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World's Largest Solar Plants Planned In California
Pickens writes "Two photovoltaic solar power plants will be built in San Luis Obispo County in California, covering 12.5 square miles, that together will generate about 800 megawatts of power, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale. 'If you're going to make a difference, you've got to do it big,' said Randy Goldstein, the chief executive of OptiSolar. OptiSolar will employ enough of its amorphous silicon thin-film solar panels at its Topaz Solar Farm project to generate 550 MW. Meanwhile, SunPower will install mechanical tracking for its more expensive 250 MW-worth of crystalline silicon photovoltaics at High Plains Ranch II in a bid to boost their efficiency by 30 percent from following the sun across the sky. The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants. 'These landmark agreements signal the arrival of utility-scale PV solar power that may be cost-competitive with solar thermal and wind energy,' said Jack Keenan, chief operating officer and senior vice president for PG&E."
Reader thefickler notes some related news that researchers have developed a method of collecting infrared rays at night to supplement day-time solar power.
A nuclear plant could produce twice that on about ten acres.
12.5 square miles of silicon, and it still generates less than a single average sized block of a nuclear power plant (~1000 MW).
In case anyone wants some perspective on that 550 MW figure, the US uses about 430 GW of electricity on average.
That's gonna suck in the first hailstorm they have.
I'm surprised that photovoltaic is more cost effective than solar thermal. Using fresnel lenses that focus on heat exchangers that double as turbines, it can be cheaper than coal. See here:
http://www.celsias.com/article/utahs-solar-fired-furnace-power-california-less-co/
How about removing the tax credits for ALL forms of energy so we can have an undistorted idea of what the energy costs from each method, hmmmm?
Oh wait, the oil industry won't like this, will they?
When we use taxes to distort the markets for policy, the special moneyed interests ALWAYS get it so it benefits them and makes the intended result moot. Which means screwing over the folks who it was supposed to help in the first place.
We are never going to get one fifth of our energy from renewable in two years in this state. It ain't going to happen. Californians are under this delusion that passing a law can change reality. We're rather stupid that way.
We simply don't have the technology to produce 20% of our current electricity from renewable source within two years. This law will either be ignored or the state will end up suing itself for non-compliance. We might be able to do it if we dammed up some major rivers but we couldn't build the dams and get them filled in time.
We'll eventually get cheap and efficient solar cells we can roof our houses and pave our streets with. But bulldozing twelve and a half square miles to erect mirrors is going to cause a lot of permanent damage to the environment for almost negligible gain. It's stupid in a way only California can be stupid.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I still like nuclear.
The plant that's 4 miles from my house sits on less than 1 square mile and produces over 2300 MW, day or night.
The 12.5 square miles of flat desert land may be no problem out west, but finding several hundred acres of flat land here in the Appalachians just isn't happening. Besides, we'd have to cut down all the trees.
I'd think moving the entire plant at 88 mph would be the bigger engineering challenge.
Wrong. You do not need nuclear power to make nuclear weapons. Nor do you need nuclear weapons to have nuclear power.
Nuclear power means nuclear weapons. The two are inseperable. The only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to destroy nuclear technology and ensure that nobody ever rediscovers it.
Wow. The parent poster may be actually insane. Not just nutty in an eccentric, slashdot, sense, but someone with a full-on schizophrenic break with reality.
Fire has killed a lot of people, too.
Fire means fire weapons. The two are inseperable. The only way to eliminate fire weapons is to destroy fire technology and ensure that nobody ever rediscovers it.
I see your point. But we can mitigate the problem:
According to wikipedia, we can build turbines that reach 90% efficiency. That leaves us with 100MW of power to dissipate (not a 1GW "hair-dryer").
First of all, the output of that turbine is going to be barely warmer than the surrounding air. (Think about it: if it weren't, you could use it as the input to another turbine stage.)
Sure, there will be a lot of this output, but it won't be particularly hot. Also, I imagine you'd use a condensing turbine, so you get most of your original cooling fluid back. What's left is a large volume of warm, dry air. Lots of industrial processes produce that kind of output today, and we don't see birds dropping out of the sky.
Whatever technology they use it'll be out of date before they finish installing 12.5 square miles of the stuff, and replacing it will mean starting from zero.
Compare this with thermal plants (mirrors focused on something to heat it up). The mirrors and focusing system remains the same, you just change the central element.
Thermal plants are far more sensible at the moment. This plan is yet another example of environmentalism gone mad.
No sig today...
An ancestor of mine was killed in the works of a water powered grist mill in 1747. Another was killed in a buggy accident in 1911. I can drive in half an hour to the site of a coal mine disaster that killed over 200. If we build wind mills by the tens of thousands it's going to cost lives.
So, what would it cost to replace California's carbon point sources with 'renewable' (I know it costs energy to make these things) energy? I'll share my math, others can expand:
It says here that California in 2007 used 230,931 of 'non-renewable' energy. It says here that California's peak demand was 52,863 MW when total usage was 265,000 GWH (2002). Adjusting to the current levels, a 14% increase, we get a current peak of 60,264 MW.
So, if these solar plants can produce a combined 800MW, you'd need 75 of these projects to handle peak energy generation. If we factor in 10% for transmission losses, and another 14% increase over the next six years (while they get built) then you're looking at 94 of these projects, which is really two projects, so 188 plants, or by 2020, 214 plants, using 1,338 square miles of desert. That's only 5% of the Mojave Desert, ignoring mountains, ignoring environmentalist lawsuits preventing destruction of desert habitat, not thinking about what happens when Joshua trees want to grow up under solar panels (Monsanto Roundup?).
So, that's 18 plants a year to build. It's probably possible, though what that would cost in rare earth elements, and what would the construction of such project do to the market prices of those rare elements? I don't know, except to think it would be bad.
OK, so how about replacing natural gas, outside of electricity generation? Using the information from here it says that half of the natural gas is consumed for electricity generation, so we can double that part of the number for the total energy budget of electricity and natural gas. That increases the GWH total to 298,962 GWH, or a 29% increase. So, we're up to 276 solar projects.
So, how about converting all the motor vehicles to plug-ins? It says here that CA uses about 24 Billion gallons of transportation fuels a year. This calculator puts that at 3,032,000,000 GW, or if divided by the number of hours in the year, gives 345,881 GWH (TODO: check units?). So, add to our current total and multiply by 2.16 and get 596 solar projects, at 3725 square miles, or about 15% of the Mojave Desert, and 50 of these solar projects a year to get CA largely carbon-neutral by 2020.
Now, this is a bit of a simplification. This is meeting peak demand with current generation. There might be some opportunity for storage, though demand somewhat parallels light availability. What is the quoted efficiency, average (during what time period) or max? This doesn't count wind power as I don't know the rules of thumb for standby generation (I heard recently 90% standby needed to be in production for wind to account for variability and startup time). I'm assuming no new hydro will be built (probably safe). I'm assuming solar won't get more efficient (it will). I'm assuming the installed solar won't lose efficiency over time (it will). I don't know what the proper rule of thumb is for calculating demand based on time-of-day usage. etc. So, it's much complicated, but I wanted to understand what scope people were talking about when they advocate an all-solar solution.
I'm also counting nuclear as 'non-renewable' in this calculation as folks who want all-solar usually are anti-nuclear. If you factor in the existing nuclear generation it gets a bit better. If you wanted to power CA on all-nuclear instead you'd need about 300 reactors covering 22 square miles of land, if they're like the 1.6GW one they proposed in Fresno. Or you could use newer, safer technologies instead and clean up our existing nuclear waste by feeding stuff currently bound for Yucca Mountain into these reactors and
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Canada uses CANDU nuclear reactors, which do not promote nuclear weapons since they use regular unenriched uranium. Canada also has no nuclear weapons. The idea that nuclear power is tied to nuclear weapons is absurd.
In defense of the 'nutter', nuclear power is so expensive it's not really worth investing in, unless you are planning to build some nukes.
One, By the same arguement, Solar and wind power aren't worth investing in, because they're more expensive per kwh than nuclear.
Two, nuclear weapons aren't made from reactor waste much anymore - we have more efficient methods.
The waste from the nuclear plants in Canada, France, UK, and USA aren't used for creating nuclear weapon materials.
I don't read AC A human right
In defense of the 'nutter', nuclear power is so expensive it's not really worth investing in, unless you are planning to build some nukes.
Nuclear power is the cheapest power source, cheaper than all but the cheapest coal plants, cheaper than hydro and wind, much cheaper than solar.
Swedish power company's power generation costs
IEA survey on electricity generation costs (PDF, page 46 fig 3.10, page 57, fig 4.6 and 4.7)
Nuclear is also the safest in terms of fatalities per MWh generated (yes, even including Chernobyl).
Stats on all significant power generation accidents 1969-1996 (PDF, page 240, fig 7.2.6)
There are lots of other neat stats in the two PDFs, including injury rates (nuclear is about the same as hydro, only coal is safer), wind generation is much cheaper in the U.S. (maybe because the U.S. is only building it when it makes economic sense instead of where ever environmentalists want it?), solar costs almost 10x as much as other power sources
Nature doesn't keep secrets. You can't uninvent anything, ever. You just have to learn to mitigate and live with it.
The basic principles behind a nuclear weapon and nuclear power are the same, but having a nuclear reactor won't get you much closer to a nuclear weapon all by itself. The bombs themselves are dead-easy. Really all you need to do is quickly bring two sub-critical lumps of weapons-grade fissile material together and BOOM.
Getting the fissile material and enriching (essentially, concentrating it down) it is the tricky part that takes government-level resources to accomplish. Fuel for a nuclear power plant and its wastes are useless for making a bomb without the critical enrichment step.
That being said, there are some very real concerns over existing nuclear power plants. No private company will insure them, the high risk and long payback period on the initial investment scares away most investors, and they can't be shut down and spun back up as needed for fluctuating power demands, so they're not suitable for everywhere. Blindly declaring "build more nukes!" isn't going to be very helpful. We need to give careful consideration to if, how and where we build more; and focus on promising new designs that mitigate many of the drawbacks (pebble bed, breeders, thorium, etc.)
Hmm... why is it that
* a country who itself
- owns tons of nuclear bombs, biological and chemical weapons (all WMDs),
- the biggest military in the world
- and dangerously crazy people in the government,
- and that wants to oppress the whole world(*)
* wants to stop another much smaller country
- with dangerously crazy people in the government
* to build
- nuclear bombs
- and power plants
* to protect itself from that big country's embargos?
Hmmmmmmmmm???
Ewwwwwwww!!!
Exactly.
(*) Oil did not get more expensive. The price for oil *normalized*, after the USA could not force the OPEC to sell out under market price anymore, because the Chinese told the OPEC that if the USA does stop buying, they'll buy it instead.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Canada uses CANDU nuclear reactors, which do not promote nuclear weapons since they use regular unenriched uranium. Canada also has no nuclear weapons. The idea that nuclear power is tied to nuclear weapons is absurd.
This is a little disingenuous. The NRU at Chalk River used to run on high-enriched uranium, and now runs on low-enriched uranium. Source.
Furthermore, the NRU, like the NRX before it, is heavy-water moderated, which is efficient at producing plutonium. Source.
Production of the world's medical isotopes using the NRU is one of the Canadian excuses for being able to produce bombs in a several-month time frame. It's true that Canada has never actually produced a nuclear weapon, but it's also true that some of the programs at Chalk River are "dual use".
According to your link, the new Advanced CANDU Reactor does used enriched fuel.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
How will you dump the waste heat in the desert? ANY thermal plant works by, in effect, charging a toll on heat flowing from a source (focal point of a mirror, a fire, a nuclear reaction, etc) to a sink (cooling tower, large body of water, dry air cooling structure, etc.). If a nuclear plant has so much trouble dumping the heat in an arid region, why won't a solar thermal plant have the same trouble? (Or even more if the source temperature is less that the 500C or so for a reactor.)
Perhaps the only country you can think of. But, countries with commercial nuclear power but no nuclear weapons program are:
Japan (your caveat noted)
South Korea (including domestic designs)
Canada (including domestic designs)
Spain
Belgium
Germany
Taiwan (similar to your caveat on Japan, though)
Ukraine (built in Soviet days, though)
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Bulgaria
Finland
Slovakia
Brazil
South Africa (they had nuclear weapons at one time, though)
Hungary
Romania
Mexico
Lithuania (again, built in Soviet days)
Argentina
Slovenia
Netherlands
and Armenia
Sadly, that *is* how a lot of people think. Not only that, but they did a survey years back and found that a huge chunk of people thought Three Mile Island was a near-Chernobyl level disaster with deaths and lots of released radiation, rather than an fine example that even those old safety systems actually worked.
The bulk of the human race is living in a fantasy world where about 5/6 of what they believe is utter bullshit. And it seems pretty constant across the globe. Different areas just have local varieties of bullshit.
Those figures don't include waste storage or decommissioning, which can run up quite a high bill. And of course the generating price depends in uranium ore cost, which could rise quite a lot if everyone turns to nuclear.
Also important to remember: in most nuclear power generating countries new plants where never outlawed. If any company wanted to build one they could. The fact that they haven't says something about the cost/benefit analysis (yes there's also the NIMBY problem but still).
Ok, if you say so. However, just a few catches.
How large lumps?
What shapes should they be?
How pure do they need to be?
How quickly do you need to bring them together?
How long will they have to stay together?
How powerful will the explosion be?
How powerful explosives do you need to bring them together quick enough?
Will you need a neutron source to ensure the chain reaction begins at the right moment?
If so, how will you build it? Will you use Polonium-Beryllium or D-T fusion?
How do you ensure the neutron source triggers at the right time?
When should the chain reaction start to ensure a powerful yield?
How many neutrons does your neutron source produce?
Does it produce the same number of neutrons every time?
Is the fissile material you use pure enough for a gun triggered design (hint, plutonium will not be)?
If not, how do you build an implosion type weapon?
What explosives can you use for the explosive lenses?
What shape should the lenses have?
What is the detonational velocity of the explosives you use?
Otherwise I agree with you. Once you have worked out those tiny details there, and a couple of others like them, you just need to bring two pieces together. Of course, this all assumes you have the fissile material to begin with. Weapons grade Uranium is not exactly easy to manufacture, and getting Plutonium-239 pure enough from Pu-240 that you can use a simple "bring the pieces together" design is extremely challenging.
The first link I gave included estimated nuclear waste disposal costs. Of course they have it easy since they can just ship most of it to France where it's reprocessed into more fuel. Here in the U.S. we're trying to bury "waste" that still contains 90% of its original energy consequently making it unnecessarily "hot" for an unnecessarily long period of time at unnecessary expense. If we reprocess, we should have enough uranium for thousands of years. Plenty of time to develop cost-effective renewables, if not fusion.
The U.S. is almost alone in not expanding nuclear power (Germany banned it, and consequently buys a lot lot of electricity from France which is 80% nuclear). The U.S. hasn't been building nuclear plants because they take longer to get approved and construct (due to excessive regulatory requirements and lawsuits). So coal plants end up being less risky and requiring less capital investment, so that's what the power companies here build.
Also important to remember: in most nuclear power generating countries new plants where never outlawed. If any company wanted to build one they could. The fact that they haven't says something about the cost/benefit analysis.
Wikipedia begs to differ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants#New_plants_under_construction
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Nice troll. It's always in the run-up to an election that the right-wing shills come out in-force.
How many 3rd world countries do you know that have a larger economy than all but 8 (out of 190) countries (ironically, including the USA) around the world?
There isn't ONE state, country, city, municipality, etc., that hasn't, at one time or another, done something a bit unfair and/or short-sighted. Just try and name one.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Naaa, Sweden's policy is even worse than the US one. Not only are we on a once through cycle, we also have a law prohibiting construction of newer more modern plants, meaning the lifetime of the old ones had to be extended.
The disposal has been handled a bit better here however. The authorities were smart enough to choose a repository site right next to one of the existing nuclear sites. The people who live there are largely positive to the plant and plans for a repository, possibly because they benefit from it in terms of energy and jobs, but also because they are used to the idea of having nuclear infrastructure nearby. Compare this to the US approach where the dump was located in a state that benefits very little from the industry that generates the waste. Public relations disaster... Also, in Sweden we have an interim storage facility that is already operating, so we're not in a rush to deploy a final repository in order to be able to accept waste from the utilities. As a consequence our regoluatory institutes have had plenty of time to asses and research the possible sites and technologies that could be used.