Austin: Keepin' It Weird (and SUPER Expensive)

I heard on the radio this morning on the way into work that Austin is plainning on building a solar electricity generation facility. It is expected to cost about $10,000,000 per year. As I told a co-worker:

In the first place: Huh?

And second, I thought power plants were supposed to make money.

Ooooooh that's right, it's green so being in the red is okay.

I had heard about this before, but the proposal looks to be getting more serious so it's time to start making fun of it now.

Here's the money shot as far as the watermelons on the city council are concerned:

Even though the Webberville plant would be huge, it would add a relatively small amount of power — 30 megawatts — to the 2,900 megawatts the city can now generate, Solar energy is more expensive than alternatives such as natural gas, nuclear and coal, which produce more pollutants and political objections.

Note: pollutants from fossil fuels are arguably a concern. Political objections over nuclear plants make me want to pull somebody's ear. I still haven't put out my rant about nuclear fuel, have I? Hmm. I'll remember to do it sometime soon. For now, we'll just not mention how much pollution is required to MAKE solar cells, and how they will never give as much energy as it took to produce them.

I guess solar generation of steam (solar power tower) for driving a conventional turbine would be just too unconventional. I thought they wanted to keep Austin weird. Maybe they mean weird as in, we'll use the least efficient means of electricity generation possible.

Oh well.