The biggest solar-plus-storage project in the US just came online.

[Q-Dog]

There are interties that connect different area grids to each other. I have collected fossils near the Pacific DC Interite that connects Washington/Oregon area to Southern California. This line can send power in either direction ... south to California in summer and north in winter.

There is a proposed intertie in Wyoming that would connect the east and west US grids together. This could accept power from multiple sources and send it to either side to provide more flexibility and resiliency to the entire US grid. We just need more of these.
https://wyomingintertie.com/

 

[OffGridForGood]

There are interties that connect different area grids to each other. I have collected fossils near the Pacific DC Interite that connects Washington/Oregon area to Southern California. This line can send power in either direction ... south to California in summer and north in winter.

There is a proposed intertie in Wyoming that would connect the east and west US grids together. This could accept power from multiple sources and send it to either side to provide more flexibility and resiliency to the entire US grid. We just need more of these.
https://wyomingintertie.com/

Similar strategy happening in my area:
until quite recently, the NW was not electrically connected to the NE/S -Ontario.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

So guys, where are these solar farms going to go?

Best to avoid the great plains.
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/p...ail-did-to-massive-nebraska-solar-farm.64968/

 

[ksmithaz1]

Lovely calculation..
1.7 b is still cheaper than the av nuclear reactor, and this will need no additional investments/ inputs, nor any 100.000 radioactive waste for the next 30 years where as a nuke does...

Mostly because of two reasons. The anti-nuke lobby does whatever it can to make nuclear as expensive as possible so they can point and say "see this is too expensive". We have not been good about simply improving proven designs (See reason 1). You need a template design that is reasonable, then put it in without spending billions on environmental impact studies and legal costs. Improve this design as you move forward incrementally. I might note that covering 10 acres of land with solar panels is likely to have an environmental impact we are going to ignore because it's solar darnit, but I digress.

We need ALL this stuff. Abundant and inexpensive energy makes the world go round, and brings prosperity to the poorest elements of society. Before someone gets up on a soapbox and starts preaching, you need to follow the money, and look at the real science. Plenty of corruption to go around in anything involving this much money. The only one I'm not fond of is wind, but there are places where it might be ok but if you want to put up your money for it have at it. Yes, it's asthetics, every time I drive down I-10 between here and Cali, I see all those unsightly windmills. Marvel's of engineering, but I thing it really ruins the landscape, and I have trouble believing they truly have a good ROI. Not my dirt it's sitting on so more power to ya.

I think the future bodes well for us to continue to expand the energy supply from a wide variety of sources. We need to use them all and gradually transition to the sources that make the most economic sense for wherever are and whatever you are doing.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Best to avoid the great plains.
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/p...ail-did-to-massive-nebraska-solar-farm.64968/

Meh,

Poopey Happens. There always have been, and always will be freak events. When stuff like this happens, you may have to re-think your paridigm, come up with more hail resistant designs, automated cover systems, swivel systems, etc, or just plan for replacement. The farm above was decent sized but not exactly huge. If you had 20 dotted around, it's unlikely you would have taken them all out.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Insurance.

 

[houseofancients]

Mostly because of two reasons. The anti-nuke lobby does whatever it can to make nuclear as expensive as possible so they can point and say "see this is too expensive". We have not been good about simply improving proven designs (See reason 1). You need a template design that is reasonable, then put it in without spending billions on environmental impact studies and legal costs. Improve this design as you move forward incrementally. I might note that covering 10 acres of land with solar panels is likely to have an environmental impact we are going to ignore because it's solar darnit, but I digress.

We need ALL this stuff. Abundant and inexpensive energy makes the world go round, and brings prosperity to the poorest elements of society. Before someone gets up on a soapbox and starts preaching, you need to follow the money, and look at the real science. Plenty of corruption to go around in anything involving this much money. The only one I'm not fond of is wind, but there are places where it might be ok but if you want to put up your money for it have at it. Yes, it's asthetics, every time I drive down I-10 between here and Cali, I see all those unsightly windmills. Marvel's of engineering, but I thing it really ruins the landscape, and I have trouble believing they truly have a good ROI. Not my dirt it's sitting on so more power to ya.

I think the future bodes well for us to continue to expand the energy supply from a wide variety of sources. We need to use them all and gradually transition to the sources that make the most economic sense for wherever are and whatever you are doing.

Nuclear is always more expensive that wind / solar / hydro including massive scale batteries.
Why no new ones are build is simple economics, not even talking about the waste that stays dangerous for 8000-10000 years.
The waste may have become less, yet we still cannot make it safe

 

[AntronX]

Nuclear is always more expensive that wind / solar / hydro

67% nuclear powered France begs to differ. Retail price there is 0.23€/kWh while "solar&wind" Germany is 0.41€ and 9x higher CO2 per kWh (354g vs. 39g CO2/kWh).

 

[houseofancients]

67% nuclear powered France begs to differ. Retail price there is 0.23€/kWh while "solar&wind" Germany is 0.41€ and 9x higher CO2 per kWh (354g vs. 39g CO2/kWh).

Which In Germany is 80% tax

 

[AntronX]

Which In Germany is 80% tax

To pay for what?

 

[houseofancients]

To pay for what?

Environment tax per kwh

 

[AntronX]

Environment tax per kwh

To pay for wind and solar transition. So how again is nuclear "always more expensive" ?

 

[SupraSPL]

Hey we should build solar plants on the Fukushima and Chernobyl exclusion zones that's 1300 square miles right there ($200 billion for Fukishima $235 billion for Chernobyl) 40 more years to decommission Fukushima..

No matter how safe (and insanely expensive and complex) we build the new plants, can they take a missile strike, a terror attack rocket or EMP? What's the tail risk, sterilization of the northern hemisphere? From my understanding, it could be far worse than a nuclear exchange because the radioactive material stays down here with us.

My parents have a layer of radioactive strontium in their bones thanks to drinking milk from cows contaminated by radioactive fallout in 1950s from nuclear testing 3,000 miles away. It was quite a surprise!

While we're at it let's step it up on releasing genetically modified organisms so we can spray more safe herbicide, 74 doses of vaccines for kids (go ahead count them) and gain of function research. Relax its science : )

 

[Tulex]

What an odd turn this thread has taken.

 

[OffGridForGood]

The biggest solar plus storage project in the US (so far) has come on line!

Interesting to read about other very large solar installations around the world.
They often list how many households the mega project can power. But never state how they arrive at the number.
Is it just me, or do they just say one household per 20 panels and run with that?

{My household has 22 panels, which is not enough at my latitude}

 

[DIYrich]

not even talking about the waste that stays dangerous for 8000-10000 years.

Breader reactors can use the reprocessed waste as fuel, an cut the storage time of waste to hundreds of years from thousands of years.

 

[Danke]

The only one I'm not fond of is wind, but there are places where it might be ok but if you want to put up your money for it have at it. Yes, it's asthetics, every time I drive down I-10 between here and Cali, I see all those unsightly windmills. Marvel's of engineering, but I thing it really ruins the landscape, and I have trouble believing they truly have a good ROI. Not my dirt it's sitting on so more power to ya.

I lived in Germany in the early 1990s. I’ve been there recently, and picturesque towns and landscapes are ruined by all those ugly windmills, IMHO.

 

[Danke]

Nuclear is always more expensive that wind / solar / hydro including massive scale batteries.
Why no new ones are build is simple economics, not even talking about the waste that stays dangerous for 8000-10000 years.
The waste may have become less, yet we still cannot make it safe

The technologies are changing/advancing.

One example is the use of thorium. Thorium it’s very abundant. It is fertile rather than fissile, and is used as a fuel in conjunction with a fissile material such as recycled plutonium. Molten salt reactors are well suited to thorium fuel.

 

[Danke]

Hey we should build solar plants on the Fukushima and Chernobyl exclusion zones that's 1300 square miles right there ($200 billion for Fukishima $235 billion for Chernobyl) 40 more years to decommission Fukushima..

There’s a very small exclusion zone around for Fukushima. They are farming within a few miles of the decommissioned plant.

 

[houseofancients]

Breader reactors can use the reprocessed waste as fuel, an cut the storage time of waste to hundreds of years from thousands of years.

Hundreds of years...

I'll shut up and just let you realize what we're talking about here