US government loans money to build world's largest solar power plant

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: solar power, project, health news

(NaturalNews) The U.S. federal government recently approved a $1.4 billion loan to California-based BrightSource Energy to build a massive solar power complex in the Mojave Desert of California. The plant will be capable of powering roughly 140,000 homes and the project would likely double the amount of solar power generated in the U.S.

According to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the effort is being launched in order to keep "jobs of the future" in the U.S., indicating that the U.S. should be a leader in the global clean energy economy. "This is an investment in American jobs and the clean, renewable energy our economy needs," he stated in a U.S. Department of Energy (USDE) press release.

The complex will include three utility-scale solar power plants that will generate roughly 400 megawatts (MW) of power using the company's innovative and proprietary technology. The report estimates that approximately 1,000 new jobs will be created to construct the facility and, once completed, the facility itself will employ 86 people permanently.

Construction is set to begin on the first plant in the second-half of 2010 with a completion estimate in 2012. By the end of 2013, all three plants should be completed and generating power, which will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.

While efforts to expand clean energy production seem like steps in the right direction, the devil is in the details. According to the USDE press release, the Ivanpah Solar Complex is going to be located on federally-owned land. In other words, another U.S. industry is being shifted from the people to what has become the master of the people.

Why is this a bad thing? History has shown time and time again that when an oversized, out-of-control federal government - like the one presently ruling America – takes control of a nation's industries, that nation inches one step closer to tyranny. A government that has the power to give also has the power to take away.

Just like universal healthcare, federal control over power is a dangerous initiative. Not only is the solar power project being constructed on federal land, but the funds backing it are coming from the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, which manages the nation's "green energy loan portfolio".

This project represents the sixth "conditional commitment" clean energy loan issued by the department, and surely not the last. While it is honorable for a nation to invest in green energy initiatives, it is a whole different ball game to willingly hand over control of the energy sector to an increasingly-tyrannical federal oligarchy.

Sources for this story include:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gree...

http://www.lgprogram.energy.gov/press/022210...