Phil12
Well-Known Member
Wow, he got a life sentence.
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Solar power farm coming to Disney
- Thread starter PhotoDave219
- Start date
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
As did we all
Phil12
Well-Known Member
I got life plus twenty.
Lensman
Well-Known Member
I've been thinking about cutting down a tree that currently shades part of my sister's solar array for part of the day in the winter. As a result I had done a little research about the tradeoffs between the carbon sequestration that trees provide vs the CO2 avoidance of solar generation. Let's do the math with Disney's 50 MW farm:
In Lake Buena Vista, a 50 MW pv array will generate about 75 gWh of energy per year, according to the NREL's pvwatts calculator. This is an offset of 116 million pounds of CO2 per year, according to the EPA carbon offset calculator. Again according to the EPA calculator, this is equivalent to the CO2 sequestration of 62,000 acres of forest. Disney's new farm take up 270 acres or so, right?
I appreciate trees as much as the next guy, but my understanding is that it's well-worth cutting down some trees to put up solar PV.
Speaking of retention ponds, though, I have read that one use case for new two-sided solar modules is on floating sun-tracking solar arrays on lakes. I'm not sure why since the albedo of water is generally higher than land.
I'd guess that it's the economics. Very few of the "power from the sea" testbed projects showed great economics. Plus the economics of wind and especially PV have focused everyone on those, where you can build a plant and actually make money.
I seem to recall that it was a "max" or "as much as" figure, which I took to mean that at some point in the day, there would be a few minutes where 25% of power was coming from the contribution from the solar farm. I don't think it was an overall or average figure.
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
I'm not really that concerned about the 270 acre solar farm on Disney's property. It's the extrapolation to trying to power Florida off of solar. It is the only renewable resource really available in the state that is practical (except maybe turning sugar cane into ethanol). From the air the state will look like a giant slab of shiny, dark blue stone.
I'm not mainly talking about CO2 sequestration. I'm talking about wildlife habitat or use of land for farming. Also, do those calculators take into account the energy for mining the raw materials for, the manufacturing of, the installation and maintenance of the solar panels? I'm sure it's still a lot, but probably overstated a bit.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
GoofGoof
Premium Member
The vast majority of solar being installed these days can be installed on the roofs of homes and/or industrial buildings. Think about how many warehouses, office buildings or in the case of FL hotel roofs can be used instead of open land. Another popular but slightly more expensive application is over parking lots. In a state like FL it can be a blessing most of the year to have covered parking to keep your car out of the sun. FL could go 100% renewable without installing a single additional solar panel over Wilderness.
As far as the environmental impact of the panels, that’s a bit more complex. There is some negative impact but if you have ever seen what a coal power plant looks like or even natural gas there’s a ton of environmental impact from the raw materials used to build them as well.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Parking lots would be more expensive (slightly) but much more practical since they could double as shade for parked cars. Not sure why they haven’t moved on doing that other than simply cost savings. When you add up the lots at 4 theme parks, 2 waterparks, 25+ resorts and all of the back stage spaces for workers you get to a whole lot of potential space for solar.
An office park just went up near where I live with giant carports with solar on top in the parking lot.
Lensman
Well-Known Member
Using the Disney solar farm as an example, it would take about 1% of the land area of Florida in order for solar to provide 50% of Florida's current electricity usage. This is using BNEF's latest projection of the U.S. energy mix in 2050 given market forces.
As a comparison, agriculture in Florida currently accounts for 22% of land usage in Florida.
There's a bit of an interesting circular analysis to figure out the carbon cost of manufacturing, installing, and maintaining solar panels. Current energy payback analysis shows 1-3 years to recover the energy costs of manufacturing and installing panels. But a key question is, what is the carbon cost of this energy? This assumption would obviously vary depending on whether you used renewable energy or if you used coal-generated energy to manufacture panels. Anyway, so in the ridiculously worst case of using a lignite coal plant to generate the power to manufacture your solar panels, the carbon sequestration numbers I mention in my post would be overstated by 4-12%.
disneyfireman
Well-Known Member
Every earth day....i turn on every light in our house for 24 hours....why? I just don't care.
I also try to use as much energy as i can afford..why? because thats how i roll.
I love fossil fuels and i love cranking up the AC......sue me.
I also drive for no reason...just to look around wasting gas...
Oh, and when we built our house...we cut down a crap load of trees...i will never re plant. I hate trees.
And in the end, Nothing will change 500 years from now....people will still say"we only have 12 years left" lol
I also try to use as much energy as i can afford..why? because thats how i roll.
I love fossil fuels and i love cranking up the AC......sue me.
I also drive for no reason...just to look around wasting gas...
Oh, and when we built our house...we cut down a crap load of trees...i will never re plant. I hate trees.
And in the end, Nothing will change 500 years from now....people will still say"we only have 12 years left" lol
You mean having people drive and park on glass that has to be extra hardened to drive on and making sure the in-ground panels never really face in the direction of the sun (i.e., southward) as the cars and surrounding landscaping and buildings block the sun?
One of the dumbest ideas ever and has gone nowhere.
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
That's what I'd like to continue to see happen. Put panels on roofs and over parking lots all throughout the state (especially parking lots to shade my car when I park). For home roofs hopefully things like Tesla's solar roof tiles will continue to develop and come down in cost so that solar can be done attractively. Regardless, rooftop and over parking lot solar is an example of "green" energy installation with very few negatives other than cost.
The one positive of the utility scale solar farm is the panels are all concentrated in an area for maintenance and cleaning. I assume that the panels need to be cleaned to keep them operating at peak efficiency. There is dirt/dust and bird droppings that will block some of the sunlight.
People used to say that about flying, too.
Yeah, but in this case it is true.
That's what they said about flying.
And again, this time they are right.
I am not saying that a solar roadway is impossible, but they system currently available is utter garbage.
Understanding Solar Roadways: An Engineering Failure of Epic Proportions
Solar roadways were once thought to be the holy grail of the world's energy crisis, but they didn't quite answer the purpose.
interestingengineering.com
Phil12
Well-Known Member
That's what they said about flying.And again, this time they are right.
I am not saying that a solar roadway is impossible, but they system currently available is utter garbage.
Understanding Solar Roadways: An Engineering Failure of Epic Proportions
Solar roadways were once thought to be the holy grail of the world's energy crisis, but they didn't quite answer the purpose.