ies, providing a total of 275 megawatts of power. In the process, Luz engineers steadily lowered the initial costs by optimizing construction techniques and taking advantage of economies of buying material in bulk to build ever-larger plants until the price dropped from 24 to 12 cents per kilowatt hour. The next, even larger plant--a 300-megawatt facility--scheduled for completion last year, promised to provide 6 to 7 cents per kilowatt hour, near the price of electricity produced by coal, oil, or nuclear technology.Once again, as with Shuman and his team, the gap was closing. But once again these facilities would not be built. Luz, producer of more than 95 percent of the world's solar-based electricity, filed for bankruptcy in 1991. According to Newton Becker, Luz's chairman of the board, and other investors, the demise of the already meager tax credits, declining fossil fuel prices, and the bleak prospects for future assistance from both federal and state governments drove investors to withdraw from the project. As Becker concluded, "The failure of the world's largest solar electric company was not due to technological or business judgment failures but rather to failures of government regulatory bodies to recognize the economic and environmental benefits of solar thermal generating plants."Other solar projects met with similar financial failure. For example, two plants that employed the tower power concept, Edison's 10-megawatt plant in Daggett, Calif., and a 30-megawatt facility built in Jordan performed well despite operating on a much smaller scale and without Luz's advantages of heavy initial capital investment and a lengthy trial-and-error process to improve efficiency. Still they were assessed as too costly to compete in the intense conventional fuel market.Although some of our brightest engineers have produced some exemplary solar power designs during the past 25 years, their work reflects a disjointed solar energy policy. Had ...
