Dry cooling, where fans and heat exchangers cool the water that had condensed from steam, is more electricity-intensive than wet cooling. But it uses 90 percent less water, a serious consideration in the arid Southwest.
The irony, of course, is that the driest parts of the country are those best-suited to solar energy projects. Solar Millennium, the Nevada facilities' developer, had planned to use wet cooling but switched to dry cooling to speed regulatory approval. Solar Millennium CEO Josef Eichhammer said that the decision should "accelerate the approval process and enable us to begin construction and stimulate the local economy by December 2010."
The economic impact of the project could be substantial. Nye County, in which the two solar farms are located, has an unemployment rate of 15 percent - and each farm would require 800 workers to build. At least 100 permanent jobs would be created, as well.
Nevada State Senator Mike Schneider, a Democrat from Las Vegas, noted that solar power "will create new jobs, clean energy and a new industry while saving water, our most precious resource."
