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The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

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Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#91

Post by chris222 »

lambda wrote: post #59
loeg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also for context, the quoted 756MW figure is about 68% of a single AP1000 reactor.

And an AP1000 reactor costs about $6.8 billion to build, and substantially higher operating costs. 68% of the power for 14% of the price seems like a pretty good deal to me, there's a reason people are investing more in solar than nuclear, it's just more cost effective. edit: Oh, and that $6.8 billion looks optimistic. This project with two AP1000s looks like it costs $30 billion. https://www.ans.org/news/article-394…

It doesnt even seem like it will utilize that much more land either. How much land does a Nuclear site take with all of the zones around it?

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#92

Post by throwboatyface »

thelastgallon wrote: post #57
38 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the actual size important, and not the money involved?

Yes, actual size, but also relative to the size of their economy. Considering Philippines GDP, this is significant.

What's the GDP of the Ute nation? It's probably quite a significant investment for them as well.

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#93

Post by gotoeleven »

thinkcontext wrote: post #74
hooo wrote: post #8

Does anyone have a breakdown of the materials required to create 2.2 million solar panels? I worry that we measure solar strictly on the carbon emissions and not the full environmental impact -- such as that of land and mining of materials. Edit: I'm not advocating fossil fuels. I think solar makes a ton of sense, but it also seems crazy to think we could build enough solar + storage capacity for the world. Nuclear e…

> Nuclear energy is the real future At present in the US there's no reactor that anyone will build. No one will build any more big AP1000s after the unmitigated financial disasters that were its 2 initial projects. Everyone has put their faith in small reactors (SMRs) but the only one with an approved design (NuScale) had its initial project fail after a Utah utility coalition fell apart. The NuScale project that fai…

If your environmental regulations prevent you from saving the environment by making it too expensive to save the environment, maybe you have too many environmental regulations?

The medium term future of energy in the US at least is california, ie ridiculously expensive and unreliable. Hopefully costs will eventually come down as we get enough batteries and grid infrastructure in place so everyone can have their indian solar power energy--but a sane policy that would have been to have excess nuclear capacity in place and slowly transition to solar panels as the reliability improves.

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#94

Post by dn3500 »

Amorymeltzer wrote: post #2

>Officials are planning to break ground on the construction of the Sun Bear Solar Farm later in 2024, with the goal of producing electricity in 2026. Annual capacity is estimated to be about 756 megawatts.

Yeah this is obviously wrong. They meant just capacity, not "annual capacity". Annual output should be around 1500 GWh.

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#95

Post by doodlebugging »

EasyMark wrote: post #69
doodlebugging wrote: post #7

Sounds like a nice, sustainable economic boom for the Ute Tribe once they bring it online. Reading the slides from the biological/archaeological impact studies from Canigou Group shows that someone didn't proofread their slide. The burrowing owl study states that it is "Threatened with the State of Colorado but not Federally". It was probably supposed to say "Threatened within..." Good luck to the Utes. There is not…

> Sounds like a nice, sustainable economic boom for the Ute Tribe once they bring it online. As long as they properly distribute the profits to tribe members. There have definitely been some boondoggles in the past that only help the 1% ers

This is a problem with all tribes. Resource extraction on tribal land is not necessarily improving the living standards of all members of the tribe. It's the same story whether we look at oil and gas production, coal or mineral mining, hydroelectric power generation, timber production, or wind and solar energy production.

Electing tribal leaders who will focus on improvements that spread the wealth and boost living standards can be as difficult for them as it is for other Americans to elect leaders who attempt to improve their constituent's lives and create opportunities for them.

It is also a challenge, less so today than in the past, to find tribal members with the domain knowledge to be able to understand how all this can be put to best use for the benefit of all.

Then you also need firewalls in place to prevent exploitation by multinational corporations with the domain expertise who use that to draft agreements that end up cheating the tribes out of profits that should go to the tribes.

It's a hard problem since it is so endemic in the American business world and since many programs that are currently in place have no one conducting effective oversight to insure that business is conducted transparently and to the benefit of the ones owning the resources.

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#97

Post by sunshinesnacks »

yieldcrv wrote: post #55

> But also, it makes sense not to transmit power too far from where you are yep, they’ll waste the energy trying to transmit it sounds like they’re going to be attracting bitcoin miners. they’re the only use case that’s able to be in the middle of nowhere without needing other infrastructure, like robust internet. any other use cases you all know of?

> they’ll waste the energy trying to transmit it

High voltage transmission lines are very efficient. On the order of 1-2% loses per 100 miles for 500 kV carrying 1000 MW [0].

[0] https://web.ecs.baylor.edu/faculty/grady/_13_EE392J_2_Spring...

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#98

Post by usefulcat »

> A proposed solar farm on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation will have 2.2 million solar panels

> Annual capacity is estimated to be about 756 megawatts.

756 MW/year = ~2 MW/day = less than 1 watt per day per panel?

I get that the sun doesn't shine 24/7, but even so that seems way off. What am I missing? Maybe the 756 MW figure is daily instead of annual?

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#99

Post by [deleted] »

doodlebugging wrote: post #95
EasyMark wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like a nice, sustainable economic boom for the Ute Tribe once they bring it online. As long as they properly distribute the profits to tribe members. There have definitely been some boondoggles in the past that only help the 1% ers

This is a problem with all tribes. Resource extraction on tribal land is not necessarily improving the living standards of all members of the tribe. It's the same story whether we look at oil and gas production, coal or mineral mining, hydroelectric power generation, timber production, or wind and solar energy production. Electing tribal leaders who will focus on improvements that spread the wealth and boost living s…

[deleted]

Re: The Ute Tribe will construct one of the largest solar farms in the US

#100

Post by renewiltord »

mstipetic wrote: post #14
hooo wrote: post #8

Does anyone have a breakdown of the materials required to create 2.2 million solar panels? I worry that we measure solar strictly on the carbon emissions and not the full environmental impact -- such as that of land and mining of materials. Edit: I'm not advocating fossil fuels. I think solar makes a ton of sense, but it also seems crazy to think we could build enough solar + storage capacity for the world. Nuclear e…

No one has ever thought of that and for sure can’t be available through a basic Google search. Maybe I’m wrong but every time anything with renewables comes there’s comments spreading doubt with basic questions

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