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(excerpt from) Long Island Business News
Solar power plant to be built at BNL
by Henry E. Powderly II / February 27th, 2009
New York Gov. David Paterson on Friday announced the creation of a solar power plant at Brookhaven National Laboratory that will generate enough energy to power 6,500 homes.
It would be the largest solar-energy plant in the state.
The Long Island Power Authority will pay for the project, but the state has pledged $15 million to help with the costs…
Final approvals for the project will come in May, [LIPA chief executive Kevin] Law said…
“The Department of Energy provided the funds, Brookhaven supplies the experts and New York will supply the power,” [Governor] Paterson said.
Construction on that facility will begin in April.
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Filed under: energy, long island, Long Island Politics, New York State Politics, News, Solar Tagged: | BNL, Brookhaven National Lab, David Paterson, energy, Governor Paterson, LIPA, new york, Solar Power
This article looks like alot of spin for what is really a tiny project with little return on investiment. It is also not very clearl on how many taxpayer dollars are being expended. LIPA is a state authority, so at minimum you have $15M in “state money” on top of whatever LIPA is spending on this project. Another clue that the article is a fudge for a miniscule return on investment is the expression of how many “homes” can be heated by the output. The excerpt says nothing about megawattage, but my hands on experience with power generation and utilities leads me to believe that this is an incredibly minimal output. If the article does not express the overall capacity of this generation in megawatts it is essentially meaningless. I hate to say it, but there is more corporate welfare going into certain “green” energy technologies than is tolerable, and in the case of LIPA/NYS, this is really “welfare welfare” since it is the government and the taxpayer taking it on the chin.