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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

#281

Post by chii »

midtake wrote: post #263
nonethewiser wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panels are a commodity at this point. I hate to say it but mineral extraction, processing and panel manufacturing will be way more expensive than importing from China. Prerequisites for manufacturing panels here at an even remotely competitive price includes reducing labor costs and extracting/refining minerals at scale. I absolutely agree we should onshore solar production but simply onshoring manufacturing isnt the…

Relying on China as a trade partner, who has been hostile to the US in every way except kinetic, is a hidden cost of those "cheap" panels. Is China's an economy whose growth you want to willingly contribute to? That is sort of like not reading the geopolitical room.

while the geopolitical take is true, the economic sacrifice you'd have by not taking china's surplus is actually not benefitial.

The solar panels can enable other industries locally. For example, cheap and plentiful electricity can be used to produce local stuff that costs energy.

And solar panel production is not really "strategically" important - in a kinetic war, china can withold solar panels and it would not make a difference in the war.

Therefore, there's no reason not to import cheap panels.

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

#282

Post by usrusr »

krupan wrote: post #259
usrusr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ecosystem will change, no doubt about that. Just like it changes when we start agriculture somewhere, or pastoralism. Even if we consider that the new ecosystem of desert with a lot of shade might affect neighboring pristine desert within quite a radius, there will still be a lot left in the foreseeable future. Very much unlike agriculture and pastoralism, which have been pushed into almost every corner even remo…

Exactly. And a nuclear plant does not change the ecosystem like all those other things you mentioned.

Good luck finding a spare river or two to evaporate for cooling. And not changing ecosystems in the process.

An that's before even mentioning the other thing. Would you be interested in talking about uranium mines? Oh, not the other thing you expected?

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

#283

Post by tfourb »

XorNot wrote: post #226
tfourb wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case you'd also need to model how the cost changes if you combine solar with wind and other renewables. Wind and solar are to some extend complementary (there is statistically more wind when there is little sun and vice versa). You'd also need to account for distributing solar and wind across large geographic areas (i.e. the U.S. is so wide that there are a few hours difference between the sun setting on the…

Thats still building 2x the power generation (and you've got storage in there too). Those wind turbines aren't free. They have different maintenance costs too. You don't get to say "oh well it'll be 1GW of solar if we also build 1GW of wind" because that's not the project. This is all an excuse to talk around Solar's god awful capacity factors which take the shine off those $/MW headlines.

All the proper "whole system" studies I know account for capacity factor and renewables come out ahead anyway.

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

#284

Post by Kon5ole »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #127
ayk3 wrote: post #86

Contrast this news with that of LPEA from neighboring Durango area putting a stop to new solar installation due to maxing out energy needs https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/la-plata-electric-put...

Promote electric vehicles, heat pumps, inductive cooktops, and other decarbonization that would increase electricity demand since you've got a plethora of electricity? Nope. Incentivize home energy storage and invest in grid level energy storage and encourage purchasing EVs that can be used as grid batteries? Nope. Invest in better grid-level interconnects to export electricity? Nope. Work with the community to attra…

Energy production is a huge moneymaker that also happens to be government owned/taxed to a large degree in many countries. Solar panels and batteries are at the point where they will completely disrupt this entire industry.

Many incumbents will try their best to prevent it, and to be fair it's not entirely for malicious reasons. Energy taxes and income from power plants pay for a lot of community value. The income has to be replaced somehow if it is removed.

I think that solar + various storage options are technically already the best solution for energy supply, and this kind of political inertia is the main obstacle to overcome in order to make it a reality.

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

#285

Post by op00to »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #229
op00to wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about at night? Or when it’s cloudy?

In my experience of home solar cloudy isn’t necessarily a problem. It doesn’t reduce power much.

That’s pretty cool! My experience is playing with dc power and smaller panels off the grid (campingish) and I am foiled by clouds! I can totally see at a large scale clouds may not be quite as impactful as first thought.

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

#286

Post by Aachen »

solardev wrote: post #17
Aachen wrote: post #4

European here. What kind of legal structure is tribe in this context? > “We, as the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, had been a fossil fuel tribe with oil and gas for a long time, probably over 50 years. Today, with the changes in legislation, global warming, and climate change, you can see the impact of what's happening to our world. I think I only ever heard tribe used to describe a group or maybe 10-30 hunter-gatherers, or…

In the US, this is a general term for descendants of Native American peoples. Their degree of sovereignty unfortunately varies; some tribes are "federally recognized" and enjoy state-like recognition of their autonomy by the federal (central) government, while others have to bargain with the states surrounding their territories. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_(Native_American) And a FAQ: https://…

Thanks for the insight! I had no idea some enjoyed so much autonomy, or that something other than the democratically elected government arranged for courts to exist in some regions. If I ever visit the USA, this sounds like they'll be some of the culturally most interesting places to include in the trip. Odd that I had never heard of this before. (That native Americans exist, sure, and the word reservation I've heard as well but that honestly sounds more like zoo than like state. Probably I should have looked into what this means sooner!)

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

#287

Post by Aachen »

nerdponx wrote: post #46
Aachen wrote: post #4

European here. What kind of legal structure is tribe in this context? > “We, as the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, had been a fossil fuel tribe with oil and gas for a long time, probably over 50 years. Today, with the changes in legislation, global warming, and climate change, you can see the impact of what's happening to our world. I think I only ever heard tribe used to describe a group or maybe 10-30 hunter-gatherers, or…

In this case I think the word "tribe" is referring to the Ute Mountain sub-group of the Ute people. But it's certainly nothing like the primitive society you are imagining, and that's partly why I think a lot of American Indian nations don't use that word to describe themselves. For example, the "Seneca tribe" calls themselves the Seneca Nation. That is, they were and are a group of people sharing common ethnicity, c…

> For example, the "Seneca tribe" calls themselves the Seneca Nation.

That sounds a lot more accurate given the explanation (also from other comments) where they have their own courts and everything. Odd that the words reservation and tribe are still in use like this.

(And perhaps I should clarify: I didn't mean to imply that these people (evidently having a billion to invest in solar) are living in huts or otherwise are like the historic hunter-gatherer societies I mentioned. The word evoced that image for me, but of course I realise that this cannot be accurate, hence the confusion.)

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

#288

Post by Aachen »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #12
Aachen wrote: post #4

European here. What kind of legal structure is tribe in this context? > “We, as the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, had been a fossil fuel tribe with oil and gas for a long time, probably over 50 years. Today, with the changes in legislation, global warming, and climate change, you can see the impact of what's happening to our world. I think I only ever heard tribe used to describe a group or maybe 10-30 hunter-gatherers, or…

Does it matter if this group of people refers to itself as a “tribe” or a “nation” or something else? If they started referring to themselves as a “nation” for example, would anything change. In any case, it’s quite common in the US for groups like this to be referred to as a “tribe”. I guess today you’re one of the lucky 10,000.

> Does it matter if this group of people refers to itself as a “tribe” or a “nation” or something else?

No, I just did not know what it meant and certainly would not have guessed something close to nation as it turns out to be! I'm feeling like there's suddenly more countries on the planet than I knew about, and wondering why we never hear from them on the news or elsewhere! Well, until now at least :)

A sibling comment says they avoid the word tribe to avoid the historic associations though, so I don't know what their preferred word would be. Probably it also differs between groups or even individuals within one.

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

#289

Post by someguydave »

Aachen wrote: post #286
solardev wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, this is a general term for descendants of Native American peoples. Their degree of sovereignty unfortunately varies; some tribes are "federally recognized" and enjoy state-like recognition of their autonomy by the federal (central) government, while others have to bargain with the states surrounding their territories. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_(Native_American) And a FAQ: https://…

Thanks for the insight! I had no idea some enjoyed so much autonomy, or that something other than the democratically elected government arranged for courts to exist in some regions. If I ever visit the USA, this sounds like they'll be some of the culturally most interesting places to include in the trip. Odd that I had never heard of this before. (That native Americans exist, sure, and the word reservation I've heard…

The structure built slowly over the years as the federal government signed treaties with each tribe. In a sense some Indians have rights that are close to foreign countries and are recognized as sovereign entities under federal/constitutional law.
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