179 megawatts of solar power just switched on in Nevada

[Kaleredar]

They had to level it, fence it, and put structures on it. Which made it inhabitable for animals and plants. Do you really think they'll allow for any life to be there to obstruct the sun or damage the panels?

If they put a wal-mart there, would you still think it wasn't "destroyed"?

Okay, so do you want to measure the impact on this few acres of land versus the thousands of acres of forest damaged by acid rain, destruction of coastal regions caused by rising sea levels, billions of dollars in property damage caused by the increased strength of tropical storms, and increased drought conditions caused across the planet by the continued consumption of fossil fuels for energy?

All of that... versus a patch of ground in the desert.

[Masark]

25 years to 80% of output, typically. You clearly aren't an expert either.

80% is still quite useful.

[Tierbook]

One thing to remember, the Hoover Dam footprint on the area isn't just the Dam, it's also Lake Mead which would not exist without the damn, assuming the Lake is at max capacity it has a surface area of roughly 158 thousand acres. Even if we are generous and take off half of that for already being submerged, which is unlikely it was that low before the dam, it's still an area roughly 35 times the size of this solar project for 10 times the power.

[Mihalik]

The Trumpite idiocy is strong in this thread.

[Citizen T]

How is the land destroyed? They are on pedestals.

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The maintenance cost are nil, and the useful lives of photovoltaic systems are 30-50+ years. Their efficiency goes down, but there is no maintenance.

You are right, you are no specialist, so your entire premise and opinion on renewable energy is wrong.

I don't believe the no maintenance comment for a second. I understand the weather of desert climates quite well since I live in one. Sandstorms are quite common and will seriously degrade efficiency by coating the panels with dirt, grit, and even plant life.

[Tackhisis]

The Sun energy at the Earth surface is about 635 W/m². Given there is no Sun during the night, and the energy generated depends on the Sun's height, the result @100% efficiency is just 159W/m². Given the low efficiency of the photovoltaic method, and the loss of energy in inverters and accumulators, it would result in about 32W/m². The one man consumes about 1,5kW. So it is about 100m² of panels per a household of 2.

The solar power is absolutely useless as an energy source on the Earth surface.

Solar irradiance of Nevada ranges from 5-8.5 kilowatt-hours per square metre per day

What? The solar irradiance in space is just 1,3 kW/m², across all the specter.

[rayden54]

No, you're far too low.

1 acre is 4047 square metres.

Solar irradiance of Nevada ranges from 5-8.5 kilowatt-hours per square metre per day. I'll use the middle figure of 6.75.

So that's 27,317 kilowatt-hours of sunlight per day per acre

Typical consumer solar panels are about 15% efficient (though 20%+ are available), so that's 4097/ kilowatt-hours per day of electricity generation.

Average Nevada household electricity consumption is 935 kilowatt-hours per month, which is 30.8 kilowatt-hours per day.

So an acre of solar will supply 133 Nevada households.

Not according to the article.

The span of the two stations stretches across about 1,797 acres. It boasts 1,980,840 solar panels and generates enough energy to meet the demand of 46,000 homes.

46,000 homes / 1797 acers = ~25 homes / acre.

[Masark]

So it is about 60m² of panels per a household of 2.

Translation : That household of 2 only needs to cover a bit less than half their roof with solar panels to cover their electricity needs.

1500 square feet=139 square metres.

Please educate yourself on the size of units before attempting to use them. You obviously are not familiar with the magnitude of metric units if you're attempting to claim 60 square metres is some huge area.

[Daedius]

Solar Power... meh.

Wake me up when Nuclear Fusion becomes a feasible reality.

[Masark]

Wake me up when Nuclear Fusion becomes a feasible reality.

Solar is nuclear fusion, just with your crotch much further away from the explosions.

[Mihalik]

What? The solar irradiance in space is just 1,3 kW/m², across all the specter.

I don't think the numbers he quotes refer to raw irradiance, but rather to output value, when adjusted for things like concentrating systems, the boost from turbine generators etc.

Steam turbine generators powered by solar straight up double kW output.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Wow... The companies banking on fossile fuels sure lobby hard to keep people deluded when it comes to these things. o.O

[Deleted]

If I understand correctly, 1 acre or solar only powers 25 homes? Seems like a massive waste of land and money to me. Put panels on walls and roofs but that's too much land and money to waste for too little output.

Solar Star park in CA provides power for around 255000 households (of 3) and has a surface of around 13 km² (3212 sq acres).

That means per km² you provide power for around 19615 households (with an average of 3) (79/sq acre).

There's 126 million households in the USA so you'd need to cover around 6423 km² with solar panels (1,594,937 sq acres).

The entire surface size of the USA is around 9,384,000 km² (or 2,327,232,000 sq acres).

It's a no-brainer.

(1 km² = 248 acres).

[the game]

Maybe we should just build a Dyson sphere

[Will]

This is why current green energies are pointless and in no way green. The pollution generated just to produce those panels is enormous not to mention the land they waste for little gain.

The same is true of hybrid and electric cars, CFLs, LEDs etc. They put more pollutants into the air just to manufacture. Your electric car causes more environmental harm than any gas guzzler and those LEDs only save YOU some money after a decade if you’re lucky but have a greater impact on pollution than traditional bulbs.

This is the kind of nonsense I see spouted all the time. People who fail to understand that the far more efficient operating consumption offsets the manufacturing impact after a certain period. If you think empty desert is 'wasted land' then I'll just let you carry on thinking that

LED bulbs and electric cars put out more pollutants to manufacture, but the operating emissions are so much lower that within less than a 2 years they've 'broken-even' so to speak. Only an idiot only looks at initial impact and not long-term. Same for LED bulbs. If I have to replace an incandescent bulb 10-20 times in the time 1 LED lasts before failure, AND the LED bulb delivers equivalent brightness at 1/6th to 1/8th the power consumption, how is that a bad thing?

I mean, electric cars is one topic where the majority of people don't have a bloody clue about what the batteries contain (people still think EVs use toxic chemicals in batteries - um, no, they're not lead acid, they're lithium) and a lot of EVs use A/C motors which do not require rare earths like a D/C one does in its, say for example, neodymium IPM. A/C motors use induction. On top of that, designers aim to use parts that can be recycled as much as possible. It's not like the batteries get thrown away. That would be moronic.

A general ballpark figure would be that the majority of EVs today have a manufacturing impact that's roughly 30% higher than an equivalent sized combustion-engine vehicle. That 30% is very easy to offset within the vehicles operating span -- even if the charger's power source is heavily biased toward coal, which is thankfully diminishing annually.

You also have to consider that unlike liquid fuel, electricity doesn't need to be pumped, transported, refined, transported and pumped again before it's burned. The transmission losses in the electricity-to-car process are ridiculously minimal in comparison to the environmental impact of the 'well-to-wheel' for an ICE. And I stress again that the EV still wins even if all the power comes from a coal plant. Yeah, the electricity has emissions to be generated, but another convenient thing people tend to overlook is that refining fuel, in itself, is an energy-intensive process. Even the fuel tanker that does the transporting is another source of CO2. The figures to clearly show that EVs are the way to go in terms of helping clean up the planet are crystal clear for anyone with the interest to research it (and learn to recognise the FUD articles).

Moving on, LED bulbs also don't take a decade to save money. That's retarded. You completely failed to include the cost of re-lamping a new incandescent when it fails.

At the UK average of 12p per kWh a 60w incandescent costs 0.72p per hour to run. An 8w LED of equivalent lumens costs 0.144p per hour to run. That's a difference of 0.576p per hour. I can get a 5 pack of LED bulbs (60w equiv) for about £.130 per bulb (£6.50 for the pack of 5) or I can get an incandescent 60w at 50p for 1 bulb. So in terms of initial cost the LED bulb cost me 80p more to buy, but at 0.567p extra per hour of electricity cost, after running both bulbs for 138.8 hours, the incandescent bulb has 'broken even' in terms of total investment, and from that point onwards it's actively costing me MORE money than the LED cost me. At an average of the bulb being on 4 hours a day that's 34.7 days AKA just slightly over a month and the LED is starting to save me money.

What if the LED bulb costs a lot more, lets' say £8? That's £7.50 difference to make up in running cost. That'll take just under a year to break even, assuming 4 hours lit up on average per day. Factor in the possibility that the incandescent has failed in that timespan and needed replacing -- quite likely. Yet you claim it takes a DECADE -- 10 years? For LEDs to break even on cost?

Research is hard, isn't it mate?

[cparle87]

That is not how it works.

Supply and demand, my friend. Slash the supply by 50-60%, or whatever our total amount of energy generated comes from oil is, while demand stays the same. What happens when supply drops while demand stays the same? The product becomes a commodity, and the prices go up.

[Independent voter]

The span of the two stations stretches across about 1,797 acres. It boasts 1,980,840 solar panels and generates enough energy to meet the demand of 46,000 homes.

It says in the article that it can power 46,000 homes so 46000 / 1797 = 25 homes powered per acre of solar panels? That sort of sounds right.

[Deleted]

The span of the two stations stretches across about 1,797 acres. It boasts 1,980,840 solar panels and generates enough energy to meet the demand of 46,000 homes.

It says in the article that it can power 46,000 homes so 46000 / 1797 = 25 homes powered per acre of solar panels? That sort of sounds right.

That sounds extremely low, all the american averages per solar plant are between 60-120 households of 3 per sq acre.

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This is the kind of nonsense I see spouted all the time. People who fail to understand that the far more efficient operating consumption offsets the manufacturing impact after a certain period. If you think empty desert is 'wasted land' then I'll just let you carry on thinking that

LED bulbs and electric cars put out more pollutants to manufacture, but the operating emissions are so much lower that within less than a 2 years they've 'broken-even' so to speak. Only an idiot only looks at initial impact and not long-term. Same for LED bulbs. If I have to replace an incandescent bulb 10-20 times in the time 1 LED lasts before failure, AND the LED bulb delivers equivalent brightness at 1/6th to 1/8th the power consumption, how is that a bad thing?

LED bulbs also don't take a decade to save money. That's retarded. You completely failed to include the cost of re-lamping a new incandescent when it fails. In the UK we pay on average 12p per kwh. That's 0.72p per hour an incandescent bulb runs. Or, 0.096p per hour an LED runs. You can buy a 10 pack of 60w incandescents (but they're harder to find in the EU due to being phased out) where it works out at 50p per bulb. Or you can buy a 5 pack of LEDs of equivalent lumens which works out at £1.27 per bulb. The LEDs are rated on average approx 20x the lifespan of the incandescents at 15,000 hours as opposed to 750 hours.

So for the LEDs 15,000 hours at 0.096p per hour is £14.40, plus cost of bulb, an additional £1.27, yields a grand total of £15.67.
For incandescent, 15,000 hours at 0.72p per hour is £108, plus the cost of twenty bulbs, an additional £10, yields a grand total of £118.

You claimed they only save you money after a decade. If a light is ran 6 hours a day then these savings are achieved in 6.84 years. By your stupid maths there's still more than 3 years to go before the 'sucker who bought an LED bulb' starts saving any money.

LED light bulbs are so good, my entire house runs on them, they never break and they are brighter than regular bulbs.

[Corroc]

Solar Star park in CA provides power for around 255000 households (of 3) and has a surface of around 13 km².

That means per km² you provide power for around 19615 households (with an average of 3).

There's 126 million households in the USA so you'd need to cover around 6423 km² with solar panels.

The entire surface size of the USA is around 9,38 million km².

It's a no-brainer.

(1 km² = 248 acres).

I find this whole thing so goddam funny. I live in Finland, right now the length of the day is 5h 40min. Solar power is absolutely useless in here because of seasonsa nd the climate overall. Second thing is there isn't that much space where to build since there is forests everywhere.

Then you have America which has tons of space where to build solar farms and good environment for the sun and they keep making up excuses why its not a good option for them.

[Cerus]

If we tend to place solar panels on roofs/buildings along with unusable land, the issue of land waste is essentially gone. Which is what has been done here - this land was not really used, and there are huge swathes of unused and unusable land across the world, ideal for renewable energy sources.

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This is a common myth. It is 100% true that most green energies cause more environmental damage during manufacturing. That's mainly due to the relative age of the technologies, and the lax environmental regulations placed on such companies. The long term use, however, brings the footprint of things like bulbs, cars, etc, well below their traditional counterparts. The impact of manufacturing is also declining, and will eventually become better and better.

A large part of the impact of green technology also comes from the electricity being used. If you charge your car on a grid powered by fossil fuels, it is far worse than if you charge your car on a solar/wind grid. Even on fossil fuel grids, electric cars far surpass gas cars. As society shifts towards green energies along with green technologies, the impact of things like electric cars will be further reduced - while gas cars will remain as bad as they currently are.

To nutshell it, the manufacturing of green technologies will continue to improve and become greener, coupled with the shift to green energy, will be far better for the environment than our current system. We're in a transitional period, but to suggest that we should continue to pollute due to growing pains is just ridiculous.

So we should cause more pollution just because it might cause less in the future? That isn’t logical nor is it how green energies are marketed. Instead of focusing on snake oil green energies we need utilize far better sources like nuclear or invest in new tech.

Edit: Few areas of the world are even feasible for these large solar farms and what happens in a decade or two when our population is so high that we need that land?