See:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_37/b3950067_mz018.htm
Quotes:
The price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that SCE will pay is confidential
and must be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission.
But there's little doubt that the contract will get a thumbs-up,
perhaps as soon as next month. One reason: SCE says the price it
negotiated is so attractive -- "well below the 11.33 cents per kWh"
it now pays for peak power -- that it won't seek any subsidies from the state.
Osborn says that a dish farm of 11 miles square could produce as much
electricity as the 2,050 MW from Hoover Dam. "We're already looking
at a half-dozen one-square-mile sites in the California desert," he
says, "and there's lots and lots more territory there."
[NOTE: Lake Mead, behind the Hoover Dam, takes up 247 square miles.
Of course, people enjoy Lake Mead, but that is not true of many other
hydroelectric projects, especially in Canada and South America.
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/lakefaqs.html]
- Jed
