the largest solar farm in the world being built in the US

[stefan]

A Bet on the Sun (photos)
New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/17/magazine/the-largest-solar-farm-in-the-world.html?ref=magazine

[blueeyes]

I made a wrong turn coming home from Havasupai over Memorial Day weekend (I was sooo tired after hiking out all my stuff and Sarah's, I wasn't thinking very well while driving :haha:) we ended up somewhere out in the middle of that desert winding our way back to Boulder City, NV and there was a odd plant of some sort out there we could see from the highway. Spencer and I decided it had to be a solar plant. HUGE!!

[stefan]

I made a wrong turn coming home from Havasupai over Memorial Day weekend (I was sooo tired after hiking out all my stuff and Sarah's, I wasn't thinking very well while driving :haha:) we ended up somewhere out in the middle of that desert winding our way back to Boulder City, NV and there was a odd plant of some sort out there we could see from the highway. Spencer and I decided it had to be a solar plant. HUGE!!

based on your comment i believe you saw a mix of 3 plants (nevada solar one, eldorado solar, copper mountain solar one)

the ivanpah site is north of I-15 just over the border in CA

[agostinone]

Cool. Consider this though for perspective, you would need a little more than 1.5 of these solar plants to have enough power to keep Google running.

Assuming 10 hours of sunlight per day the solar field will produce about 1.4 Tera-watt hours of energy. Google consumes 2.3 Tera-watt hours or energy per year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html

[blueeyes]

We were on Hwy 95 and it was the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. I was started Sept 1 2011 and is still under construction. Will be finished summer 2013.

http://www.tonopahsolar.com/