Daily Press, Victorville, Calif. --Jul. 31--BARSTOW, Calif.
The greater Barstow area is still in the running to be the home of two or more towers of power that would be about twice the height of the Empire State Building.
The local sites are among various locations in western states that the Los
Angeles-based company has been evaluating.
Chief Financial Officer Chris Davey said his company is now interested in
land a few miles west of Harper Dry Lake. The company originally targeted
numerous site in the area, but abandoned all but the west side to ensure the
towers wouldn't cause problems for nearby Edwards Air Force Base.
Davey met with Edwards officials to learn what would work best for the base,
and determined that moving a little to the west would get the towers out of the
planes' way.
Davey said he doesn't want to interfere with the Air Force's testing.
"People need to step back and appreciate what those guys have to
do," he said. "To just step over a little bit, that's not a real
hardship for us." The facilities SolarMission will build are a new type of
solar power plant that is not yet in operation anywhere in the world.
The plant works when sunshine heats air in a greenhouse-like space under a
clear surface that is thousands of acres across.
The hot air then flows up a tower that is 3,000 feet high and 400 feet wide.
As it passes through the base of the tower, it turns turbines to generate
electricity.
The 3,000-foot towers are designed to allow the plants to efficiently
generate 200 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power about 200,000
households.
The plants would emit no pollution and wouldn't consume water for the
production of electricity, Davey said.
After completion, each would have roughly 50 employees, some of them security
personnel.
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