Why fossil fuels are so hard to kick

[Bobohunter1776]

NC has been pushing the solar agenda for at least 5 years now. Farm land and wooded land are being cleared for "solar farm" installations.

This one is around 150 acres and was farm land in a rural area.
View attachment 404080

In this area, they have been clear-cutting tracts of typically densly wooded land as they become available.
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That's bad. NC is beautiful too. In CO most of ours are out on the plains thankfully. Definitely still an eyesore but they aren't cutting down trees at least. I really only go out east one or two times a year for bird hunting. I definitely don't want building them in the mountains to become the norm though.

 

[InOmaha]

I've said it before, the tax credits are what my company loves. As a private company, we finance the projects for other investors and get the tax credits, fees, and interest. To the tune of $200 million a year off our taxes on other business ventures.

The government is throwing so much money at this that it's stupid not to take it.

The problem with wind and solar is they are intermittent. So storage and backup is needed. Our natural gas plants are backup. Last year they made more money while running less because power prices rise with market volatility. The more renewables, the more volatility.

So we gain from both renewable and conventional due to government interference in the marketplace. It's why we have lobbyists in DC and regular people get to pay for it each month with higher prices.

 

[Shank]

That's bad. NC is beautiful too. In CO most of ours are out on the plains thankfully. Definitely still an eyesore but they aren't cutting down trees at least. I really only go out east one or two times a year for bird hunting. I definitely don't want building them in the mountains to become the norm though.

One of the riding parks we go to in TN has windmills on the "mountains" and it is rather disappointing.

I only get out west once a year and would be livid if some of my favorite places were ruined by windmills.

 

[BlueC]

... due to government interference...

I think that sums up 99.9% of the world's problems.

 

[Bobohunter1776]

I only get out west once a year and would be livid if some of my favorite places were ruined by wiwindmills.

100 percent. I live in the mountains and plan on living in them until I die. The last thing I want to be seeing when I look out my window is windmills.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

NC has been pushing the solar agenda for at least 5 years now. Farm land and wooded land are being cleared for "solar farm" installations.

This one is around 150 acres and was farm land in a rural area.
View attachment 404080

In this area, they have been clear-cutting tracts of typically densly wooded land as they become available.
View attachment 404085

if it was otherwise a pasture or a field and as long as we have enough food, I have no immediate objection to using farm land. The farmer has the option to farm what crop he likes, whether it be corn, wheat, or electricity.

But clearing forest to build solar arrays might be the stupidest thing I've heard about this week. Maybe I'm just more attached to woods than most people.

 

[L J]

 

[Bobohunter1776]

if it was otherwise a pasture or a field and as long as we have enough food, I have no immediate objection to using farm land. The farmer has the option to farm what crop he likes, whether it be corn, wheat, or electricity.

But clearing forest to build solar arrays might be the stupidest thing I've heard about this week. Maybe I'm just more attached to woods than most people.

Thank you for starting this thread, by the way. This has been one of the best, most productive, and most logical discussions I've been a part of for a very long time.

 

[BlueC]

if it was otherwise a pasture or a field and as long as we have enough food, I have no immediate objection to using farm land. The farmer has the option to farm what crop he likes, whether it be corn, wheat, or electricity.

But clearing forest to build solar arrays might be the stupidest thing I've heard about this week. Maybe I'm just more attached to woods than most people.

The major issue with them using farm land, whether in current use or not, is that these solar farms are under long term lease of typically not less than 30 years. With the infrastructure in place, that pretty much locks that land use in permanently, but so does the tract-built neighborhoods doing the same thing.

For the wooded land, that's just counterproductive and an obvious sign this isn't being done to address any real environmental concern, but it's being done all over my state.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

The major issue with them using farm land, whether in current use or not, is that these solar farms are under long term lease of typically not less than 30 years. With the infrastructure in place, that pretty much locks that land use in permanently, but so does the tract-built neighborhoods doing the same thing.

For the wooded land, that's just counterproductive and an obvious sign this isn't being done to address any real environmental concern, but it's being done all over my state.

I'm surprised they're doing so much solar there. If it makes sense anywhere, it makes sense out west where they have more days per year of sunshine. How much desert is there in California and Nevada that is completely unused for any other purpose and to dry to farm?

That actually reminds me of something...if solar makes so much sense, let the customer choose. This is a Walmart I did some work on this summer in southern California.

Google hasn't updated their photo yet, but over the summer, they removed every single one of those solar panels. Sometime in May, they experienced a fire in the wiring on the roof, which caused some damage up there that had to be repaired. They repaired the building, but rather than repair the wiring, they just pulled the array completely. The funniest thing to me is, it's apparently illegal (or very difficult) to recycle solar panels in California, so the contractor that does it has to haul them all the way to Arizona to get rid of them.

 

[Mike_H]

I have had this thought, for quite a while, that all the wind farms are going to catch up to us. The first law of thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be converted into different forms. So, You convert a bunch of wind to electricity...thereby reducing the power of the wind by some amount. So...taking this thought to the nth degree, eventually the WINDFARM is going to create climate change, No? I mean, it has too. All the solar energy and wind energy that is being absorbed by our collection devices is no longer available for evaporation, storm movement, cloud formation, etc.

I'm no meteorologist, just a lowly mechanical engineer with an MBA...so maybe the scales are so vastly different that the energy we're collecting would be like pulling a gallon of water out of the Pacific ocean...but it just seems like "they" are only focused on the control aspect and maybe not the long term effect of their so called solution.

FWIW, I'm not smart enough to know the answer. I do believe in optimizing the technology we have and letting the market drive innovation vs the government, but I also know that corporate greed is a real thing and there is a tendency to squash competing ideas.

 

[InOmaha]

France has the lowest carbon footprint in the west and is energy independent. Because they are mostly nuclear.

Surprise.

 

[Apparition]

France has the lowest carbon footprint in the west and is energy independent. Because they are mostly nuclear.

Surprise.

 

[Chris]

If you need details on anything I can try to answer questions. I've been in the power industry for 30 years. You can search for some of my posts on the complexities of the market and impacts as generation changes.

The key take away is they want YOU to scale back when they switch sources. The first world is too wasteful, and there are too many people. That's the only way the math works out. Dense cities, less stuff, public transportation.

They, however, will still own mansions, estates, cars, yachts, islands, and fly on private jets.

Rules for thee, not for me.

 

[JMT]

to be clear, I'm not inherently against cleaner energy, I'm just discussing why the forms of it being pushed today is a pipe dream. Nuclear is the only way.

I read the link and scanned the source it's referencing...without redoing the entire study it sounds like they're talking about the cost to the developer, not the actual cost, because they're taking into account the federal tax incentives to building alternative energy. So it's cheaper because the fed is paying the difference. I'm also skeptical of the obvious slant toward alternative energy in the paper, which was written by a San Francisco based policy firm.

“Nuclear is the way.”

I say that all the time.

 

[TJ Don]

“Nuclear is the way.”

I say that all the time.

Agreed. We should have been building molten salt reactors running on Thorium 50 years ago.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

I have had this thought, for quite a while, that all the wind farms are going to catch up to us. The first law of thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be converted into different forms. So, You convert a bunch of wind to electricity...thereby reducing the power of the wind by some amount. So...taking this thought to the nth degree, eventually the WINDFARM is going to create climate change, No? I mean, it has too. All the solar energy and wind energy that is being absorbed by our collection devices is no longer available for evaporation, storm movement, cloud formation, etc.

I'm no meteorologist, just a lowly mechanical engineer with an MBA...so maybe the scales are so vastly different that the energy we're collecting would be like pulling a gallon of water out of the Pacific ocean...but it just seems like "they" are only focused on the control aspect and maybe not the long term effect of their so called solution.

FWIW, I'm not smart enough to know the answer. I do believe in optimizing the technology we have and letting the market drive innovation vs the government, but I also know that corporate greed is a real thing and there is a tendency to squash competing ideas.

View attachment 404116

Its good to think about the repercussions of what we do. One of the sources I used for the original post had some data on how much of the solar energy that reaches the earth ends up absorbed by the atmosphere, and absorbed by the surface before convecting back into the atmosphere. Knowing the proportion of what we capture via turbines would probably help figure that out.

A story that follows that same line, but requires a little background. If you paid attention in the 90s the big thing was refrigerants like R-12 and R-22 being phased out due to their propensity to destroy the ozone layer. The stuff they replaced them with is now on the chopping block because their "global warming potential", which is a ratio of their greenhouse effect vs that if CO2, is usually 2,000-4,000. Meaning 1 pound of the stuff leaked out (and it leaks all the time) is as damaging as 2000-4000lbs of CO2. So the rage now is to use less refrigerant and/or lower GWP refrigerants, which includes natural refrigerants like CO2, ammonia, and hydrocarbons like propane. Ammonia is toxic and hydrocarbons are flammable which makes them difficult and expensive to safely implement in large systems, so CO2 is gaining popularity (though not without its own technical challenges, like that it has no liquid phase at atmospheric pressure).

now, finally, for the punchline. I joke with many of my colleagues that 30 years from now we'll be in a panic about global cooling because we'll have sequestered too much atmospheric CO2 in our refrigeration systems and we'll be looking for alternative refrigerants again so we can let some of the CO2 back out.

 

['05Train]

Nuclear in the US got a bad rap thanks to Three Mile Island, the press surrounding it, and The China Syndrome. It is absolutely the way to go, and we should have been investing in t for the last four decades. There's absolutely a place for wind, solar, and hydro, but you can't run a plane on any of those.

I've been saying this for decades.....The number one national security issue facing our (or any) country is energy independence. Being beholden to people who hate us in order to heat and cool our homes and drive our economy is madness.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Nuclear in the US got a bad rap thanks to Three Mile Island, the press surrounding it, and The China Syndrome. It is absolutely the way to go, and we should have been investing in t for the last four decades. There's absolutely a place for wind, solar, and hydro, but you can't run a plane on any of those.

I've been saying this for decades.....The number one national security issue facing our (or any) country is energy independence. Being beholden to people who hate us in order to heat and cool our homes and drive our economy is madness.

What sucks is 3MI was a big nothing burger when it comes to what actually happened. It was the completely inept response of the authorities and the press that made it such a big deal.

 

['05Train]

What sucks is 3MI was a big nothing burger when it comes to what actually happened. It was the completely inept response of the authorities and the press that made it such a big deal.

Oh totally. We've been screwed out of cheap, clean, plentiful energy ever since.