.
Gotfried said that beyond the benefits of green, renewable energy, the billion-dollar investment in Solana would create 1,500 construction jobs and 85 permanent, highly skilled positions. The project would be built and owned by Abengoa Solar. The Arizona utility would purchase energy from the Spanish engineering firm; Abengoa estimates that the nearly 2,000-acre plant could sell $4 billion worth of energy over 30 years.
“If built today, this will be the single largest solar power plant in the world,” said Morse. “Without a year extension of the [tax credit], the Solana project can’t be built because the financing won’t be made viable because the numbers won’t work.”
With the credit, officials said that the numbers do work.
“With the tax credit and the technology Solana will be using, concentrated solar power [becomes] very competitive and a viable option when you compare it to natural gas,” Gotfried said.
McCain has spoken favorably about solar power but has lamented that there is not enough of it. “We all love solar,” he said at a town hall meeting this month. “Is there anybody that doesn’t love solar power? But when we look at the actual contributions [of solar] compared with the increased demand for energy that’s going to be part of America in the next 20 years, it does not meet much of those demands, much less existing requirements that we have.”
Govindasamy Tamizhmani, director of the photovoltaic testing laboratory at Arizona State University, said Solana will rely on solar thermal technology, which converts sunlight into thermal energy and then converts that energy to electricity. Parabolic mirrors focus the sun’s energy on a “heat-transfer liquid,” a liquid mass that is capable of reaching very high temperatures without burning. That liquid then heats water, and the resulting steam powers a conventional turbine. By relying on the heat-transfer liquid, the power plant would be able to provide energy even when the sun isn’t shining.
“It’s a very good approach. Sunlight is not available 24 hours a day,” said Tamizhmani.
Morse said that the Southwestern United States has some of the greatest solar energy resources in the world and that it is unusual to have population centers so close to those resources.
Solana plans to build its plant about 70 miles from Phoenix.
Morse noted that fossil fuel prices are rising at unpredictable rates and that carbon emission policies could also increase prices but that solar power is locked in. Arizona needs a new power plant by 2011, Morse said. Without the tax credit, “not only won’t this plant happen, but a plant that will put carbon emissions into the atmosphere for 30 or 40 years will have to be built instead of this.” |
