The Crestone Eagle, January 2007:

‘Skyfuel’ proposes solar plant for SLV

The December 20 edition of the Valley Courier ran a front page article titled “Giant Solar Plant Proposed for Valley.” Apparently, the New York City based company, Skyfuel, is looking into building a 1000 megawatt solar steam plant on 5000 acres of San Luis Valley land. This would be enough electricity to power 300,000 “average” American homes and create 300 jobs.

The technology consists of using trough-like reflectors to focus the sun’s energy on a receiver tower carrying molten salt. This heated liquid then travels to a heat storage tank, then to a heat exchanger to create steam, and then finally to a steam turbine and generator to make electricity. Compared to other solar technologies, this process supposedly creates twice as much electricity as other methods per unit of land area, and it can store the solar-generated heat for 12 to 18 hours, which means a plant can deliver electricity even when the sun is not shining. The one-year old Skyfuel has not tested this approach, yet they plan to have a prototype running next year.

Skyfuel founder and CEO, Arnold Leitner, said they are looking to New York investment firms for the funding to build the plant, which would begin by 2010 and cost between $1.5 and $2 billion.

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