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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

#111

Post by IncreasePosts »

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…

They could be raising the money from outside bankers or investors. Commonly, you can get away with stuff on tribal ground that you could not get away with in the surrounding area, since the tribal ground doesn't follow the state laws of the surrounding state.

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

#112

Post by bryanlarsen »

thfuran wrote: post #44
appplication wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not suggesting you did this intentionally, because this sort of stuff is difficult to really know or find definitive answers to. But I think it’s worth being aware that, in general, an over-focus on material cost for creating renewables etc is typically a conservative talking point and recommendation towards maintenance of the fossil fuel status quo. It appeals in particular to logical, skeptical folks like many…

But as I understand it, the cloth bags generally do lose out unless used hundreds of times, which is plausible but hardly a given. And the plastic bags are often re-used as small garbage bags, so eliminating them frequently just means someone is going to buy another plastic bag.

It depends on what your goal was in the first place. AFAICT most single use plastic bans were put in place to avoid the plastic ending up in waterways etc.

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

#113

Post by shermantanktop »

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

We also get brilliant insights about how solar panels don’t generate power at night.

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

#114

Post by yieldcrv »

theptip wrote: post #110
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?

Datacenter for AI training workloads.

Thats pretty good if the data is already there, other data centers rely on heavier internet infrastructure

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

#115

Post by jpgvm »

dangrossman wrote: post #38
hooo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against solar. I think a seriously massive nuclear build up makes sense. To the extent you get economies of scale and not every project is a bespoke effort.

That's financially and politically impossible on a relevant time scale, while solar can be built now.

In America maybe. Lets see what the Chinese do with their nuclear rollout before calling it impossible yet.

They might also abandon theirs on account of being able to make solar incredibly cheap domestically, but they also might not, we have to wait and see.

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

#117

Post by oaththrowaway »

Off topic, but does anyone know if Ute tribes share money with each other for big projects like this?

I'm pretty sure this tribe has a casino on their reservation, but I know the one in Utah doesn't, both get money from oil extraction, but I'm not sure if they are totally independent from each other?

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

#118

Post by jeffbee »

lukan wrote: post #76

"Having said that, we're going to be producing a large amount of power. So I'm not sure that all of it will be able to be consumed within Colorado." Hopefully they can attract further industry, that will consume that cheap energy close to production. Metal smelting ones for example.

Refining lithium

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

#119

Post by njarboe »

thelastgallon wrote: post #53

I wonder if the tribes have enough autonomy to build transmission lines quickly. Just the Navajo Nation can build enough solar/wind and transmission lines within their reservation and probably connect to the grids in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. US is incredibly slow in building transmission lines, takes decades. And, if they have enough autonomy to import Chinese panels (50% cheaper), a network of these n…

I would imagine that inside the land they control building lines could be quick but if they are exporting power (which I think is the main idea) they are not going to be able to have the autonomy to build the external lines they need.

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

#120

Post by g8oz »

dgacmu wrote: post #106
usefulcat wrote: post #98

> 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?

The article is bad, as so often happens with units... The project site: https://www.sunbearproject.com/ 971MW, producing up to 1700 to 2400 GWh/year. That puts it at 2471 hours/year of full-power production equivalent, or 28%. That's good - it's a nice area for solar.

The average solar power purchase agreement is $49 per megawatt hour¹. That is $49,000 per GWh. So if this plant can produce 1700 gigawatt hours per year then they would be able to earn on the order of $83,000,000 annually. Not too shabby.

(1)- https://www.utilitydive.com/news/solar-wind-renewable-energy...

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