PeakOil is You
A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt 3
Re: A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt
by Tanada » Sat 27 Aug 2022, 15:14:34
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', 'T')he only way to cut through NIMBY opposition is to give them a financial cut of generated power
On the one hand, when Detroit Edison got the state to declare eminent domain on the ROW for their high tension power lines back in the 1970's my family was involved because one of the properties condemned belonged to my maternal grandmother. She got a small check but was already living in a nursing home by then so mostly it meant we had to get everything off the property the family wanted to keep. I still have a china cabinet from her old house that was passed down to me and her rare white lilac bush was transplanted to my families house to try and save it, unfortunately it died the next year from the stress. Anyhow more importantly most of the land around there was agricultural and while the farmers 'lost' and were compensated for the ROW land through the fields what it meant in practice is unless a line broke or was upgraded about every 30 years they kept right on farming up to the bases of the high tension towers but no longer had to pay property taxes because technically they no longer owned the property inside the right of way boundaries. For most of the ROW they went either through third growth woodlot or agricultural land, my grandmothers house just happened to be on the edge of the woodlot they were crossing by the shortest route. The number of actual residential properties affected was kept to the absolute minimum to keep as many people happy as possible.
On the other hand while residential owners were mostly avoided and farmers actually came out ahead in one way of looking at it DTE had the state backing to clear the ROW of any human opposition in the shortest time frame possible and as a state regulated utility back when that actually meant regulated people were generally given reasonable compensation. The state was still going to have those high tension lines strung however because the decision had been made to locate two new generation stations on the coast of Lake Erie, one that produces 3,000 MWe and a second that produces 1,100 MWe and was originally planned to produce 2,200 MWe before the second reactor was cancelled in the early 1980's. The only way to get all that power distributed was to build new grid interconnection routes and the state was not going to take NIMBY for an answer. Once the lines were up we learned a few things that most don't seem aware of. One thing is, the lines hum constantly, a steady background drone with a low pitch. It is low frequency and doesn't carry a long way but if you get with about 100 meters of the ROW you can start hearing it and it is unavoidable when you are directly below the lines. The second thing is the high voltage actually ionizes the air a little bit, you can carry and old fashion fluorescent tube, one of the 4' kind, under the lines and it will light up just as bright as if you had it in a fixture with the switch on. It was cool when I was younger but I have to wonder what all that ambient EM field does to anyone or anything that stays exposed constantly.
Now when we are talking about solar fields like the ones getting NIMBY reactions C8 suggests the local population just needs a little compensation to be accepting of the changes. I am not so sure that would/will work because it is easily disputable that the solar fields are necessary for the UK to become a carbon neutral nation. Most Americans do not realize it but the entire island of Great Britain if placed on the west coast of North America would stretch from Vancouver island, BC to about 60 miles north of Juneau, Alaska. Just like Juneau and Vancouver it rains. A lot of rainy cloudy days. So many rainy days that solar efficiency is seriously impacted. And being so far north while the rare sunny summer day has 16 hours of daylight that means the December day is lucky to get 8 hours of daylight and most of those are rainy or light snow that sticks to the solar panels until enough sun warms them up above freezing.
Point being the UK is a terrible place to be investing heavily in solar photo-voltaic energy. The passive solar stuff like well designed housing with solar gain in winter is all still a great idea to cut utility costs, but pretending the UK can go 100% solar without major issues is just laughable if you look at the facts. The folks living in the UK who have installed solar on their homes and what-not as personal ventures have proven this well enough to have very convincing arguments against massive or even small scale solar fields being installed. Heck there is one of these in BG Ohio about a mile east of I-75 and at a certain time of day on a sunny day the glare that thing puts off is dazzling. I wouldn't want one built anywhere close by either and here we are several hundred km south of the southernmost tip of the UK.
The UK is currently building new large EPR fission power reactors and has recently announced an additional site for further construction. These are Generation III+ designs with enhanced passive safety measures that are also designed for 100% MOX fueling to use up the civilian plutonium stockpile to produce energy. While the UK is decommissioning their older reactors the old units are generally between one third and one half as much power as the new EPR units so the new reactors replace them on a 2.5:1 ratio. I have always been a Fission plus Renewables advocate but I want renewables built where they make sense, not just where government subsidies boost them into existence. Plopping rooftop solar all over southern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas where the sun shines a lot makes plenty of good sense economically and practically. Planting solar farms in Juneau, Alaska or Edmonton, Canada or anywhere on the island of Great Britain does not make economic sense and when the subsidies die out and the replacement cycle comes around those systems will just get scrapped because the people who own them won't have any economic benefit from replacing them.
Solar intensity map UK,
Solar intensity map USA,
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Tanada
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Re: A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt
by C8 » Sun 28 Aug 2022, 23:14:00
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', 'T')he only way to cut through NIMBY opposition is to give them a financial cut of generated power
On the one hand, when Detroit Edison got the state to declare eminent domain on the ROW for their high tension power lines back in the 1970's my family was involved because one of the properties condemned belonged to my maternal grandmother. She got a small check but was already living in a nursing home by then so mostly it meant we had to get everything off the property the family wanted to keep. I still have a china cabinet from her old house that was passed down to me and her rare white lilac bush was transplanted to my families house to try and save it, unfortunately it died the next year from the stress. Anyhow more importantly most of the land around there was agricultural and while the farmers 'lost' and were compensated for the ROW land through the fields what it meant in practice is unless a line broke or was upgraded about every 30 years they kept right on farming up to the bases of the high tension towers but no longer had to pay property taxes because technically they no longer owned the property inside the right of way boundaries. For most of the ROW they went either through third growth woodlot or agricultural land, my grandmothers house just happened to be on the edge of the woodlot they were crossing by the shortest route. The number of actual residential properties affected was kept to the absolute minimum to keep as many people happy as possible.
On the other hand while residential owners were mostly avoided and farmers actually came out ahead in one way of looking at it DTE had the state backing to clear the ROW of any human opposition in the shortest time frame possible and as a state regulated utility back when that actually meant regulated people were generally given reasonable compensation. The state was still going to have those high tension lines strung however because the decision had been made to locate two new generation stations on the coast of Lake Erie, one that produces 3,000 MWe and a second that produces 1,100 MWe and was originally planned to produce 2,200 MWe before the second reactor was cancelled in the early 1980's. The only way to get all that power distributed was to build new grid interconnection routes and the state was not going to take NIMBY for an answer. Once the lines were up we learned a few things that most don't seem aware of. One thing is, the lines hum constantly, a steady background drone with a low pitch. It is low frequency and doesn't carry a long way but if you get with about 100 meters of the ROW you can start hearing it and it is unavoidable when you are directly below the lines. The second thing is the high voltage actually ionizes the air a little bit, you can carry and old fashion fluorescent tube, one of the 4' kind, under the lines and it will light up just as bright as if you had it in a fixture with the switch on. It was cool when I was younger but I have to wonder what all that ambient EM field does to anyone or anything that stays exposed constantly.
Now when we are talking about solar fields like the ones getting NIMBY reactions C8 suggests the local population just needs a little compensation to be accepting of the changes. I am not so sure that would/will work because it is easily disputable that the solar fields are necessary for the UK to become a carbon neutral nation. Most Americans do not realize it but the entire island of Great Britain if placed on the west coast of North America would stretch from Vancouver island, BC to about 60 miles north of Juneau, Alaska. Just like Juneau and Vancouver it rains. A lot of rainy cloudy days. So many rainy days that solar efficiency is seriously impacted. And being so far north while the rare sunny summer day has 16 hours of daylight that means the December day is lucky to get 8 hours of daylight and most of those are rainy or light snow that sticks to the solar panels until enough sun warms them up above freezing.
Point being the UK is a terrible place to be investing heavily in solar photo-voltaic energy. The passive solar stuff like well designed housing with solar gain in winter is all still a great idea to cut utility costs, but pretending the UK can go 100% solar without major issues is just laughable if you look at the facts. The folks living in the UK who have installed solar on their homes and what-not as personal ventures have proven this well enough to have very convincing arguments against massive or even small scale solar fields being installed. Heck there is one of these in BG Ohio about a mile east of I-75 and at a certain time of day on a sunny day the glare that thing puts off is dazzling. I wouldn't want one built anywhere close by either and here we are several hundred km south of the southernmost tip of the UK.
The UK is currently building new large EPR fission power reactors and has recently announced an additional site for further construction. These are Generation III+ designs with enhanced passive safety measures that are also designed for 100% MOX fueling to use up the civilian plutonium stockpile to produce energy. While the UK is decommissioning their older reactors the old units are generally between one third and one half as much power as the new EPR units so the new reactors replace them on a 2.5:1 ratio. I have always been a Fission plus Renewables advocate but I want renewables built where they make sense, not just where government subsidies boost them into existence. Plopping rooftop solar all over southern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas where the sun shines a lot makes plenty of good sense economically and practically. Planting solar farms in Juneau, Alaska or Edmonton, Canada or anywhere on the island of Great Britain does not make economic sense and when the subsidies die out and the replacement cycle comes around those systems will just get scrapped because the people who own them won't have any economic benefit from replacing them.
Solar intensity map UK,
Solar intensity map USA,
YOU may not want those glaring solar panels Tanada but that is b/c you do research, apply logic and don't see the cost benefit in cloudy England. But the average Brit is a bloke who just wants cash. The glaring panels outside mean nothing b/c he will be indoors watching the telly. If the venture doesn't work out, he will still be paid and the tax payer will be on the hook.
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