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[Richard230]

My newspaper reports that BrightSource Energy plans to raise $250 million in an initial public offering of stock, according to a filing with the SEC last week. BrightSource has identified projects that could potentially earn $4 billion of revenue and produce 11 gigawatts of power on 110,000 acres in California and elsewhere in the Southwest.

The article says that renewable energy projects will face a tougher U.S. market if federal tax incentives are not renewed before their scheduled expiration next year. Renewal technologies, including wind and solar energy, made up about 45% of the total power capacity added to U.S. production in 2009 and about 25% in 2010, Energy Information Administration figures show.

The proposed IPO would be the first for a solar-thermal power systems company since the Australian firm of EnviroMission filed for its IPO in August 2011. It has a license to build tower-based solar-thermal power stations, but has yet to construct a utility-scale project.

Both PV and solar-thermal systems currently produce electricity at a cost of about 17.5 cents per kWh, under ideal conditions, without incentives. Electricity from coal costs about 7 cents per kWh and 6 cents per kWh if produced using natural gas.

[Richard230]

It seems like BrightSource has already run into trouble. After approving the environmental impacts and issuing BrightSource a construction permit to build their first solar farm project, which is currently under construction, the BLM has performed an assessment that shows that more than 3,000 desert tortoises would be disturbed by the project. Plus, up to 700 of the young of the endangered turtles would be killed during construction. The previous estimate was that only 38 turtles would be disturbed by construction of the 5.6 acre solar power farm.

The article in my newspaper today says that the dispute is likely to echo for years as more companies seek to develop solar, wind and geothermal plants on land treasured by environmentalists. Because of these findings, federal officials ordered BrightSource to halt construction activity on two-thirds of the project. Kelley Wachs of BrightSource says that "it appears that the largest concentrations of tortoise are outside the project and in areas that we designed the project to avoid". 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will use the new estimates to determine whether finishing the project puts the species in jeopardy. If not, the agency is expected to set new limits on how the animals may be killed, injured or harassed. Environmentalists want the energy complex relocated because they said it will harm the tortoises.

If I was an investor considering investing in clean energy, I would be getting cold feet about investing in solar and other large renewal projects that need to be constructed in Western deserts, especially in California, where no matter what you try to do, there is always someone that doesn't want you to do it.