Solar vs Tortoises

[Sal]

batteries can be recycled.

emissions as a by-product of electricity produced at a plant are 1. easier to monitor and control than millions of individual tailpipes. 2. located far away from dense population centers where air quality is threatened.

[MMM]

There is no such thing as free energy. Period. Enviros want less dependence on fossel fuels, yet at just about every attempt to really make "green" energy, they stand up and yell Not In MY Backyard" (NIMBY) even if that backyard is a long ways away from them. Might upset a critter, or even more out there, a view. (McCain Valley wind mill projest is being challenged by some as being a "visual" impact on the valleys skyscape) Sandman uses a generator to produce power (more power to him lol) which is good and solar power as a backup. All great, but the fuel for the generator is, umm fossel and the energy needed to make the solar pannels, well came from somewhere. But back to this thread. You can not have it both ways, if you do not want power from fossel powered plants then you MUST allow for the creation of alternate source power plants somewhere, and that somewhere is where the primary source of power is available most of the time. IE wind turbines in windy places and solar power in, ummm sunny places. While the idea of having individual solar cells on people houses sounds great, how many home have roofs that can hold the pannels? Or are in places that have homeowners regulations that do not allow for solar or city/county regulations that forbid, regulate said systems. In san diego city for example there is an ordance being considered which requires you to pay something like $4,000.00 for a solar permit on your roof. The county requires special permits for solar/wind generators. (hello cities/counties seeking revinue streams) The point I am making is simple, if we as a people are serious about reducing "green house gasses" and reduce or "carbon footprint" then we must look at the most logical place to place solar farms. tha is the desert.

Mike

[Desertroad]

So many conflicts involved with the issues of population/energy/environment!

I still find it hard to personally resolve issues relating to large solar farms in the desert. One can look at engineering data and economics and tortoises and scenery and try to form an opinion, but I always end up feeling unsure.

My gut tells me "No solar farms in the desert. Put the panels where the people are."

I've usually gotten some pretty good advice from my gut. Not always, mind you. But for the most part, it's kept me out of both the pokey and the morgue. Re-engineering the grid to accomodate large-scale, urban solar power generation may take an awful lot of political will, and is sure to cost a bundle. The power companies won't switch without a fight. That last part gets my back up and I'd like to see the Edison's and the PG&E's morph into something a little more 21st century. That's just my silly opinion.

Maybe if a few more Egypts collapse and imported oil just becomes too dear, we'll finally have to straighten out our energy siuation in this country once and for all...

Desertroad

[Dan]

The deal struck between the utility companies and the government was this, on basically a handshake:

The utilities get first rights to all the grid power generation and rights to charge the consumer for power delivered.
The government gets: multiple guaranteed tax revenue streams, another entity besides itself which is responsible for hugely expensive infrastructure construction/expansion/maintenance/emergencies, which takes the blame when things go dark, someone else who pays for research and development of new technologies (think: nuclear and switching and power grid equipment and design improvements), and which will make all those investments of billions of dollars while waiting decades to recoup costs. There is a huge risk to oulaying those dollars up front, especially when new technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal threaten to take small communities and individual housing units off the grid AFTER the money is spent, removing the revenue source which ultimately pays the costs.

The best thing power utilities could do is to get involved in the development of these new "green" technologies. To a limited extent, they have. The problem is this: utilities will invest money to the extent that their knowledge tells them the new technology will actually work, and can deliver as advertised by those who claim its efficacy (deliver both power AND revenue). What they are finding, however, is that the push for these technologies is largely political hype (although not entirely). They work, but will never be able to provide power on a scale currently generated by existing fossil fuel driven sources. Power utilities still have to generate a profit for their investors. Since the long-term upside is limited, for these people who actually know precisely what they are looking at from a technical perspective, their investments will also be limited. Oddly enough, environmentalists are counted among those standing in the way of implementation of these technologies, and limiting of demand.

Recently, a number of solar panel manufacturing companies who received huge influxes of cash from the so-called "stimulus" plan, have determined that their problems were not all solved with huge influxes of cash. Some have spent it, with no commensurate increase in demand to make any of it worthwhile. At least one, Evergreen, has decided it was just what they needed to pay for the closure of one of the facilities, laying off of its 700 workers, and relocating the plant in China. Using money provided by the State of Massachusetts, by way of the stimulus plan of the Obama administration, and the American taxpayer.

It's good we have developed these technologies, but the hype goes way beyond reality in the macro view. And even these technologies have significant environmental impact, as defined by the current view of environmental politics, where virtually everything humans do is inflicting permanent negative impacts on the earth, and where only turning over all the decisions to them will redeem our sins.

[Sal]

I don't wanna die--I just wanna ride my motorcy........cle

[Dan]

So, now you know why politicians sometimes protect private industry. Because if they didn't, no one would trust the system enough to make the investments for efficient development of new technologies and very expensive common-use infrastructure. We wouldn't likely have common-use infrastructure for cell phone technology, the world wide web, or any telecommunications. We wouldn't have a power "grid", we would have an incongruous alphabet soup of privately held mini-grids that don't tie into one another for economy of scale. There would be no standardization in the formulation of gasolines or other motor fuels. So you might not be able to make a choice in the place where you buy your fuels. You'd have to buy only from the firm offering the right formulation. There would be no continuity to delivery of drinking water, sewer services, natural gas in residential areas.

For better or worse, agreements between the public and private sectors have benefitted nearly every consumer. It's when these agreements become a bit too specific and a bit too chummy that we end up with corruption and graft. Anyone for a single-source contract on the development of hydrogen fuel technologies for internal combustion engines?

[SundayForever]

Federal biologists say they are surprised by the early numbers, because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that 32 tortoises live in the entire 5.6-square-mile site. This estimate was used to support the conclusion that the development would not cause significant harm to the reptiles, a threatened species.