AZ: The Persian Gulf of Solar Energy

Today I read an article on CNN about a solar plant in AZ in the early stages of production. A company called Abengoa Solar, which has plants in Spain, northern Africa and other parts of the U.S, plans to build a 280 MW plant outside of Phoenix. Instead of photovoltaics, this plant plans to use the solar thermal approach. This makes sense because from class we learned that PV technology is currently much more expensive and efficiency is not all that great. The company is unfortunately holding its breath, waiting for the extension of the federal solar investment tax credit.

I like any article I see about solar or wind energy. Especially when it's my home state (Maybe someday we can challenge TX in a solar vs. wind battle for renewable energy supremacy) You really can't go wrong. Hopefully congress gets its act together and extends these important tax credits on renewable energy. They are currently held up on whether we should tax American oil (see Rob Petter to pay Paul). Maybe they should first pass the important uncontroversial items in one bill and then debate the controversial items. At least that way we can move forward.