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US Halts Applications For Solar Energy Projects
Dekortage writes "The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce 'a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.' The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year."
Here is the printer friendly format for easier reading. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
They probably should have done this sooner, but it's better to do the EIS before the explosive growth of solar plants.
This way, they have a much better idea what the effects will be, and have more clear, consistent, comprehensive information and data on which to judge applications.
I think the companies are just upset because it might prevent them from securing investors during the time they can't even submit an application. But for the people, and the industry, it's probably not that big of a deal.
People need the electricity. The BLM should only need to answer one question: Will the proposed solar energy plant harm the environment more than a natural gas/coal/oil plant would to produce the same amount of power? If not, let it be built.
As a resident of Texas, I hate that we're building more and more coal-fired power plants when we have such abundant sun and wind out here that we could be using instead. Hell, I have to suffer through 2 months (and counting) of 100+ degree days, I'd like to at least be getting something out of all that sun other than dehydration and sunburn.
If solar (or ethanol or wind or ... anything) is as good as people like to believe, it can survive without tax credits.
...the environmental impact of solar energy was already officially established as "groovy, man, groovy!"
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Whoever makes it into the WH will make a big show of giving an executive order to open the applications back up. As to whether this is a good thing or not, I'm not so sure. Solar has been making some big strides, but if everyone is forced to wait a couple of years, who knows what may come out, and what the current implementers will learn in that time? It may just save two years of shitty implementations with obsolete-before-it's-built tech.
"overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants".., that's good news. At least people are trying!
stuff |
The government that governs least governs best, goddammit. Of course this will harm the industry; It's an artificially imposed market restriction!
God forbid somebody do something without those geniuses at the government making sure it's ok first. Them being the kings of noticing unintended consequences in others' ideas. Oh wait...
This is only for use of land owned by the Federal Government. You can still do whatever you want with private land, providing you have the proper zoning and building permits from the local government.
I don't foresee many issues with local government in the middle of the desert.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The world needs more Ron Paul type characters.
It needs an entire Ron Paul font. :-) Man, that was weird...
I think is funny, because there's a good overlap between the group that is rabidly "alternative energy" and the group that wants draconian government environmental policies. I love it when thing blow up in faces like this. I have the day off, so I'm gonna go out and find an activist to laugh at. :-)
Why don't they come up with the environmental criteria/requirements and state that the application submitter must complete the study and submit the findings with the application. If further study would be required, they could then investigate or push it back to the requesting company/agency.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
You could build a giant array of solar panels over area covered by grass. With no sunlight, the grass dies, the rains wash away the soil, havoc commences, etc.
Personally I think it's probably better to distribute the power-generation facility onto the roofs of all the residents in these 'southwestern states'... Use the wasted space productively...
I'm in the process of installing an 11.9 kW system on the roof of my home in CA. It's costing about $80k (of which I expect to get $12-16k back in rebates) , and it'll take my electricity bill down from $800/month to ~$100/month. Saving ~$700/month makes payback in ~8 years, and the panels have a 25-year lifespan (at which point they're at ~80% efficiency of day-1).
Why cover the land ? Cover the roofs instead!
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Or about 1 million Al Gore type homes.
Oops - he made some improvements last year - so make that only 900,000 homes worth.
You haven't seen the desert southwest, have you?
Err. We are talking about deserts here, not noted for their lush vegetation. Else they wouldn't be deserts...
Is there any way that it could be worse than coal? Do you need two years to answer this question?
I don't know why this popped into my head.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to speak to the Indians about building solar power plants on their land.
We pushed them off of all the best land and consigned them to places that were arid and infertile. We consoled our consciences by telling ourselves by saying 'hey, we left them with a shitpile of land'. Of course the land wasn't good for anything . . . at least not then.
Additionally, the Indian reservations are a perennial backwater, mired in poverty and desperately in need of external investment. An enterprising company may be able to get access to large amounts of sundrenched land it needs while the Indians get the external investment they need - a mutually beneficial commercial relationship.
Also, the moratorium will tend to press potential investors away from public land and could give reservation based solar farms the chance to leapfrog development in other areas.
friends don't let friends teleport drunk
Stupid people have existed in every group, every movement, every race and nation, for all time. For instance, a lot of stupid people like Ron Paul. A lot of stupid people like Obama, and McCain. There are just a lot of stupid people. It isn't smart to judge a group by the stupid people that support it, but by the smart people who do.
As for laughing at activists, the only people I've met who consider that worthwhile are people who haven't done anything good and decent with their lives, and resent people who have. But whatever, go denigrate people who've dedicated their lives to making the world a better place if that helps you sleep at night.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am gapping I think.
How will these solar installs (whether thermal or PV) possibly do more environmental damage than drilling more wells, burning coal, burning oil or dealing with the aftermath of a spent reactor?
Unless I am missing something big, lets keep approving AS we do the study. Who is really this scared of Solar. Not us common folk! Is it the coal industry, oil, wind? It has to be somebody, because this does not seem to make sense.
Or, you can build a giant greenhouse, in the shape of a dome. Leave it open around the bottom rim, and put a hollow tower in the middle, with intakes at the bottom, and with the top uncapped and protruding through the top of the greenhouse.
The solar energy will create a temperature difference between the external air and the internal air, causing air to be drawn in through the bottom edges of the dome and vented through the tube out the top.
All you need to do is stick wind turbines in the tower.
You'd be preventing direct rainfall, but you could harvest and channel the run-off anywhere you wanted. That means, depending on the location, it might be practical to have irrigated farmland underneath your solar generation plant. You could even stick homes in there.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
hmmm I wonder if someone "important"
http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/06/15/senator-attacks-solar-energy-industry/
isn't ready to get in line so they
http://green.bligblog.com/oil-companies-and-solar-energy-682.html
are slowing down applications until that "person"
http://thepanelist.com/Hot_Topics/Alternative_Energy/_200805271019/
is ready.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Actually, it's the law (at least in CA). They have to agree to let you do it.
Consider a company that paid for solar panels to be installed on your roof, then charged you for the energy they produced. Any overage they could charge to the electricity supplier as it feeds back into the grid. You get a reduced rate for the electricity because you're leasing your roof to the company.
Seems like it could work...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
This is the same regulatory framework that stymied geothermal development in the 1990s, and a favored control mechanism by the environmentalist lobbies. They have made it very difficult to develop in the western deserts for other people, they just never expected it to impact their pet projects. An introductory course on unintended consequences.
The oil and gas development bit is a red herring, as mineral extraction (e.g. oil and gas development) is specially protected by very old Federal statutes that mitigate the regulatory overhead that the BLM can impose on power plant projects.
Or, you could just build windmills and let nature run its course around them.
You could build a giant array of solar panels over area covered by grass. With no sunlight, the grass dies, the rains wash away the soil, havoc commences, etc.
"You could build a giant array of solar panels over area covered by rocks. With no sunlight, the rocks die, the rains wash away the soil, havoc commences, etc."
Wait a minute......
Is it too much to ask to get rid of the freaking "power xxx homes" nonsense and put things in terms of MW or MWh?!
This is supposed to be news for nerds, not news for soccer moms whose only perspective on life and electricity is their own home! (Small subset of soccer moms, that is.)
Yes, but windmills require wind to be useful, and prevent alternative uses of the land. You could set something like this up anywhere there was sunlight, and still use the land for anything you like, possibly even improving its utility for other purposes.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I have to suffer through 2 months (and counting) of 100+ degree days,
This is probably a really dumb question, but as I Brit I have never figured out why settlers chose to live in America. I mean, the climate seems to spend half the year trying to KILL you. I've been to Boston in January and got snowed in my hotel with 6-foot/2-metre snowdrifts that arrived in ONE NIGHT. I've been to Houston in May and been stuck in my hotel lest the 48c/115f heat burn me to a frazzle. I went to California in February and they had to close the coastal highway because the sea had smashed it up.
I don't doubt for a moment that the USA is a lovely place to live IF you have air conditioning and central heating, but when the first settlers turned up a few hundred years ago, long before climate control, exactly what made them think "This is place to live! This location is ideally suited! We shall search no further!"?
Now I realise that the Pilgrims were essentially an extreme religious cult who got booted out of the Netherlands for being too nutty (and believe you me, the Netherlands is a pretty liberal place, getting kicked out of there really does take some doing - they must have been like Waco-quality loons). I know they also faced persecution in England for much the same thing. I also know that the British/Netherland climate of, essentially, rain rain rain, cloud, rain, does get a bit depressing, but at least the weather here never tries to KILL you. Any day of the year, anywhere in the country, you can step outside for the whole day and you won't die.
Whereas the Pilgrims set up home in BOSTON for the WINTER?
Then there's the wildlife. We don't have any dangerous wildlife, we shot it all, whereas you lot appear to have a country full of poisonous plants and poisonous/pointy-toothed predators. If the American weather isn't trying to kill you, there's some ivy or crocodile waiting to give you grievous pain.
And then you sing songs about how great your country is. Sure, your people are virtually all fabulous (and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn't met many of you personally), and ten out of ten for looking on the bright side of things, but your country is trying to kill you - how can that not introduce an element of self-doubt? How can you chaps be so religious when every time you step out of your house/car, some part of God's wonderful environment tries to nail you in the head?
When it comes down to energy conservation, do you never hover your finger over the thermostat, hesitate and think "Wouldn't it be a lot more energy efficient if I lived somewhere else entirely?".
(Iceland - it's the future of datacentres, believe you me.)
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
You're just about dead-on with the 80% efficiency after 25 years, I have a polycrystalline Kyocera solar panel made in 1983, in full direct sunlight it generates a measured 24 watts of electricity, exactly 80% of the original 30 watt rating.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
I find it interesting that this 'necessary delay' is happening right at the same time that Bush is pushing for oil development in more ecologically sensitive areas like Alaska. Is he hoping the delay will make oil exploration more necessary, or that the public will get the impression that there are big enviro concerns regarding solar power? When people read that the gov has halted something to 'investigate environmental concerns', they assume that there must be some concerns in the first place.
I'm not saying there aren't enviro considerations with solar- but why wasn't this done years ago? And why not study solar projects already up and running? The timing is interesting is all I'm saying. And two years!? Give me a break.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1993
How many economic disasters must occur due to speculative greed before the lesson is learned?
Here's an idea: you're a member of an oil cartel. Project that due to "demand" that oil will rise to $170 a barrel. Now watch your reserves gain 20% in value just because you said so.
There's a company doing just this in central Texas (Austin area). I've gotten flyers from them before, but can't remember the name of the company. They install the solar panels (which they retain ownership of), and sell you electricity at a rate guaranteed not to go up.
Deserts do have native life, although I don't know if they rely on plants to hold the ground together properly.
Really, though, if you read closely enough to note that it's in the southwest (not just deserts, but the rest of California, too), you could just read the article, where they give examples of environmental impact. :-)
Mostly the point of my response was that there are potential environmental impacts (and these are all proposals to put commercial solar farms on public land), but the poster seemed to be thinking of climatological impacts, when what they're interested in is impact on the local area.
Just as long as you can prove that you don't benefit from the infrastructure and common defense. How much you do pay is another matter.
yes, yes it can.
FWIW, I spent ten years doing environmental work, including NEPA.
At present, each proposed action must perform its own National Environmental Policy Act assessment, whether that is an Environmental Assessment or a more comprehensive (and expensive) Environmental Impact Statement.
BLM is streamlining the process for the long-term by preparing a "Programmatic" EIS; that is a comprehensive document that assess an entire class of proposed actions over a large geographic area, in this case building solar power sites in the referenced states. With that in place, companies that apply for permits have guidance that lets them know where the best locations are. They can then reference the Programmatic EIS and get environmental approval much faster and cheaper.
It slows things down to wait for it to be completed, but long-term, it will be a much faster process in terms of EIS preparation, review, public comment and acceptance.
Damn, and the one time I want mod points I don't have them.
go denigrate people who've dedicated their lives to making the world a better place
Yah right - activists do not want to make the world better, They want to prevent me from being happy, because my happy is different from their happy - and they think that makes me wrong.
Why do you think they never want a compromise? For them, a compromise is a loss - they need to stop others, not move themselves forward.
My 2 cent political descriptions: Republicans want to build new stuff, Democrats want to redistribute existing stuff. These are not irreconcilable, unless it is really about power.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I understand the pretty picture drawn with an overly efficient idea like this that sprouts gold from everything within, but it isn't realistic. [quote]Yes, but windmills require wind to be useful[/quote] If the land in question doesn't provide wind or ample sun to provide a green power solution, maybe we should just let it be? We don't need to go building domes to create power just because naturally it doesn't provide, when there are thousands of other locations available to produce the power we need in a green manner, including off shore wind farms, solar plants in the southwest, etc. It's more worthwhile to take what is already here, rather than make what isn't.
I am not a mechanical engineer, biologist, or a chemist, and my technical knowledge of solar energy is lacking at best.
However, I am still observant enough to note a few facts:
1) There are no Ents, and in fact plants are extremely stationary compared to animals
2) No animal life, with necessary amounts of energy to run around, derive that energy from photosynthesis. Instead we have to consume daily quantities of other life.
3) Billions of years of evolution, at present, has more complex and effective systems than our technology.
It just seems like if evolution has failed to produce a photosynthesis model for the quantities of energy that our species tends to deal with, the overall potential for how far we can really take this technology may not be as far reaching as some make it out to be.
Can anyone who is more 'in the know' abate some of my ignorance here?
As for laughing at activists, the only people I've met who consider that worthwhile are people who haven't done anything good and decent with their lives, and resent people who have. But whatever, go denigrate people who've dedicated their lives to making the world a better place if that helps you sleep at night.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sometimes today's activist was yesterday's puritan, so it is totally acceptable to laugh at, just like it is totally acceptable to lecture someone on the internet for a tiny little bit of schedenfreude.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
No man can claim that you reached your ideas by succumbing to mass media propaganda. Those who are taken in will find it hard to believe that they are. It's nice to see another modestly rational person in a sea of insanity.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
They did small scale testing in Northern Europe several years ago, and it was a smashing success. They're planning large scale roll outs near Sydney, Australia. It was front page news on this very site a few years back. Don't ask me for a source, because I have been looking without success for quite some time, but I do know that the technology is sound.
Of course, at the end of the day, all these plans are going to fail to scale out as much as we need. Holland is already seeing it occur with windmills... where they clutter up the landscape, all the good spots are used up, and we're still hungry for more. Any renewable energy system that is terrestrially based is going to be subject to this effect.
Eventually, we're going to have to quit playing around with science experiments and weapons of war, and get serious about building engineering projects that bring power to earth from off world.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
To give a brief industry prospective, whether this is good or bad is entirely dependant on whether your company was part of the initial "land rush" to file a BLM permit. If you were, then you just put your company in a much better position vis-a-vis your less speedy competitors.
A couple industry realities that play into the importance of this decision:
1. Location, Location, Location.
Location is critical to establishing an economic generation project. Forget about the cost of the land -- that is generally incidental. But the location makes a critical difference in how much it costs to get your power to market. This principle applies to all technologies, but particularly to commercial scale solar. One of the major costs in developing a new power plant are the interconnection costs -- that is, the costs of reinforcing the already-built transmission system to handle the additional output of your facility. Depending on where you interconnect with the transmission system, this can cost very little or hundreds of millions of dollars. Obviously, if you are on the high end of that number, there is less possibility that your project will be built. In extremely cases, the unavailability of a particular piece of federal land may kill the project, if the nearest privately owned option would result in unacceptably high interconnection costs.
Note: there are a variety of different ways the transission upgrades for these projects are funded, and California in particular has some creative financing mechanisms that reduce the interconnection costs -- but even then, they are still a major consideration.
2. Project Financing.
Ten years ago, it was common to finance large power generation projects on spec. The theory was, built it and they will come. That largely ended with the power crisis. Today, it is much harder to secure financing without a power purchase agreement ("PPA"). Currently a number of states are seeking bids for solar PPAs through Requests For Proposals ("RFPs") and other bilateral contracting options. In order to compete in an RFP, you generally need to show some level of site control and basic timeline and economic information. The fact that the BLM has stopped taking new applications is a great boon to those who already have their site proposal pending before BLM, and not good news for others. Time really is critical to these developers and the recent morotorium is going to prevent many companies from competing for these RFPs.
3. The Production Tax Credit.
In one of the more boneheaded moves in history, Congress has chosen to renew the Production Tax Credit ("PTC") every year or two. Whether you think a government subsidy is good business or not (personally, I think it's good), the PTC is critical to making the numbers work and getting a project financed. Currently, there is a major incentive to rush projects into commercial operation before the expiration of this year's PTC. Any additional administrative delay is potentially fatal to the financing of some of these projects.
4. Stupidity & Laziness.
Give me a break BLM. Just do the !@#$ing work and issue a Programatic Environmental Impact Statement covering all/most solar facilities in the desert south west. As a public policy matter, these projects are critically important to the survival of the earth. Get off your asses and get it done. (Though in fairness, the California grid operator and others throughout the country are equally overwhelmed with new solar project requests. But they at least are making major efforts to remove regulatory bottlenecks, not imposing new ones.)
Really? All activists want to prevent you from being happy? I mean, you despise every cause on the planet? Or is it only activists you disagree with that piss you off? Maybe everyone but you and people you agree with should just shut the hell up, is that what you'd like?
Most of the time, your happy being different doesn't make you wrong in most activists' eyes. But it depends: does your happy involve oppressing others for your own profit? Does it involve polluting? You don't get to have a happy that hurts other people, sorry.
Who says activists never compromise? I think maybe the reason you've never seen compromise is that you are unwilling to compromise. Compromise takes two willing parties, you know. Despite what you may think, "Do what I say," and "Shut up and stop complaining that I'm fucking you over," are not actually compromises.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The coming giant capacitor facilities will hold the power made during the day for use at night.
Of course, clouds are still a problem.
This is the whole point of contention. Do they really make the world better or do they make it worse?
Right, because it is so nonsensical not only to want clean energy. Let's laugh at people because making clean energy is sometimes harder and more complicated than it looks. Yes, that makes all the sense in the world, as does lumping all activists together and tarring them all with the same brush.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
But whatever, go denigrate people who've dedicated their lives to making the world a better place if that helps you sleep at night.
I agree that ridiculing activists is a waste of time that could be dedicated to something more useful. But, from my experience, most of the most energetic activists I see haven't dedicated their lives to making the world a better place. They've dedicated their lives to pouring huge amounts of time and effort making themselves feel like they're making the world a better place - Big difference. Writing letters and submitting petitions is typically a lot more effective than marching with signs, but not nearly as much fun nor as good a social experience. There are a lot of excellent exceptions of course, but the trend seems to be to latch on to a cause you like, find some statistics/publications that support it, ignore all contrary evidence, then make some signs and go harass anyone with an opposing opinion.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic rant - I'm hopped up on chocolate-covered espresso beans. =)
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Just hire some more people to process the applications and do the impact studies. Construction on alternative energy supplies needs to start now. We are already past the levels of co2 in the atmosphere some scientists consider safe.
Obviously no large scale construction should be undertaken without consideration of the environmental impacts; but given the massive scale of the threat from global warming it's in everybody's interests to spend the cash to make sure alternative energy sources come online as soon as possible.
Do you know any activists?
I have never met an activist that was willing to live and let live - never! I donate a large percentage of my income to charities, and I work with inner city kids to try to improve their lives - what do you do?
There is a huge difference between an activist and someone trying to get something done. An activist only stops others - they never do anything. At least that is my definition - if yours is different, then perhaps we are talking across each other.
To me, the defining aspect of an activist is that they stop others, but never build anything themselves (except rules, of course, for the others to follow). March on Congress for anything - you are an activist. Give your own time and money to promote a cause - you are not an activist, you are a volunteer.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I don't know, what do you consider better? Activists brought us womens' suffrage, the eight hour work day, workplace safety laws, child labor laws, environmental protection laws, equal rights, the minimum wage, desegregation, and much much more. What bad things have activists done, in your opinion?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That doesn't describe a single activist that I've known. Marching with signs generally only happens when the other options have produced no results. But I'm sure you've known a lot of activists personally and have direct experience with their activities, or you wouldn't have made such sweeping generalizations, right?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Judge a group or an issue by the facts and how humans will be affected.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I've known more activists than you. I've been active in groups like Food Not Bombs, Homes, Not Jails, and the IWW. I've known and worked with literally thousands of activists in my lifetime. I can provide references. How many activists have you known, personally? What groups were they active with? What activities did they engage in?
Nice way to redefine words in ways no other English speaker agrees with, by the way.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth.
Wasn't it explosive growth of the oil industry without proper environmental research and oversight what got us into this mess in the first place?
Any company that says "I don't like the government employing restrictions in the name of environmental protection" is clearly not a company I want to support, and this is surprising to hear coming from a SOLAR POWER companies who are supposed to be our allies in the GLOBAL WAR ON ENVIRONMENTAL TERROR (or whatever we're calling it today).
Funny. When they wanted to put the fence along the Mexican border on the fast-track to completion, they managed to find a way around environmental regulations for that.
You know, you are right. I like to laugh at anti-abortion activists, republican canvassers, pro-war rallies, anti-homosexual closet cases, and door to door religious wing-nuts, too. That was what you meant, right?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Except that you're dramatically reducing the amount of available solar energy by encasing the thing in plastic or glass, in an already relatively low gain system.
Windmills don't prevent most alternative use of the land, because they're not very close together and the footprint of the pole itself is obviously pretty small. The ones in the plains they typically farm under. The ones in the mountains may kill some birds but don't bother other flora and fauna.
It isn't smart to judge a group by the stupid people that support it, but by the smart people who do.
Agree - to a point.
It isn't smart to judge a group by the stupid people that support it - unless there's a statistically significant difference in the number of stupid people.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Yeah, let's kill innovative new technology in the cradle! If there are any bad effects at all (for example, someone complains that the solar plants look too shiny), we bureaucrats could get in trouble! We'll study it for a few years, and maybe they will all go away.
Your ignorance is shocking, and your presumption that know else knows there is a 'nighttime' makes you look like an ass.
Solar thermals trap the super heated liquid that can generate steam to turn turbines throughout the night.
Clouds don't impact their generation much at all.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
True. But there is no evidence suggesting that there's a statistically significant difference in the number of stupid people who are activists.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
After all, a solar plant isn't bringing in anything new that's not already there. For the same reason that it can't increase output by "throwing more coal on the fire" (if it's not sunny, it's not sunny), it wouldn't be able to use sunlight that wasn't already there in the first place. If the sunlight weren't hitting the station, it would still be shining on the same place.
Moreover, since heat and energy are to some extent interchangeable, converting heat (radiation) into an electrical energy source should mean that the heat has - in fact - changed form. If it's not heat, then it's less hot...
"Stupid people?" "Activists?"
I'm confused... you're repeating yourself.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Just a side comment. You mentioned that you have pond-pumps running. I picked up one and have seen some other decent ones that run on individualized solar-panels. They're actually pretty neat, and you can decouple them easily from the regular electrical system.
I've seen people with pump-houses that look like cute little dog/animals-houses (some incorporate bird-baths or birdhouse-type designs as well), put the pump solar-panels on that and it should work pretty well without looking ugly.
Ah, I see. You're an anti-activist activist. Meta-stupid!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The point wasn't so much what they were good for there, but what they're good for everywhere. The BLM doesn't really manage anything except some roads, and those roads are not repeat NOT being maintained for your benefit, but for that of the government.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Obligatory Ayn Rand quote ---
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
...kill the bureacrats, and THEN the lawyers.
All I can say is RIGHT ON!!!!
FragHARD or don't frag at all
But I'm sure you've known a lot of activists personally and have direct experience with their activities, or you wouldn't have made such sweeping generalizations, right?
I wouldn't say that I know many, but that's mainly because it typically doesn't take me long to assess them and write them off as uneducated and unrecoverably biased. I do know a few and I've met a lot. Of course, it all depends on your definition - I only know one guy who takes it to the point of marching around with signs, but I know & assist a few who are the write letters/circulate petitions/work on city council types. Maybe the 'activists' you associate with are just coming from a very different pool than mine.
That doesn't describe a single activist that I've known.
Come to Los Alamos, NM on August 6 - I'll introduce you to hundreds. Last year I listened to a very well-received speech from a guy who had served overseas. He lost his son to leukemia not long after returning. Absolutely fucking tragic - I felt for him. The kicker was that he (and based on comments I heard in the crowd, many others) believed that the leukemia was a result of him being exposed to depleted uranium in the field and carrying back radiation that infected his son. He punctuated that point by pointing out the extremely long half-life of DU. The notion that radiation from DU could be carried back and induce leukemia coupled with the idea that a long half-life corresponds to high levels of radioactivity can only be produced by extreme levels of both ignorance and bias.
You wanted an argument? Oh, I'm sorry, but this is abuse...
I notice that your post and your sig are highly correlated...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
At first when I saw your idea, I thought it was great. Unfortunately, if this type of arrangement was set up any way similar to that of the Indian reservation casinos, there will be big problems. For example in my home state of California the more powerful tribes have lobbied hard to prohibit other smaller tribes from creating casinos.
Before anyone replies to me, I in no way am saying we shouldn't look to the reservations for solar plant space, but at least take it into consideration. In fact, I think this is great as a way from diversifying from casinos and dumping grounds.
They prevent building anything that would disrupt airflow across the terrain.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I know you were joking but there is a serious answer to your question: Farming.
If you have driven from NYC to California, you know what I mean. It is the richest farmland in the world. And we have entire states of it. 100's of thousands of square miles.
Back in the "olden days", that probably looked like heaven compared to Ireland, Scotland, England, etc.
"I'll take a sunburn and sweat if I can just keep my damn crops alive!!!!!"
True, but they're not putting up windmills in Manhattan or skyscrapers in North Dakota.
Hey, you live in Los Alamos? I live in Albuquerque!
DU has been show to be a factor in Gulf War Syndrome. But the idea that you could carry it back and 'infect' another person is ludicrous, of course. Still, the guys lost his son, give him a break, okay? Most people have a hard time accepting the fact that shit just happens, and need to blame something or someone.
As for my sig, why do you think I chose it? You must be new here or you'd already know that I'm a bit of an ass.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am not bashing this guy, he can write whatever he wants, but before he gets modded to +5, interesting, make sure he knows what he is talking about. (I am ASSUMING he is not intentionally misleading the masses, and has no agenda)
His math is off, his efficiency figures are way off.
Please, those of you who believe in truth, mod up some of the replies that contain factual info.
Thanks
Windmills are arguably the most eco friendly form of power production presently available. Solar power has great potential, but the impact on whatever is underneath it is more drastic. With windpower, all we are doing is slowing down wind which sweeps across the land. Which brings me back to a point I made in a previous post = off shore wind farms. I don't foresee anything being built on the ocean that would cause major headaches.
DU is nasty - no doubt. But the radioactivity isn't the problem. It's an ugly heavy metal (just like lead and some others that you wouldn't want to ingest). And, like I said, I felt for the guy - really. And I understand how such an emotional event could cause him to skew his views and blame something illogical rather than accept that sometimes terrible things just happen. But that just backs up the notion that he was being driven by bias, not rational thinking.
What was bad was that there was so much blind acceptance in the crowd that the radiation from the DU had been carried back and was obviously the cause of the leukemia (based on just a few comments - I obviously didn't talk with everyone there). Also, the fact that a long half-life was called out as an additional hazard should have been flatly rejected by everyone there - Instead I hear it parroted. If the activists has even a basic knowledge of the subject matter they were complaining about, they would have known that it's ridiculous. Any idea what the half-life of gold it - It's HUGE!
Really - I realize that August 6 is a Wednesday this year, but making the 2-hour drive to Los Alamos some year may be worth it just to observe some of the goings-on.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The old joke was that if Communists ran the desert, there'd be a sand shortage. Now we know that when environmentalists run it, there's a sun shortage.
This is actually very convenient! How much baking/TV/laundry are you doing at 4AM? People are most active with their electricity during the day (peak is usually around 4-5PM) and so is the sun.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
It's more than just grass and whatnot though. The southwest desert is a vibrant and complex ecosystem with plenty of threatened and endangered species ranging from mojave ground squirrels to about a dozen species of cactus. Toss in Native American archaeological sites and tightly stretched water resources, and what we have is these solar projects running up against the byzantine maze of environmental and land management regulations that have bedeviled a variety of construction projects for decades.
To put it in perspective, it takes over a year to conduct environmental and archaeological studies just to throw up a dozen microwave relay towers. I've seen tens of thousands of dollars charged to just move a single endangered cactus. Now imagine how much more complicated it would be if you were going to set up a massive array of mirrors, transmission lines, and a steam turbine that draws water from an overtapped aquifer.
I suppose you could try and argue that these solar plants are answering a more dire environmental issue that those which these regulations protect and can try to get a waiver, but until Congress makes that decision, the treatment these companies receive is really no different than anyone else who's tried to build out there.
Meet your buddy sodium nitrate. It is a salt that is a solid at room temperature and even up to several hundred degrees temperature. However, once it is heated by the oil in the tubes of the trough solar field or within the heliostat of a power tower it turns into a liquid.
The sodium nitrate solution or solar salt is typically just a small percentage of the actual thermal storage solution. The majority of the thermal mass being composed simply of silicate or limestone gravel. Thus, the thermal storage can easily be scaled to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of tons of storage primarily using on-site materials. It's an extremely efficient and low cost storage solution and depending upon the scale of the installation can provide hours to days of power without any sun. Since solar thermal sites are typically situated in areas of high insolation such as deserts, a condition were days passed without sun would be extremely rare. Thus, this is indeed a technical replacement for baseline power such as coal or nuclear.
The leader in the market for nitrate salts used in thermal storage applications, yes there's already a market in these things, is a product called HitecXL. I encourage you to google for it and inform yourself on this topic before you continue advising people about the "huge drawbacks".
Because in six months the fuckin' Republican scum will be flushed down the toilet.
I have to admit I was pissed when I first saw this because I'm a huge supporter of solar thermal and have been for years. I was an avid lurker on the early solar thermal list-serves in the nineties and became totally fascinated with it in those days and have been stuck on it since. So, my blood pressure shot through the roof when I saw this. I mean the gall, using an environmental impact requirement. I mean, it's almost funny if it wasn't so upsetting.
Then as I had time to mull it over it kinda made me grin. I mean at least it shows that this is scarry enough to the Bush administration that they're fighting back. That's a good sign in itself. If I was an executive looking for funding, I'd tout this as a badge of honor. Look, this scares Republicans. Hmm, looks good going forward eh?
And then I realized it's June. Those pieces of shit are on the way out in six months. Let them declare a twenty year moratorium on applications at this point. It's all the same in terms of the real world. Investors aren't stupid, just follow the money. It's clear we're up for a change and the more the Republicans show their distaste for solar thermal the better its future is probably going to be.
I guess the deserts are populated with rock-huggers, so we have to ensure that these solar projects don't damage the rocks in Arizona...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
FTA:
The 125 existing applications are for land covering almost one million acres and with the potential to generate 70 billion watts of electricity
1,000,000 acres = 4046 km^2, this is an area equal to a square 63km on side.
This square could actually cover up the entire lower San Francisco bay area, from San Francisco to San Jose, covering Oakland, Hayward, Freemont, Pleasanton, Livermore, San Mateo, Palo Alto.
For comparison, proposed ANWR oil drilling would have only 2,000 acres (8 km^2) of drilling pads.
Energy density:
70 GWe / 1,000,000 acres = 70 kWe/acre = 17 W/m^2, which in in the neighborhood of 5% of typical average insolation (~250 W/m^2) so I agree with these numbers.
The main acreage use of nuclear fission power plants are the exclusion areas of 500 to 1000 acres. You could easily site 4 x 1GWe class nuclear reactors in a 1000 acre site, for a density of 4 MWe / acre (that's what you get when your electrical generators are a billion times closer to the nuclear reactor :)
There are indeed patches of nothing in the southwest, but there are many places where vegetation does grow, irrespective of irrigation. The desert there is a teeming ecosystem; it's not the Sahara that's all sand dunes and such. You don't always want to build on top of that vegetation.
Also, it might not be the brightest idea to build next to something like a mesa. It might or might not be a good to build on top of a mesa even if it has to be cut to allow trucks to get to the top.
There are lots of other examples where a proposal might be rejected.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I didn't say that everywhere they would put up solar panels would be a lawn. I gave one possibility for environmental impact.
Incidentally, all of the property covered by this decision is public land, so it's not being used for growing crops.
Also, speaking of ignorant, "grass" is not just the green stuff in front of people's houses. Grasses grow all over California and serve to keep the soil together. (Really, I should have mentioned all plants whose root structure is necessary to prevent erosion.)
Are you just complaining, or are you trying to say that there's no possibility of environmental impact in arid areas? If you're saying you can't do environmental damage to a desert, you're the ignorant one.
During summer with central AC not blowing all day during the crazy heat waves (100+F degrees) and my room is like 85+ degrees with it! Including fans blowing! And of course having computers on doesn't help. :/ I know a friend who has to spend $500+ during those times. Yikes.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Dubya: Now, now boys. Relax.
Oily: But Dubya, our profits are gonna get socked if these damn solar doohickeys keep springing up ever'whar!
Coal: Yeah, and our strip-minin' will go to hell!
Cheney (laughs): I've got the answer. We'll steal from the environmentalist wacko playbook. Let's say we want to do an environmental impact study of solar panels!
Dubya: Well gollee, Dick! That's smart thinkin'! OK boys, go back to makin' yer billions. Just don't forget to cut Dicky and me in on the stash.
(Meeting ends.)
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Ensign is taking in the front and the rear from uber-powerful extraction industries.
I imagine they lube him up really good before penetration begins...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Seriously, where's the scrutiny of the cost/benefit of coal & oil? Factoring environmental damage, the same conclusion should be made for petroleum plants: halt all new construction. Neither conclusion makes sense. Better to continue investment in solar, because any incremental gain is better than no gain.
Why doesn't one of these companies just offer make deal with home owners and install there solar plants on individual roof tops. They can use the current very favorable agreements where homeowners can sell power back to the grid.
I'd take that deal.
They can come in, wire up my roof, and sell their power to me and the utilities, and I would pay my utility bill as usual, but to them and the utilities.
My payoff is knowing I am using solar instead of oil without having to kick in any upfront $$$ and they can keep all of the profits, so they get the use of my land(roof) and wires for free.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Good call - Anyone know if this is already being done?
Yes it is already being done as a supplemental power technique. Whole Foods is testing such systems at several of their stores. They basically purchase power at a pre-established rate for a period of years (20 or so I think) from the company which builds and maintains the solar cells. Since the number of days of sunlight in a given year is predictable AND the sunlight tends to be most intense when air conditioning needs are the highest, it apparently greatly offsets their power needs at peak times. Doesn't get them off the grid but it apparently does reduce their draw from the grid significantly.
Yep, with a 100% efficient solar panel over the roughly 3m^2 of surface, you might actually gather the full 1334 watts of available power per meter squared on a bright, cloud-free day, giving a full 4002 watts, almost 6HP! That's almost 20% of enough to run a small motorcycle, but you gathered it using a solar car!
OK smart guy explain this. I'm pretty sure the beancounters at Whole Foods are smart enough to do the math on whether rooftop solar is a good deal. You're making a mistake in presuming that rooftop/cartop solar has to be the primary power source to be useful or a good idea.
Why draw 100% of your power from the grid or gasoline when you don't have to? If the solar cells even partially recharge an electric powered or plug-in hybrid car it could be conceivably worth it. Say for example while it is sitting in a parking lot.
Personally I wonder why every cell phone and laptop does not have supplemental solar cells attached. Won't power them but it would extend battery life and prevent drainage when not in use.
The crazy environmentalist end up blocking renewable energy! .... WHY CAN SLASHDOT ENTRIES BE FACTUALLY CORRECT? ITs not a "two-year freeze" its a freeze that's estimated to to take two years. You guys are evil-doing propagandists.
To generate the amount of power used by america using currently feasible (economically feasible) solar panels...
Why is it always a 100% or nothing argument? Solar power has a useful place as a supplemental power source. Why is that so difficult to comprehend? It doesn't have to provide all our power to be a useful source of energy and in fact a diversity of power sources is generally a good thing. The most attractive thing about a plug in hybrid vehicle is that I can power it with coal, nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind, hydro, in addition to oil. I'm no longer 100% tied to a single source of power.
For obvious reasons nothing will grow below a solar panel.
Ummm... mushrooms?
...several states worth of surface area will have to be stripped of every last feature, every last plant, every last animal ... which ones ?
Or we could just put them on top of all the land we WE ALREADY HAVE stripped to put buildings on.
DU has been show to be a factor in Gulf War Syndrome.
So has the anthrax vaccine and chimical weapons (mustard/sarin gas). Or perhaps a combination of all three. But I wouldn't go so far as to single out just DU. Regardless, there is no definitive answer as to what caused the Gulf War Syndrome to this day.
Most people have a hard time accepting the fact that shit just happens, and need to blame something or someone
You mean someone like Cindy Sheehan? Never mind the fact her son willingly served the US military. What was she expecting of her son? To serve for the sole purpose of free education? Last I check, your primary role in the military is to protect the country first.
Please... Just because someone has an emotional breakdown doesn't mean their rational; in fact, quite the opposite. I really feel sorry for her. The level of her derangement must be painful.
Life is not for the lazy.
BLM got tons of political power from environmentalists funding them to close roads so people couldn't take their vehicles off the designated roads in protected areas. The considerate folks never took their vehicles off designated roads, and the incosiderate folks completely ignore the closed roads and make their own way anyway, typically doing hundreds of times the damage that was caused previously.
Personally I think it's the famous third world beauracratic trick of blocking with paperwork until a suitable bribe is paid. It's staring to look like that lobby money paid by other energy interests was a good idea from their viewpoint.
So obvious what's going on, it's funny.
"The supplies of coal, oil, gas and fissionable materials is severely limited,"
The last three are questionable at best, but the first assertion is laughable. Coal is limited? We have more coal than we'd ever use in centuries. The United States alone has one quarter of the Earth's coal, some 250 gigatonnes. In all our history, we've used less than a fraction of one percent of that supply. Even if we turned coal into gasoline with current fuel economy standards, we'd never run out of coal in several lifetimes here in the US. And that doesn't include all of the other fossil fuel sources we have, like shale and tar sands and good ole' petroleum. We also have a lot of uranium untouched in North America.
So by all means, advocate that we continue to develop tech like solar and wind. By all means, argue against fossil fuel use on pollution grounds. But quit using the chicken little argument about fossil fuels being close to all used up. It simply isn't true when you look at all fossil fuels, even if you believe we've hit peak oil.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Generally it's water that's the limiting factor, not heat or lack of shade. Moving water into a desert is a difficult and expensive enterprise.
Some proposals may have positive environmental impact, yes. A smart proposal would have minimal negative environmental impact -- and with so many proposals, a fair number of them are probably smart. :-)
I'd like to know what will happen when a Tornado rips through a solar or wind farm. I live in Fort Worth and there's a sky scraper in the middle of downtown that was abandoned for years because a tornado hit it. It's finally been remodeled but if a tornado can hit the center of a decently developed city it can certainly hit a solar farm.
An environmental impact study is prudent.
I'm not against wind solar, in fact I'd like to see solar farms put in 'lifeless deserts' and see if the shade could actually help the land out in some way. The Solar farm won't block out 100% of the light.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
It isn't true that "oil deposits in US federal reserves forbidden for drilling could supply the entire world demand for close to 500 years". Total US oil reserves are less than 3% of the world oil reserves, and could supply just the U.S. needs, if somehow we magically extracted all of them instantly, for about 3-4 years. So maybe if you factor in a bunch of new discoveries 10, even 20 might be plausible, but hardly 500.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Whole Foods' whole business model involves projecting a "green" image while selling premium groceries at a significant markup over regular grocery stores. Their calculations for whether to put up rooftop solar panels have a lot more to do with their green image than with whether the electricity is actually cheaper, which is why you see them doing it, but not Safeway (which doesn't have the same image concerns).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Whole Foods' whole business model involves projecting a "green" image...
That's absolutely true but they aren't the only ones doing rooftop solar by a long shot. Whole Foods image considerations just make them more likely to be early adopters since they get (potentially) an additional boost from marketing their "greeness". The economics rooftop solar seem to make sense even without marketing considerations. Nearly all the costs of a solar energy installation are fixed so it is a nice long term energy hedge.
You don't have to take my word for it. A quick google search will turn up hundreds of existing and proposed projects. Rooftop solar is still in its infancy to be sure but I'm confident we're going to see a lot more of it in years to come.
You know, I *did* put a smiley. I was kidding. Typical holier than thou Slashdotter.