President Obama Gives Ivanpah Kudos
We’ve known for a long time that the Ivanpah solar power project is an important project for California and for the High Desert region. And we’ve done our best to make it a model project in terms of location, environmental design, and bringing economic benefits to local communities. We hope that projects like Ivanpah are a bellwether of what’s to come for the solar energy industry.
The project has also been a focus of the Obama Administration. In February 2010, the project received a U.S. Department of Energy conditional loan guarantee of $1.4 billion. The project has also been included on the Department of Interior’s Fast Track list of 16 priority clean energy projects located on federal Bureau of Land Management land.
The economic and environmental benefits have also caught President Obama’s attention. In his weekly address to the nation, the President discussed the job-creation potential of the clean energy industry and specifically highlighted the Ivanpah solar project as an example. The President called Ivanpah a “revolutionary” “state of the art facility,” and one that is putting over a thousand people back to work – all while helping the nation realize its clean energy goals. The entire video address can be seen on the White House blog: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/02/weekly-address-solar-power-a-clean-energy-economy.
We’re looking forward to breaking ground at Ivanpah this month, building a model environmental project, while providing high-quality jobs and carbon-free energy for Californians.