Ongoing Waste, Fraud and Collusion in the California Solar Industry

In 2012, I wrote a blog article about the “New Industrial Desert.” The article included mention of the Ivanpah Solar-Thermal Station (ISTS), then under construction in Ivanpah Valley, California. Backers touted the ISTS as the newest and most promising technology for large-scale solar energy production. Until commissioning of the ISTS, Israel’s small-scale demonstration plant was the only solar-thermal plant in the world.

BrightSource Energy, Bechtel Corporation, Google (now Alphabet), and our federal government invested $2.2 billion in what turned out to be the world’s largest bird fryer. Estimates are that over 6,000 birds annually fly into the solar flux generated at the ISTS, there to die instantly in flight. Because of the tiny smoke trails the dead birds make in the sky, plant workers call them “streamers.”

Not only were desert bird species decimated by this “new technology,” but 3,500 acres of desert tortoise habitat fell to bulldozers as well. With battery storage and low-cost passive solar arrays just a few years away, it was a case of “birds and tortoises be damned.” At that time, Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) were racing to “go green” with energy production. PG& E signed a fifteen-year contract to buy electrical production from Units One and Three. SCE contracted for power generated by Unit Two.

Not wanting to risk financial exposure, both Google’s $168 million investment and Bechtel’s undisclosed investment in Ivanpah garnered a $1.3 billion Department of Energy loan guarantee. In other words, you and I, the U.S. taxpayers will now pay for this incipient failure.

Over the years, I authored several articles about the Ivanpah project on this blog. As a lifelong environmentalist, I was amazed at the reckless speed in which this half-baked idea materialized. I will not detail all my criticisms here, but a quick reading of my previous articles will update you.

Now, in March 2025, NRG Energy (which sounds redundant to me), is the current operator of the ISTS. Recently, it announced that Units One and Three would cease operation in 2026. Under an undisclosed agreement, PG&E will terminate its power purchases before the end of its fifteen-year contract. SCE, for its part, continues to buy overpriced electrical power from Unit Two.

In 2018, faulty SCE equipment caused Southern California’s Woolsey Fire, creating liability for property damage of $2.2 billion. As of this writing SCE transmission lines are under investigation for causing the January 2025 Eaton Fire. Is SCE whistling past the “graveyard of birds” known as Ivanpah? They are afraid to take a financial write-down on their ill-conceived purchase agreement with ISTS.

Even as Ivanpah became a financial and environmental disaster, the federal government continued promoting construction of passive “solar farms” throughout the Desert Southwest. In the Ivanpah/Primm Valley, the Stateline Solar Farm and the Silver State North/South projects have come online since 2016. The three projects combined, all within view of the ISTS, have a footprint similar in size to the failing solar-thermal plant.

To compare net energy production between the solar-thermal plant and its three passive solar neighbors is an exercise in frustration. Since the ISTS requires a gas-fired generator to get it started each morning, the net energy produced by the plant is far lower than the amount it supplies to the grid. Meanwhile, since the addition of 3,500 acres of passive solar near the ISTS, no other solar-thermal plant has materialized anywhere in the world. If BrightSource, Google, Bechtel, and the federal government had waited less than a decade, the ISTS would never have happened.

In California, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) continues to promote large scale “solar farms” throughout the Mojave Desert. This ongoing industrialization of the desert will require additional electrical transmission lines and further destruction of fragile habitat.

In 2023, the PUC ended “net metering”, which allowed rooftop solar owners to buy and sell electricity to the grid at market rates. Newer home connections buy at full price but sell excess power to the grid for a pittance. Now, the PUC has plans to scuttle net metering, even on older rooftop solar installations. To add contractual insult to financial injury, the PUC plans to allow utilities to charge all rooftop solar owners additional fees. These fees shall be for the honor of connecting to a costly, inefficient, and often dangerous electrical grid.

To finance large-scale additions to the New Industrial Desert, investor-owned utilities, major corporations, and land developers will rely on those fees. As such, the unelected California PUC will continue their financial punishment of all homeowners who have installed rooftop solar.

After thirteen years studying the Ivanpah Solar-Thermal Station, here is my prediction for its future. The reflectors, towers, and their attendant infrastructure will all go to a desert landfill. In its place will arise 3,500 acres of passive solar arrays, providing electrical power to the grid. Next time someone tells you that they have a  revolutionary way of producing New Energy, be skeptical of their assertions.

Email James McGillis

Sixty Years After a Nuclear Core Meltdown, Half a Million Residents Are Still At Risk - 2018

 

Sixty Years After a Nuclear Core Meltdown, Half a Million Residents Are Still At Risk

In California, the hills are alive, but not with the sound of music. On Thursday, November 8, 2018, a small fire started near the top of Woolsey Canyon Road, in the Simi Hills. The location was on the grounds of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL). Both famous and infamous, the facility once owned by the Rocketdyne Corporation, was used for development and testing of liquid fueled rocket motors from 1949 to 2006.

The Atomics International division of North American Aviation once used a separate and dedicated portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to build and operate the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. The Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) was an experimental nuclear reactor that operated at the site from 1957 to 1964. It was the first commercial power plant in the world to experience a core meltdown. The reactors located on the grounds of SSFL had no containment structures. During a series of events, thousands of pounds of radioactive nucleotides dispersed into the ground and air.

In 1996, The Boeing Company became the primary owner and operator of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, which it later closed. Today, more than 150,000 people live within 5 miles (8 km) of the facility, and at least half a million people live within 10 miles (16 km). As of 2018, the Boeing remains as the site owner, with NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) liable for several parcels within the larger facility. On August 2, 2005, Pratt & Whitney purchased Boeing's Rocketdyne division, but declined to acquire SSFL as part of the sale.

In 2005, wildfires swept through northern Los Angeles County and parts of Ventura County. The fires consumed most of the dry brush throughout the Simi Hills where the SSFL is located. Since that fire, allegations have emerged that vast quantities of on-site nuclear and chemical contamination vaporized into the air. More recently, Los Angeles County firefighters assigned to SSFL during that fire received medical testing to see if they ingested or inhaled any harmful doses while protecting the facility.

The small fire that broke out at the SSFL in the afternoon of November 8, 2018 was sadly reminiscent of the 1959 meltdown and the 2005 wildfire. Ground crews from Los Angeles City and County raced up the long and winding Woolsey Canyon. Upon arrival, they found a scorched and inoperable Southern California Edison (SCE) electrical transformer near the point of origin. The resulting brushfire had raced off the property to the south and west. The Alpha, Bravo and possibly the Coca rocket test stands received substantial damage during the recent Woolsey Fire.

On the first afternoon of the fire, the ridges of the Simi Hills, including areas near the former nuclear reactor sites were fully involved in flames. The Los Angeles County Fire Department dispatched its two “Super Scooper” firefighting airplanes. After dropping their 1,600 gallons of water, the pair of “flying boat amphibious aircraft” headed for Castaic Lake, near Santa Clarita. There, at airspeeds approaching 100 mph, each plane took only twelve seconds to scoop up a new load of water and return to the fire scene. At least six times, before darkness curtailed their activities, the two airplanes attempted to douse the spreading wildfire. With Santa Ana Winds gusting to 70 mph, it was a valiant, yet futile endeavor.

By Friday, November 10, 2018, the flames had swept through portions of Thousand Oaks, Westlake, Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Bell Canyon. most of that territory was downwind of the SSFL. By nightfall on that second night, the flames had reached Malibou Lake and the City of Malibu. Only the Pacific Ocean stopped the further spread of flames.

Over the next few days, the unexplained small fire at SSFL had grown to almost 100,000 acres and burned almost 500 homes. At 98,000 acres and still climbing, the Woolsey Fire had consumed well over eighty percent of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area. On two separate parcels of private property near Agoura Hills, three lives were lost during the fire. From our vantage point, on the north side of Simi Valley, we observed two nights of active flames. On the third day, we could still see wispy smoke emanating from near the fire’s point of origin. With Santa Ana winds still gusting to 60 mph, the smoke plume traveled south and east, away from our home.

On Sunday, November 11, 2018, we watched on local television as a DC-10 air tanker and numerous helicopters dropped water and fire retardant on the slopes above Malibu Canyon. Since spot fires can occur up to half a mile from active flames, we had stationed our travel trailer at our home in Simi Valley. Although there had been no active fire near our storage yard in Simi Valley, if one coach were to catch fire at that yard, hundreds of recreational vehicles could have burned.

As of that afternoon, hundreds of thousands of residents downwind of the SSFL remained evacuated or had returned to scenes of destruction and despair. Other than some mental stress watching fires spread live on TV, we remained safe at home. Our hearts go out to those who lost friends, pets, homes and property. Although not every home that burned was a mansion or a faux Tuscan villa and vineyard, a mobile home in a canyon setting can be just as dear. Many of the lower priced dwellings had no fire insurance.

To an eyewitness, it is disconcerting to see how quickly everything you own could go up in flames. As humans, we are at the mercy of wind, weather and nature. Some politicians and some who lost homes blamed land managers or first responders for the scope of destruction. Others recognized that there is risk associated with living adjacent to wildlands. With high winds and embers aloft, there was no way to protect every home. First responders had to change priorities, electing to save as many lives as possible.

In Butte County, near Chico, California, almost the entire town of Paradise recently disappeared from the map. Prior to outbreak of the “Camp Fire”, around 27,000 people lived in that area. Almost nothing of the built environment in Paradise or nearby Concow withstood the flames. Over 10,000 structures burned, including homes, schools and the entire downtown district. Scores of people died in their homes, or while trying to escape on foot or in vehicles. As of this writing, nearly one thousand people remain missing.

The scope of these tragedies is hard to comprehend. Where will 27,000 homeless people go? Over twenty-five percent of those displaced were senior citizens, living on fixed or minimal incomes. With cold and rainy weather expected soon, a tent encampment in a Chico, California Walmart parking lot will not provide sufficient shelter. Here in Ventura County, less than one year ago, we lost almost 1000 homes to the Thomas Fire. In late 2017, an additional 2,900 homes burned in Santa Rosa, California. As a result, tens of thousands of California residents are now actively seeking shelter.

Over the past ten years, Carrie McCoy and I have visited Malibu many times. One of our favorite restaurants overlooks Zuma Beach and Point Dume. During the Woolsey Fire, many homes near that seaside restaurant burned to the ground. While returning from our various trips to Malibu, we would often traverse Decker Canyon, Encinal Canyon, Mulholland Highway and Kanan Road. Those interconnected roadways snake through myriad canyons and rise over windswept ridgetops. Amidst the huge swaths of chaparral, are homes both lowly and grand. Many of those dwellings now consist of little more than a roadside gate or a mailbox. Our next visit to Malibu will likely include views of destruction not seen for decades, if ever before.

In 1980, I lived in Agoura Hills, near the intersection of Kanan Road and U.S. Highway 101. One afternoon, from my hilltop home, I saw a fire ignite on the south side of the freeway. Within minutes, it swept westward along Kanan Road. By nightfall, it reached the same stretches of Malibu that burned again in the Woolsey Fire. That day, almost forty years ago, I learned firsthand that it is not safe to live anywhere in the windswept canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains.

By the early 1990s, the Kanan/Malibu fire had faded into distant memory. The allure of living large, with nature all around was too great. What followed was a population boom in the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountain. When the Woolsey Fire struck, most of those residents had never seen active fire in their area. Living in the Santa Monica Mountains is a speculative investment. If one can afford to take the risk to both property and personal safety, then building or buying there should be a personal choice. Since no property in that area is immune to destructive wildfires, self-insurance and private fire protection should be the rule, not the exception.

Returning to the origins of this most recent and destructive wildfire, the SSFL is now an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) superfund site. To this day, Boeing Company, NASA and the DOE administrate various parts of the property. Although there has been some minor cleanup, there has never been a complete remediation of the nuclear and chemical contamination caused during the second half of the twentieth century. With "scorching" of the remaining rocket test stands in the Woolsey Fire, it remains to be seen if any of that infrastructure is salvageable.

The public never heard a definitive answer regarding the firefighters' exposed to possible contamination during the 2005 wildfire at SSFL. After the Woolsey Fire, the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) claimed, “There was no discernible radiation in the tested area.” As one of the 500,000 people who reside within ten miles of the radiological and chemical nightmare known as the SSFL, I believe that everyone in the area has the right to know exactly what our environmental exposure was and continues to be.

After the Woolsey Fire, Los Angeles County banned the removal of any fire rubble until completion of toxicity surveys of each affected property. Neither Ventura County nor Los Angeles County has plans to test beyond the SSFL for possible radioactive contamination. It is time for the public and our elected officials to demand nothing less than full testing, cleanup and remediation of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 03:07 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link