The biggest lie foisted on the American people is this notion solar or wind power is "green" and that we can be free of gas and nuclear run electric generating plants.
The fact is that not only are these efforts NOT "green" by any stretch based on the massive amounts of geography that has to be forever marred and ruined for their footprints, but also the major impact such projects have on wildlife and water resources for cooling; not to mention the unsightly blemish to a once beautiful landscape.
The forest of windmills in the desert near Palm Springs is a testimony to this "mythical green" blight.
The massive Ivanpah Solar Project on the Nevada border en-route to Las Vegas is another massive eyesore.
Here are a few myth busting facts:
• Solar power. While sunlight is renewable — for at least another four billion years — photovoltaic panels are not. Nor is desert groundwater, used in steam turbines at some solar-thermal installations. Even after being redesigned to use air-cooled condensers that will reduce its water consumption by 90 percent, California’s Blythe Solar Power Project, which will be the world’s largest when it opens in 2013, will require an estimated 600 acre-feet of groundwater annually for washing mirrors, replenishing feedwater, and cooling auxiliary equipment.
• Wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the 5,700 turbines installed in the United States in 2009 required approximately 36,000 miles of steel rebar and 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete (enough to pave a four-foot-wide, 7,630-mile-long sidewalk). The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium – rare earth metalsthat are rare because they’re found in scattered deposits, rather than in concentrated ores, and are difficult to extract.
http://environmentaleducationuk.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/best-of-2011-the-myth-of-renewable-energy/
But here is the reality:
The project cost $2.2 billion
Site area 4,000 acres
Ivanpah 1 has a total capacity of 126 MW and Ivanpah 2 and 3 are both 133 MW each.
Ironically; During the trial of the solar thermal power plant in September 2013, 15 of the 34 dead birds found at the plant had heavily burned feathers. The feathers were burned and charred in flight by the intense radiation from the heliostat mirrors of solar thermal plant which resulted in the falling of the dead birds from the sky. Expect many more stories like this. It is like flying through a massive high intensity frying pan in the sky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
FOUR THOUSAND acres of land has been blighted to provide a mere 392 megawats of power.
Contrast that with the San Onofre nuclear generating plant provides 2,200 MW of power in a footprint of 257 acres.
The bottom line:
Renewable technologies are often less damaging to the climate and create fewer toxic wastes than conventional energy sources. But meeting the world’s total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today’s largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. That’s a heckuva lot of neodymium.
Unfortunately, “renewable energy” is a meaningless term with no established standards. Like an emperor parading around without clothes, it gets a free pass, because nobody dares to confront an inconvenient truth: None of our current energy technologies are truly renewable, at least not in the way they are currently being deployed. We haven’t discoveredany form of energy that is completely clean and recyclable, and the notion that such an energy source can ever be found is a mirage.
The fact is that not only are these efforts NOT "green" by any stretch based on the massive amounts of geography that has to be forever marred and ruined for their footprints, but also the major impact such projects have on wildlife and water resources for cooling; not to mention the unsightly blemish to a once beautiful landscape.
The forest of windmills in the desert near Palm Springs is a testimony to this "mythical green" blight.
The massive Ivanpah Solar Project on the Nevada border en-route to Las Vegas is another massive eyesore.
Here are a few myth busting facts:
• Solar power. While sunlight is renewable — for at least another four billion years — photovoltaic panels are not. Nor is desert groundwater, used in steam turbines at some solar-thermal installations. Even after being redesigned to use air-cooled condensers that will reduce its water consumption by 90 percent, California’s Blythe Solar Power Project, which will be the world’s largest when it opens in 2013, will require an estimated 600 acre-feet of groundwater annually for washing mirrors, replenishing feedwater, and cooling auxiliary equipment.
• Wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the 5,700 turbines installed in the United States in 2009 required approximately 36,000 miles of steel rebar and 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete (enough to pave a four-foot-wide, 7,630-mile-long sidewalk). The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium – rare earth metalsthat are rare because they’re found in scattered deposits, rather than in concentrated ores, and are difficult to extract.
http://environmentaleducationuk.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/best-of-2011-the-myth-of-renewable-energy/
But here is the reality:
The project cost $2.2 billion
Site area 4,000 acres
Ivanpah 1 has a total capacity of 126 MW and Ivanpah 2 and 3 are both 133 MW each.
Ironically; During the trial of the solar thermal power plant in September 2013, 15 of the 34 dead birds found at the plant had heavily burned feathers. The feathers were burned and charred in flight by the intense radiation from the heliostat mirrors of solar thermal plant which resulted in the falling of the dead birds from the sky. Expect many more stories like this. It is like flying through a massive high intensity frying pan in the sky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
FOUR THOUSAND acres of land has been blighted to provide a mere 392 megawats of power.
Contrast that with the San Onofre nuclear generating plant provides 2,200 MW of power in a footprint of 257 acres.
The bottom line:
Renewable technologies are often less damaging to the climate and create fewer toxic wastes than conventional energy sources. But meeting the world’s total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today’s largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. That’s a heckuva lot of neodymium.
Unfortunately, “renewable energy” is a meaningless term with no established standards. Like an emperor parading around without clothes, it gets a free pass, because nobody dares to confront an inconvenient truth: None of our current energy technologies are truly renewable, at least not in the way they are currently being deployed. We haven’t discoveredany form of energy that is completely clean and recyclable, and the notion that such an energy source can ever be found is a mirage.
