Interesting articles on EV, utilities, renewables and their impacts

[kwilcox]

Mea culpa; it was not my intention to come off as parochial. It just seems to me that the same old strategies are being rehashed here. Call me a greenie if you want but I firmly believe that these same strategies are having a near-term caststrophic impact on our planet's climate. I also believe that PWR nukes are a waste of time, effort & money because they scare people to death. That won't ever change because they melt down with spectacular impact on a regular basis.

Please excuse those who are therefore trying to think outside the box to solve this. the explosion of grid tie PV and other RE generation sources and the impact it is having on the traditional power delivery model is what I believe to be an example of this effort in action. Thanks goes to Fukishima for driving most of it too. The next PWR meltdown event will further accelerate the effort. I firmly believe that this is also a fact.

Finally, Science Fiction has a reliable track record of becoming Science Fact in increasingly shorter timeframes. My hat is off to those who play an active role here and I hope to see them in action as Germany faces its power delivery dilemma. I myself will be working on a practical way to locally store the excess energy that my array produces during peak sunlight hours then meter it back during my home's high demand times when the array is not producing. Net metering policies are going to go away when our government swings back to the traditionalists you see.

[Ian S]

On the subject of solar farms, they just found out that the new one at Ivanpah is smoking birds out of the sky at a pretty impressive rate. No technology is perfect...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...n-kay-melchior

The article may exaggerate the problem. See here for more. In any event, the number of bird deaths pales in comparison to the billions killed by the nation's cat population.

[Rdjntx]

Considering that article is written by the very company that owns and operates the facility in quesiton, it's conclusions and SOME of its statistics are certainly questionable. I would rather see an analysis by some independant third party with no dog in the hunt.

The article may exaggerate the problem. See here for more. In any event, the number of bird deaths pales in comparison to the billions killed by the nation's cat population.

[russ]

In any event, the number of bird deaths pales in comparison to the billions killed by the nation's cat population.

Isn't that the truth! When we completed this house 3 cats adopted us as soon as we moved in. I kept trying to run them away with no real success. Next problem came in the form of mice - the little beggars were good sized too.

I started to put out poison for the mice but soon decided not to as I generally don't like random killing as a pest solution.

The cats happily took care of the mouse problem and were very happy not to get run off all the time. A trip to the vet took care of potential kitty problems.

Now we have no mice but fewer birds, snakes, butterflys etc unfortunately. I used to see ground owls - very cute but not very cat resistant.

[kwilcox]

On another point, what about someone else's children who are also not constrained (or protected) by the wisdom of (all) elders (yourself included), and are exposed to the tangible detriment of living in an environment that must for example, deal with exposure to the perhaps not so beneficial effects of the environmentally unfriendly byproducts and waste from alternate energy products, the output of which your children enjoy ? Who speaks for them ? Do you ?

I believe that parents have the right to speak for their own children. I also believe my children are exposed to far less environmentally unfriendly byproducts from the construction and lifetime output of our array than they are from the construction and lifetime output of the equivalent KW from traditional generation sources. Along those lines, who speaks for the children of Dehli or Beijing?

[inetdog]

Along those lines, wo speaks for the children of Dehli or Beijing?

I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.

---Theodor Seuss Geisel

[kwilcox]

lol...

[russ]

I believe that parents have the right to speak for their own children. I also believe my children are exposed to far less environmentally unfriendly byproducts from the construction and lifetime output of our array than they are from the construction and lifetime output of the equivalent KW from traditional generation sources. Along those lines, who speaks for the children of Dehli or Beijing?

Belief - A form of insanity?

Who speaks for the kids in New Delhi? Modi the Indian PM and for China the Chinese PM.

Concerning the unfriendly by products you worry about - your individual contribution is meaningless.

[kwilcox]

So is anyones' yet individual contributions collectively change civilization. How do you reconcile that?

I'd also like to suggest that the indian and chinese PMs are speaking against, not for those children. it is their parents' responsibility to change that.

[inetdog]

... your individual contribution is meaningless.

But when one and one and fifty make a million....

---Folk Song

[SunEagle]

Mea culpa; it was not my intention to come off as parochial. It just seems to me that the same old strategies are being rehashed here. Call me a greenie if you want but I firmly believe that these same strategies are having a near-term caststrophic impact on our planet's climate. I also believe that PWR nukes are a waste of time, effort & money because they scare people to death. That won't ever change because they melt down with spectacular impact on a regular basis.

Please excuse those who are therefore trying to think outside the box to solve this. the explosion of grid tie PV and other RE generation sources and the impact it is having on the traditional power delivery model is what I believe to be an example of this effort in action. Thanks goes to Fukishima for driving most of it too. The next PWR meltdown event will further accelerate the effort. I firmly believe that this is also a fact.

Finally, Science Fiction has a reliable track record of becoming Science Fact in increasingly shorter timeframes. My hat is off to those who play an active role here and I hope to see them in action as Germany faces its power delivery dilemma. I myself will be working on a practical way to locally store the excess energy that my array produces during peak sunlight hours then meter it back during my home's high demand times when the array is not producing. Net metering policies are going to go away when our government swings back to the traditionalists you see.

I agree that some of the things that were written about in Science Fiction have come to past but most of the future technologies that were depicted aren't even close to being an every day event.

Just go back to the 1962-63 worlds fair. They had cars that flew and bases on the moon by the year 2000. There were also these giant space stations where people could vacation. There was also an exhibit that did relate to using solar panels in space for power. Unfortunately except for our little "space station" all that was talked about then as being "soon to come" is still science fiction. Seems other priorities are always in the way of finding a better way to produce energy.

[Ian S]

Considering that article is written by the very company that owns and operates the facility in quesiton, it's conclusions and SOME of its statistics are certainly questionable. I would rather see an analysis by some independant third party with no dog in the hunt.

Certainly an independent study is warranted. However, based on the desert location, I can't imagine the size of the bird population being terribly large - certainly not like more moderate climate areas. I would also say that this type of generator is not the only approach to thermal solar: the Solana plant near Gila Bend utilizes a trough concentration approach that shouldn't bother birds flying by.

[kwilcox]

Just go back to the 1962-63 worlds fair....

Those were heady times for us humans. We put a man on the moon just a few years later. Litle did we realize that the effort was puerly militaristic. Our government had just had the crap scared out of it by an ICBM named Sputnik....

If the moon had proved to be strategic to the military, we'd have built bases there. If orbiting solar collectors had strategic military value, we'd have those too.

[inetdog]

Those were heady times for us humans. We put a man on the moon just a few years later. Litle did we realize that the effort was puerly militaristic. Our government had just had the crap scared out of it by an ICBM named Sputnik....

If the moon had proved to be strategic to the military, we'd have built bases there. If orbiting solar collectors had strategic military value, we'd have those too.

After Sputnik went up, the US went into frantic catch-up mode with satellite programs from different arms of the military and civilian agencies.
These were described in the press as "crash projects". Perhaps an inauspicious term.
Anyway, at one press conference Dr. Werner vonBraun, the head of our space program, was asked just what a "crash project" was.
His reply: "Vell, you can tink of it as getting 9 vimmen pregnant to try to produce a baby in vun month."

[J.P.M.]

The article may exaggerate the problem. See here for more. In any event, the number of bird deaths pales in comparison to the billions killed by the nation's cat population.

I spent some time last Spring driving around the Ivanpah site before getting the bum's rush from security. FWIW, I didn't see one fried bird. It may not be a cost effective tech., but based on my admittedly brief encounter, it also doesn't look like much of a bird killer. FWIW, I didn't see too much other wildlife in there either. The mirror fields are fenced off tending to keep rabbits & larger animals out. Also, I wonder if the mirrors interfere with a bird's view of the terrain, making the area a meager hunting ground, so maybe birds tend to avoid the area as not a good place to find chow.