Oh, brother, if there’s one steaming pile of green fantasy that proves the left’s renewable energy dreams are a taxpayer-funded fever swamp, it’s the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility – a $2.2 billion mirage in California’s Mojave Desert that’s now crumbling faster than a liberal’s narrative on election night. Launched with Obama-era pomp in 2014 as the “future of clean energy,” this glittering monstrosity of 347,000 mirrors was supposed to power homes, save the planet, and stick it to fossil fuels. Instead, it’s a monument to epic failure – underperforming, overbudget, and torching wildlife while bleeding cash. President Trump’s right to call it out as a green scam in his September 2025 rallies, and with revelations from January 2025 showing it’s shutting down early, Ivanpah’s collapse is a warning: America First doesn’t mean burning billions on eco-pipe dreams that fry birds and fizzle out. Let’s rip the solar panels off this disaster and expose the costs, history, and failures of the left’s favorite boondoggle.
🚨#BREAKING: Officials have permanently shut down the $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert, admitting the project never lived up to its promises. Once hailed as a breakthrough in renewable energy, the plant also drew criticism for killing an… pic.twitter.com/ZuDyszYWZN
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) September 23, 2025
The Costly Mirage: A $2.2 Billion Taxpayer Torch Job
Dive into the numbers, and Ivanpah’s price tag is a gut punch that keeps on giving. Built for $2.2 billion, it snagged a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2011, courtesy of Obama’s green cronyism, plus a $535 million Treasury grant to pay back part of that loan – free money, no strings attached. Add in a 30% investment tax credit, a five-year accelerated depreciation, and a 50% first-year depreciation bonus, and it’s a taxpayer-funded buffet for the project’s owners: NRG Energy ($300 million invested), Google ($168 million), and BrightSource Energy (now Kelvin). By 2014, revelations showed this wasn’t just a power plant; it was a welfare program for corporate greenies, with California utilities forced to buy its overpriced juice at $200 per megawatt-hour – 10 times New England’s 2015 wholesale rate of $20/MWh.
Total cost to taxpayers? Over $2 billion in subsidies and guarantees, with revelations from January 2025 audits showing the DOE’s loan still unpaid, leaving Uncle Sam on the hook. Operating costs? A cool $100 million yearly for 1,000 employees, dwarfing nuclear plants like Millstone in Connecticut, which pumps out 15 times more power for the same headcount. This ain’t efficiency; it’s a money pit that makes Solyndra’s $535 million bust look like pocket change.
The History: From Green Hype to Grim Reality
Ivanpah’s saga started with Obama’s 2009 stimulus, when green fever gripped the left and “solar thermal” was the shiny new toy. Ground broke in October 2010, with Bechtel constructing three 459-foot towers surrounded by 173,500 heliostats – mirrors tracking the sun to heat boilers for steam-driven electricity. By February 13, 2014, it opened to fanfare from eco-warriors and Biden’s Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who called it a “world leader in solar.” The pitch? A 392-megawatt capacity to power 140,000 homes, cutting 500,000 metric tons of CO2 yearly.
But reality hit like a desert storm. By 2015, it was producing just 40% of its promised 1 million megawatt-hours annually, averaging 702,322 MWh from 2015-2023. Revelations from August 2014 showed it burned 868 billion BTUs of natural gas – emitting 46,084 metric tons of CO2, nearly double California’s cap-and-trade threshold – just to keep boilers warm when clouds rolled in. A May 2016 fire from misaligned mirrors torched a tower, and by November 2016, PG&E threatened default over missed targets. Fast-forward to January 2025, and NRG Energy announced it’s pulling the plug on two of three towers by early 2026, with PG&E terminating contracts 14 years early to save ratepayers cash. Southern California Edison’s also in talks to ditch its deal, leaving Ivanpah a half-dead relic.
The Failures: Birds, Bucks, and Broken Promises
Where to start with Ivanpah’s flops? First, it never hit its energy goals – peaking at 650 GWh in 2015, far below the 976 GWh promised to PG&E and SCE. Revelations from 2016 showed it needed four times the natural gas planned to start daily, turning “clean energy” into a fossil fuel farce. Environmentally? It’s a slaughterhouse – the 3,500-acre site displaced desert tortoises, destroyed rare plants, and fried 3,500 birds in its first year alone, with “streamers” (burned birds) falling from the sky as mirrors hit 900°F. A 2015 report called it a “mega-trap” for wildlife, with revelations from 2025 confirming ongoing ecological damage.
Financially, it’s a disaster. The $2.2 billion for 120 MW of actual output averages $18 per watt – 36 times pricier than nuclear’s $0.50/W at Millstone. PG&E’s January 2025 exit saved ratepayers $500 million over keeping it through 2039, but revelations show California’s been overpaying for power that photovoltaic solar (PV) now delivers at a tenth the cost. By 2025, PV’s plummeted to $0.50 per watt, making Ivanpah’s tech a dinosaur. Polls from February 2025 show 62% of Californians view it as a “waste,” with 70% of independents backing fossil fuel alternatives for reliability.
The Bigger Picture: A Green Grift Exposed
Trump’s right to slam this boondoggle – Ivanpah’s collapse proves the left’s green schemes are less about saving the planet and more about funneling cash to cronies while screwing taxpayers and ratepayers. Revelations from January 2025 show the site may be repurposed for PV solar, but that’s lipstick on a pig – the $2 billion hole’s already dug. With 2024’s 3.9% solar contribution to U.S. power dwarfed by natural gas at 40%, Ivanpah’s a cautionary tale: Subsidies don’t spark innovation; they spark scams. America First means energy that works – cheap, reliable, and not torching wildlife or wallets. The left’s still pushing their eco-utopia, but Ivanpah’s burning out. Wake up, or get burned again.