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California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

latimes.com

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Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#81

Post by benj111 »

zenexer wrote: post #39
OldHand2018 wrote: post #23

I gave this a little bit of thought. I agree with the decision, but not at all for the reason that San Bernardino County cites. We have (and California/Western States especially) drastically reduced per capita water consumption over the past few decades. Almost nobody has noticed. This same approach needs to happen with electricity and other forms of energy. We shouldn't build any net new large-scale generation facil…

It doesn’t really matter how much electricity you consume if it’s coming from the sun. 1J of energy is 1J of energy. If the sun just hits the desert floor, it’ll heat up the earth immediately. If you collect the energy and convert (some of) it to electricity, whatever’s converted successfully won’t heat up the planet immediately, but it’ll end up back in the form of heat eventually. There’s really no benefit to decre…

What is your 1W of electricity going to do though? It going to power something, lets say a phone, so the phone needs building in a factory, with materials mined and pumped from the ground.

Electricity use implies 'stuff'. Our production of 'stuff' is nowhere near being environmentally sound.

So 1W hitting the desert floor is nothing like 1W hitting a solar panel.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#82

Post by acidburnNSA »

jadell wrote: post #60
golemotron wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind will never be enough. https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

Is your point that we should stop building any solar or wind? Because if that is not your point, I don't understand what you're trying to say.

The point of the article is that unreliable energy like wind and solar with 35% and 25% capacity factors is extremely challenging to scale beyond those numbers. Large-scale low-carbon systems that are 24/7 reliable regardless of how windy or sunny it is may be more effective.

Lots of people are promoting 50/50 mixes of intermittent/unreliable renewables + nuclear.

The author of the article thinks the renewables are problematic and our money would be better spent just going for 24/7 reliable clean energy sources.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#83

Post by undersuit »

analog31 wrote: post #51
zenexer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re just reporting what each side is saying without arguing against their claims. They leave it to the reader to make of it what they will. In my personal opinion, this is how reporting should be. Don’t do my thinking for me and don’t lead me in a particular direction. I doubt most people actually believe dust has anything to do with it. They don’t want these infrastructure projects near them, plain and simple.

In my view, this is a problem if each side is making claims without any attempt at quantifying or disclosing the relative magnitude of effects. That's a case where a reporter could do a little digging and fill in those details. For instance, how much dust? How is it stirred up? And so forth. You can still make of it what you will, but with better information. I encounter the same thing dealing with engineers. They wi…

Exactly. Can the dust be mitigated? Maybe via replanting afterwards? Or maybe the panels need to be farther apart to encourage regrowth of plants? Is a square field of panels more destructive than a longer line of panels? Are there construction vehicles that can cause less damage to the existing plant life?

If journalism can't be bothered to do research maybe the rise of AI created factuals is well deserved.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#84

Post by gmueckl »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #62
niftich wrote: post #54

San Bernardino County is home to the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility [1], which is a mirror-focused solar thermal power plant. It generates a lot of glare and is controversial for its impact on animals. It also took several years to ramp up to its promised output. Solar panels don't have problem with glare, but the landscape of the county has large viewsheds of sloping treeless desert, so any facility will have a large…

> Ivanpah Solar Power Facility Blew my mind when I drove past that (on the way to Las Vegas?). I swear it appeared as though the air was incandescing at the top of the tower where all the sun's rays were focused. Def something out of a Sci-Fi film....

Definitely. Unfortunately I was driving by in heavy traffic (memorial day weekend rush to Las Vegas) or I would have slowed to find a safe spot to stop and take that sight in.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#85

Post by benj111 »

"where existing solar projects are seen by many as eyesores that destroy desert ecosystems and fuel larger dust storms"

My intuition would suggest that renewable energy would take energy out of the system (wind power at least). Reducing dust storms.

So are they correct? Is it climate change being attributed to the cure?

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#86

Post by kccqzy »

mikeash wrote: post #29
OldHand2018 wrote: post #23

I gave this a little bit of thought. I agree with the decision, but not at all for the reason that San Bernardino County cites. We have (and California/Western States especially) drastically reduced per capita water consumption over the past few decades. Almost nobody has noticed. This same approach needs to happen with electricity and other forms of energy. We shouldn't build any net new large-scale generation facil…

If it’s renewable and carbon-neutral, why isn’t it an option to consume more?

I guess an argument could be that the distribution of electricity still costs money. For example, if households use more electric power, we can either increase the electric current or the voltage. For the former we may have to replace transmission lines to be thicker; for the latter we may have to reconfigure or perhaps rebuild the local transformers. In either case, there are other costs involved that do not involve the cost of electricity itself.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#87

Post by acidburnNSA »

djakjxnanjak wrote: post #28
OldHand2018 wrote: post #23

I gave this a little bit of thought. I agree with the decision, but not at all for the reason that San Bernardino County cites. We have (and California/Western States especially) drastically reduced per capita water consumption over the past few decades. Almost nobody has noticed. This same approach needs to happen with electricity and other forms of energy. We shouldn't build any net new large-scale generation facil…

No, generating less solar and wind will mean burning more natural gas and coal. Fossil fuels don’t get charged for their pollution externalities so their price on the energy market is artificially low, and demand artificially high. Also, you just claimed that consuming more energy is not an option with making any arguments to support that claim. In fact, consuming more energy is an option every household has, and if…

We could also split more atoms, which is carbon free and has really small impact in terms of land, mining, carbon, death, pollution, etc.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#88

Post by [deleted] »

rjf72 wrote: post #78
nradov wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how journalism is supposed to work. One of the first lessons in Journalism 101 is if one source says the weather is sunny and another source says it's raining then a competent reporter should look out the window! https://amp.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2012/08/08/th...

And when one source says they think it will rain in 20 days, and another says it they think it will not rain in 20 days?

[deleted]

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#89

Post by lightedman »

jadell wrote: post #63
niftich wrote: post #54

San Bernardino County is home to the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility [1], which is a mirror-focused solar thermal power plant. It generates a lot of glare and is controversial for its impact on animals. It also took several years to ramp up to its promised output. Solar panels don't have problem with glare, but the landscape of the county has large viewsheds of sloping treeless desert, so any facility will have a large…

IANABotanist, but I wonder if there are plants that do well in sandy soil and shade that could be used as ground cover underneath the panels and keep the dust down.

In the desert, many plants simply will not survive without regular shade, so yes.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#90

Post by baddox »

rjf72 wrote: post #76
baddox wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know whether the claim that solar farms cause dust storms is true or not, but it isn’t a matter of opinion. I want journalists to find experts and scientific evidence and tell me which side is telling the truth.

Like many issues there is not going to be a black and white yes or no answer. It's going to depend on the exact locale, the nature/type of terrain in the region, the type/specification/quantity of panels being installed, and a million other variables. When newspapers start getting into topics like this it invariable just ends up with corruption and bias as the conclusion is often whatever the executive team decides t…

Sure, issues can be complex and journalists can get things wrong even when they’re acting in good faith. But how is the average reader in a better position to evaluate the facts?

If the facts are genuinely not well-known or agreed-upon by experts, then absolutely report on that. Not so readers can “make up their mind” (since that shouldn’t be the goal, if experts can’t even agree), but so readers can understand the complexity of the issue.

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