We've seen a few
massive solar farms pop up out west, but it looks like Southern California Edison is taking a different approach: instead of cluttering up the desert, the company plans to build a distributed solar array on the rooftops of commercial buildings throughout SoCal. The plan is to spend $875M over five years to cover about two square miles of rooftop with the panels, which will alleviate stress on the grid by generating around 250 megawatts of juice, as much as a small power plant. That's enough to light up 162,000 homes, but it's still a little short of the record
280-megawatt Solana installation planned in Arizona -- come on, Cali, let's see a little fight.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 2:39PM
Great! Even if we don't know to what degree we are warming the place up, we will run out of fossil fuels eventually.
Jon Graft @ Mar 27th 2008 2:43PM
Global warming is a lie. Years ago everyone was calling global cooling. It's just how the earth works...get over it.
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 2:52PM
"...we will run out of fossil fuels eventually."
alexmueller @ Mar 27th 2008 2:55PM
tell that to the big chuck of ice that just collapsed off Antarctica, john
FordGTGuy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:02PM
If we were to have 400 active Nuclear Power Plants we would no longer have to worry about that. But seeing as ever since the hippies got their way SAFER and more EFFICIENT Nuclear power plants aren't allowed to be made. BTW it has the safest track record of any fuel source and releases no toxins in the air. There has only been one partial meltdown in the US and the most radiation anyone was give was equal to a chest x-ray and no injuries or deaths were reported. The Russians have had the only meltdown and that is because at the time they didn't have the money or technology to make a safe power plant and ended having a meltdown.
FordGTGuy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:05PM
@alexmueller
You really think that was the first time a big chunk of ice has broken off of Antarctica? Its definitely the first one shown and exaggerated by the media. How do you think Icebergs are made?
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:09PM
sure Jon. heaps of metadata showing a steady rise in mean global temperatures is a "lie". keep drinking that fox news kool aid.
ekwmin @ Mar 27th 2008 3:17PM
How can you people claim that global warming is not happening and also say that global warming happens naturally anyways? I do fault some environmentalist for going overboard, but I'd like to think of it like aging. We all age, but the choices you make does make a difference on how you age and the quality of your life. But it's unfair that if we make bad environmental decisions it's not us that pays for it, but future generations.
hp540 @ Mar 27th 2008 3:22PM
Don't bother feeding the global warming doesn't exist trolls.
Since they so readily ignore heaps of continuous scientific evidence, I'm sure logic or reasoning will not work.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:23PM
wow everyone's hardcore pro-Nuc here. guess what, Uranium is finite too. if being a fan of renewable energy makes me a "hippy" then you can take your meaningless derogatory labels and cram 'em.
Andir3.0 @ Mar 27th 2008 3:23PM
Well, technically, we won't be running out of fossil fuels.... they will just be in the form of a gas and killing us all. :p The Earth is a fairly closed environment and eventually what we take out goes back in. Unfortunately, we are talking millions/billions of years.
Sean O @ Mar 27th 2008 3:27PM
FordGTGuy,
Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies. It's a crappy deal. Safe or not, nobody wants to provide insurance for them, making the costs as ridiculously high as they are.
Nobody wants to store the waste, and local governments fight tooth and nail to keep them away.
The list of reasons not to be a cheerleader for nuclear power goes on, and on, and on.
Then there's the foreign policy problem. We can't rightfully sit on our high horse and tell other countries they can't have nuclear power while at the same time we're building 400! It undermines our credibility. If we didn't have nuclear power plants to begin with, Iran wouldn't have a leg to stand on right now.
As if all that wasn't enough, your argument that they are safe is irrelevant. No amount of precautions can completely eliminate the threat of intentional sabotage (i.e. terrorist attack).
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:30PM
someone call NOAA and all the oceanography departments at every major university! "FordGTGuy"'s bloviation about TEH MEDIA BIAS!1!11! will put all those PhDs in their places.
ekwmin @ Mar 27th 2008 3:41PM
@ FordGTGuy
Great point, besides the fact that power plants are naturally desired targets by our enemies, I think the problem is not the really the nuclear reactors, but the spent nuclear fuels. Only a small percentage of the nuclear fuel is actually used, if we were to rely solely on nuclear power, we would have a lot more nuclear waste. The government already has a difficult time dealing with the current level of nuclear waste. But if we are to find a viable solution in dealing with spent nuclear fuel, I'm sure this option would be more attractive. Maybe one day we'll be able reprocess spent nuclear fuel and put it back into the reactors at a much faster pace, where we wouldn't have to dig out whole mountains to store the waste.
CraigJ @ Mar 27th 2008 3:43PM
Yussa Mountain is a viable storage solution except for the NIMBYs in Nevada...
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:08PM
@phanbouy
Yeah, we will eventually run out of uranium, but we have enough to last centuries, so for now it's all good. Not as good as hydrogen power, but certainly more efficient in terms of space and power output than harnessing the elements in the traditional sense. We will eventually run out of sun, to.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:10PM
centuries, huh fanman? well IIRC, we'd run out of Uranium in 40 years with current and projected US energy demands if we used exclusively nuke.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:12PM
OK, idiots that think Nuclear creates a huge stockpile of waste, listen up: Burning coal, which is how we get most of our power, creates more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant. Yes, disposing of depleted uranium is a problem... but a much smaller problem than the coal plants which churn out all kinds of nasty into the air and leave other byproducts that we still have to dispose of.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:18PM
lars, which "idiots" are you referring to? who's championing coal vs nuke? talk about false equivalents, holy mother of zeus!
NIMBYism aside, the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave.
so, nuke-fanatics.. your ultra-capitalist argument doesn't hold water, nor does your "environmental" argument, and your continuing denigration of conservation, green design, and climate change science is NOT winning you any points from the reality-based community.
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:24PM
phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:25PM
"Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies."
Actually they're not. Just because there are government subsidies doesn't mean it's a money loser. That's like saying "going to college is a huge waste of money because most students get scholarships or financial aid to help pay for it." Just because their is government help/incentives doesn't mean it's automatically a waste.
Solar is actually pretty decent, but the problem is that there's a large upfront investment which most people can't handle. Think of it this way: over the next 40 years you might pay $150,000 in electric bills, but if you invested $50,000 in solar arrays, you won't pay that $150k over the next 40 years. Technically a savings of $100,000. The problem is paying a couple hundred a month vs $50,000 up-front.
Saying that government shouldn't step in and assist seems like an asinine statement to me. Isn't that part of the whole point of being socialists? Together we can accomplish what we otherwise could not? Especially in this case where solar can not just save money over time, but has no byproducts and does not consume anything to operate. Also, the more effort we invest in a technology the better and cheaper it gets. I think we have a duty as human beings to invest in things like this. We should be working for a greater good instead of the bottom dollar. And in this case they are one in the same.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:33PM
"the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave."
And therein lies one of the problems. Nuclear is cheaper, until you add in costs of insurance and such which are caused by fear mongering. Such is the state of affairs at the moment. That's the core of what I think should change. It would be cheaper if society was different. At any rate, a vastly cleaner energy is more important to me. If nuclear plants were allowed to be in urban centers (and why not, no harmful operating byproducts) then it would be far more efficient than coal which has to be burned away from major cities and therefore delivered with losses.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:34PM
Every time a pseudo-scientist says "socialist!!!!111" an angel gets its wings. True story.
McCarthy would be proud.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:40PM
Way to twist my argument around Lars. You're still wrong. Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought. But yeah, sure. The only thing holding back nuc from being "clean and beautiful limitless energy for ever and ever" are those silly fearmongering.. um.. insurance companies. Wow... that's your latest strawmen? Well that and your usual "loony lefties" (aka anyone with a damn brain).
But way to piss all over anything and anyone that doesn't hump nuclear reactor glossy brochures, guys. Tell ya what, I'd rather be a "socialist" than you. Precaution and green design is for "hippies" huh guys? You're not winning any converts. I'm done...
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:45PM
"phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?"
Bob @ Mar 27th 2008 4:46PM
Hahahaha, fanman, you said "we will eventually run out of sun, too"... When the day comes we run out of sun, where we get power from means nothing because we will be DEAD.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 5:05PM
phanbouy, you're all over the place there. I don't know what you're even against or for at this point, except nuclear power obviously. I don't know where you live, but I live in the US. Last time I checked we were a socialist/capitalist country. Let me check again.. yep, still are.
Spent rods can be used for other purposes. Currently we use them to make tankbusters. Can't say I condone that completely, but it proves they aren't useless.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 5:09PM
"Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought."
I'm not willing to offer up my basement for manure storage either. Does that mean we should stop farming? I'm not willing to offer it up for septic waste either, should we all stop shitting? Just because you don't want something stored right next to your living quarters doesn't mean much.
Urza @ Mar 27th 2008 6:31PM
phanbouy: We have enough Uranium _right now_, sitting in warehouses, to power the entire country for thousands of years. And much, _much_ more still unmined. By comparison, we have enough fossil fuels for maybe 100.
As for the whole global warming thing: You can't deny that it's occurring. But Earth isn't the only planet in the solar system doing it...and the data doesn't in any way support that it's being caused by CO2. It's the sun and the orbit.
alexmueller @ Mar 27th 2008 6:30PM
wow i love talking about the environment on a tech site ;)
@FordGTGuy
no I don't think it was the first, it also won't be the last glacier to fall off, the point is they said it would take 30 years for it to break off, granted its just a guess, but to fall off 15 years earlier than expected, well thats a huge difference.
CraigJ @ Mar 27th 2008 11:29PM
Sorry... Yucca Mountain
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 2:44PM
No one can figure out where to put these things, but I've always wondered, why can't we just build something out in the ocean to set solar panels on? I've heard of building wind farms on the ocean, but there seems to be the possibility for major climate changes if we do that. Is the same true for solar? If so how?
raygundan @ Mar 27th 2008 2:56PM
They can't? I thought the answers to "where" for solar was pretty obvious:
1. The desert
2. Unshaded rooftops
Abuzar @ Mar 27th 2008 2:59PM
Bad weather would play hell with the equipment. You would get much of it failing and going to to repair it will be costly.
I agree, the desert seems like a much smarter idea. Plenty of sun, and no people around.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 3:31PM
The desert and rooftops are a nice idea, but there's still not enough space to power the US on that. You'd have to cover something roughly the size of Texas. I'm not necessarily against moving everyone out of Texas but...
I'm not so sure solar panels couldn't stand up to the ocean; they do just fine in space. Frankly that's my favorite idea. If they can just figure out how to harness those frickin lasers to beam all that electricity back down to Earth.
Doug @ Mar 27th 2008 3:48PM
There's plenty of sunny desert area to put solar panels. Putting them in the ocean would easily triple the cost (if not more) with no real benefit. Wind farms are sometimes located off shore for one main reason. It's windy out there.
andy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:01PM
Brent, just because the total area required would be the size of Texas doesn't mean it has to be contiguous. My panel doesn't have to be physically adjacent my neighbor's for it to work. They can have a gap for like a yard and stuff.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 4:09PM
Yeah, there's enough sunny desert so long as you're willing to cover all of it. Landowners and national parks be damned.
Wind farms are put offshore for more than just the reason that it's windy, they're also there because no one wants them in their backyard. The same would be true for solar farms. I think though there's less potential for creating catastrophic weather changes. There's an awful lot of sun between the tropics out in the ocean and no one is using or owns that space. I suppose we could cut down the rain forests and move all the tribal people out of Africa and save some money on building our solar farms...
Abuzar @ Mar 27th 2008 4:13PM
The Africans are all slowly dying of HIV and Starvation anyway, might as well put them out of their misery.
I'm such a douche.
happy_penguin @ Mar 27th 2008 4:35PM
The perfect place for any nuclear power plant is several hundred miles from me.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 4:37PM
@andy
No, of course they don't have to be contiguous. and maybe that would solve the problem of powering individual residences, but it doesn't solve the problem of powering the people really using the energy, huge industrial and commercial spaces. The math is simple and obvious. Covering the roof of a two story house with solar panels is just about enough to power said house and maybe even put a little back. Take that same footprint and extend it up 80 stories and you find you're 40x too little power. Take a large scale industrial building with a larger footprint in a single story and therefore more panels but 40x the draw per square foot than a home. That's when we start talking about needing to cover a state with panels.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 4:46PM
@happy penguin
You don't happen to live hundreds of miles away from me do you, cause I was just thinking the perfect place for a nuke plant was hundreds of miles away from me too. We might have a problem... unless we're neighbors, then it's all cool. So long as no one a few hundred miles away doesn't feel the same way.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 4:49PM
Grrr. I wish there was an edit button so that glaring dumbass attack I had at the end of my previous comment could be removed. *So long as no one a few hundred miles away feels the same way we do.
happy_penguin @ Mar 27th 2008 4:51PM
Well Brent, how about we get together and find a location several hundred miles from both of us? I mean, nobody matter but us anyway, right? :D
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:53PM
The problem is that solar generates DC. DC doesn't travel as well as AC, so we use AC even though DC is actually a lot more usable.
The best thing is just to line rooftops with solar panels which pump it straight into the house. I'd like to see solar DC houses become something, where instead of a bunch of AC outlets which we plug AC to DC converters into 90% of the time, we could have straight DC on most outlets and less AC outlets.
I mean, look at all of your electronics and count how many convert AC to DC. What do you have that doesn't? The vacuum, fridge... um, probably one or two other things. There's no reason lights have to be AC. I'm running all LED and fluorescent in my house anyways. Much more efficient.
Steve A. @ Mar 27th 2008 4:54PM
Brent you love saying this 'Cover Texas in panels' idea, so I'm going to put it to the test.
The average 'medium' quality solar panel is 13% efficient. The average solar insolation of Texas is about 5.5 kWh/m2-day. Texas is 696,200 square/km in size. Add 6 zeros to that number to give square meters.
So to get total daily solar insolation of Texas: take the area in square/m times 5.5 to get 3,481,000,000,000 kWh/m2. Multiply that by the current efficiency of mass produced solar panels equals out to 452,530,000,000 kWh generated daily. Or 450.5 giga-watt-hours daily (163.2 terrawatt hours annually).
According to the US Energy Information Administration, the USA consumes 3,386 gigawatthours annually.
So as you claim, you should be more specific. The true answer is this: If we covered the area of Texas with solar panels, we could generate all the electricity the nation consumes in one year, in 7 and a half days.
Or, since the world consumes 13,290 giga-watt-hours annually, an area the size of Texas would generate nearly 13 times the worlds daily consumption of electricity.
/quit spreading such disinformation. If you used simple grade-school math, you'd see that your assertions are completely false and baseless.
Brent @ Mar 27th 2008 5:08PM
Steve,
Great, thanks for doing the math for me. Now project energy consumption 20 years out into the future, factor in DC to AC conversion and transmission across the country would ya?
Steve A. @ Mar 27th 2008 5:25PM
Brent.
You ask, I deliver: According to the US EIA, electrical consumption in the USA in 2025 will be 5,207 giga-watt-hours annually. While I'm not familiar to large-scale DC to AC inverters, I know that my 5kw Beacon Power M5Plus interverters are 91.5% efficient.
According to the best numbers I can find, the USA has 7.2% transmission and distribution losses and the longest cost-effective distance is 4,000 miles.
So factoring in these numbers ((450x.91).93)=380:
A solar panel array the area of Texas generates 380 gig-watt-hours daily
In 2025, the USA will consume 14 giga-watt-hours daily.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 5:29PM
Making solar power plants is just not viable, end of story.
That's not to say I don't condone solar power though. I think every house should have the option of being built with solar panels covering the roof instead of shingles. You're already paying half a mil for a medium size track house, why not tack on a measly 25-50k to greatly reduce your draw from the grid? That's the only way I see it being viable anyways.
Steve A. @ Mar 27th 2008 5:41PM
Lars, If solar power plants aren't viable, then why is one of the largest electrical providers in the nation investing in building one (this article)? I think their bean-counters have figured out financial viability long ago.