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Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 1:44:12 PM   
Sanity


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We need energy, but I am also against turning all of our roadless areas into wind or solar farms. Maybe nuclear is the only answer, or maybe there is no answer.


quote:

Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home

LOS ANGELES – On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power.

Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.

The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost.

The Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the complex relocated to preserve what they call a near-pristine home for rare plants and wildlife, including the protected tortoise, the Western burrowing owl and bighorn sheep. "It's actually a good project. It's just located in the wrong place," said Ileene Anderson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group.

The dispute is likely to echo for years as more companies seek to develop solar, wind and geothermal plants on land treasured by environmentalists who also support the growth of alternative energy. In an area of stark beauty, the question will be what is worth preserving and at what cost as California pushes to generate one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 1:56:57 PM   
zephyroftheNorth


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Status: offline 		Sheesh why there? Surely there are plenty of areas of dead ground that won't affect wildlife.

mark your calendars, Sanity and I agree on something


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 2:01:59 PM   
TheHeretic


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quote:

ORIGINAL: zephyroftheNorth

Sheesh why there? Surely there are plenty of areas of dead ground that won't affect wildlife.




That would be Death Valley, Zephyr, but we can't use that, because it's a national monument.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 2:04:58 PM   
AnimusRex


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Status: offline 		There is an answer...just not an EASY answer.

One of the most common errors both environmentalists and anti-environmentalists make is in assuming there is some silver bullet solution that will eliminate our energy dependence on the Middle East, eliminate pollution, be universally accessible, and most importantly, not require any sacrifice or change in lifestyle habits on our part.

As the conservatives has repeated for decades- there is no free lunch. Our buildings (which consume some 60% of all energy) could be much, much more energy efficient; our cars likewise. We live lives that are based on cheap energy, both in its direct form, and its indirect form of cheap and abundant consumer goods.

We could reach energy independence, and reduce pollution, and all the other good things- but only if we are willing to embrace things like conservation, and pay higher prices for things we now take for granted.

One small example- clothes dryers are extremely convenient, but consume absurd amounts of energy; old fashioned clotheslines consume no energy, and do the same job- but are less convenient, and many city codes and neighborhood homeowner associations consider them eyesores, and prohibit them. Were we- collectively, "we the community"- to embrace them as a patriotic endeavor to wean ourselves off Saudi oil, we could save tremendous amounts of energy every year.

But asking Americans for personal sacrifice is too painful for nearly any politician to do- and so we have endless debates over which EASY button- biofuels, Brazilian crude, switchgrass- will allow us to keep doing exactly what we have been doing, without ever making a single adult sacrifice.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 2:06:24 PM   
thompsonx


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quote:


We need energy, but I am also against turning all of our roadless areas into wind or solar farms. Maybe nuclear is the only answer, or maybe there is no answer.


Why do you seek to couch this in terms of "either or".
The Mojave desert is a pretty big place and all this needs to be solved is to find another piece of dirt to site it on that will not affect the endangered species.
This whole incident just goes to show that common sense is not all that common.

T.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 4:20:36 PM   
DarkSteven


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Status: offline 		The idea doesn't make sense, with or without the tortoise.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s. when I lived in Albuquerque, Sandia Labs built a solar tower similar to the one proposed.  A massive field of reflective mirrors, all focused on a collector which vaporized water and ran a turbine-generator.  The things was a mess - the effort to polish the mirrors was huge and they were a pain to replace when cracked.  IIRC, they all tracked the sun. 

Maybe the technology's matured but I suspect that this is a project which will owe its life more to subsidies and tax breaks than to free market feasibility.


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 4:26:32 PM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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From: S.E. London U.K.
Status: offline 		The reality is that any site proposed will be opposed for some reason or other. All the dirty energy lobby need to do it highlight opposing environmental concerns and the status quo is maintained. Who highlights these things in the first place? It is their standard plan of attack, similar to saying wind turbines are killing off the bird population. The mistake we are making consistently in rejecting these schemes is to ignore who is highlighting problems with them in the first place?

Just coincidence that the place selected has wildlife concerns, I'd believe that if it happened once or twice but it is continually happening which means something else is at play.

It is one of the oldest tricks in the book to plant endangered species to stop proposals apparently

Also redirecting endangered tortoises is easy because they move slow. So in theory all you need to do is dig channels ahead of the little blighters and they stumble onto your site via the channels dug. I've got their number.

< Message edited by SL4V3M4YB3 -- 1/2/2010 4:34:19 PM >

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 4:48:08 PM   
MstrDouglas


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Status: offline 		I have the perfect place to build these types of power generation sites.  Use all of the old atomic bomb test sites to build them on.  They already have the big craters to use for placing the mirrors so it would take very little to get them aimed right, and who cares if it causes any damage, I mean the area is already "hot".  So a few construction workers would have to worry about radiation exsposure, at least those sites would become usefull to the nation again. 
Another thing to think about, if these companies want to use public land to generate power, then the end product should be free to the people, shouldn't it?
I know I'll get flack for this post, but what the hell, even if they stay clear of the bomb test craters, there is enough land already blocked off around them that they could use and not have to worry about any impact to wildlife, it's already been screwed over royally.  If they want to get free land to build on, I would suggest the government give them those sites.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 4:56:10 PM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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From: S.E. London U.K.
Status: offline 		The US government wants those sites for its future nuclear standoff with N.Korea and Iran.

Keep your options open and all that, it would be sad but I don't think we've seen the last of nuclear testing if we ever did. Wasn't there meant to be a new testing ban and reduction treaty with Russia signed recently? Although even then there are still those tactical nuclear weapons such as the errm anti tank warheads with depleted uranium that need to be tested somewhere.


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 5:28:41 PM   
AnimusRex


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one idea just crazy enough to work, is to encourage homes and businesses to place solar panels on their roofs; there are millions upon millions of square feet of roofs located, conveniently enough, right atop the very homes and businesses that need electricity.
Quote from the story:
In recent months, chains including Wal-Mart Stores, Kohl's, Safeway and Whole Foods Market have installed solar panels on roofs of their stores to generate electricity on a large scale....

"In the coming months, 85 Kohl's stores will get solar panels; 43 already have them. "We want to keep pushing as many as we possibly can," said Ken Bonning, executive vice president for logistics at Kohl's.

Macy's, which has solar panels atop 18 stores, plans to install them on another 40 by the end of this year. Safeway is aiming to put panels atop 23 stores....

Wal-Mart [is considering a] program that would put panels and other renewable technologies at hundreds of stores."

No, it isn't an EASY button, and won't be a cure-all- but if we could generate enough electricity to reduce our oil based power consumption by even 30%, that would cut our oil imports from the Mideast by half.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 5:31:33 PM   
DarkSteven


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quote:

ORIGINAL: MstrDouglas

I have the perfect place to build these types of power generation sites.  Use all of the old atomic bomb test sites to build them on.  They already have the big craters to use for placing the mirrors so it would take very little to get them aimed right, and who cares if it causes any damage, I mean the area is already "hot".  So a few construction workers would have to worry about radiation exsposure, at least those sites would become usefull to the nation again. 
Another thing to think about, if these companies want to use public land to generate power, then the end product should be free to the people, shouldn't it?
I know I'll get flack for this post, but what the hell, even if they stay clear of the bomb test craters, there is enough land already blocked off around them that they could use and not have to worry about any impact to wildlife, it's already been screwed over royally.  If they want to get free land to build on, I would suggest the government give them those sites.


You're not serious, are you?

1. The land is a cost for nuclear power, but it's not the only one.  Equipment, staff (highly trained staff), transmission lines, etc.  Power generation is not cheap.
2. The power companies would be crazy to take this offer.  When cancer showed up in its operations personnel, the company would have liability and the government would not (Google "downwinders" for the seminal case).  Not to mention the extra expense of working a remote site.
3. I doubt that the land would be clean enough.  Remediation is done to different levels depending upon the anticipated post-cleanup use of the land.  The lowest level is for a wildlife refuge, and the highest level is for human habitation.  So the sites would require additional cleanup if they were put to power generation use.


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 7:06:09 PM   
Brain


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Status: offline 		Hydrogen fusion power | Technology Futures

I saw a show about this either on the discovery channel or National Geographic and they said using a small lake about a mile wide and 50 feet deep you can supply the world with enough energy for a year, and apparently without pollution. I need to read more about this technology. And what is this fixation with nuclear power? It's okay for us to glow in the dark using nuclear power but using solar power is bad, go figure?

Hydrogen fusion power | Technology Futures

ITER is an international consortium that is planning to build a 500 megawatt fusion reactor by 2016. Fusion power is the holy grail of the energy industry because it uses relatively inexpensive fuel (hydrogen), creates little contaminated nuclear waste, and can generate large amounts of power.

Advanced engineering is underway, and one of the goals of the project is to use pre-qualified and off the shelf materials and components. The ITER fusion reactor will generate ten times more power than it needs to maintain the fusion reaction.

A usable fusion power plant would replace coal and oil power plants, and would have a dramatic impact on CO2 emissions, which may contribute to global warming. Fusion plants would also be pollution free. China, which uses a lot of coal that is causing pollution problems, is a partner in the project.

http://www.designnine.com/news/content/hydrogen-fusion-power

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 7:11:59 PM   
TheHeretic


Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
From: California, USA
Status: offline 		How mant times are you going to bring up some tv show you saw about a type of reaction we are nowhere near harnessing, with technical obstacles we are nowhere near to overcoming?  Have you even bothered to read the replies you have received on it?



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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 7:24:48 PM   
luckydawg


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Status: offline 		Heretic, what is funny is to take a look at the org he is talking about. You can click the link to the "international consortium" doing "advance engineering on the project" (posted by acohill 5 years ago) in the blog brain references. Its fucking hillarious. Brain is a perfect example of a die hard Obama supporter. There is nothing there. An impressive introduction on the blog, follow the link....nothing

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 7:40:37 PM   
submittous


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Status: offline 		there is plenty of room to put up solar systems and wind generators all over the south west... and the system they are purposing works pretty well in spain right now and mexico is putting on it shortly. Green energy is the building block of a safe and prosperous US economy, not investing now is criminal and the folks who'll pay are our children and grandchildren.

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/2/2010 10:05:38 PM   
DarkSteven


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

Hydrogen fusion power | Technology Futures

I saw a show about this either on the discovery channel or National Geographic and they said using a small lake about a mile wide and 50 feet deep you can supply the world with enough energy for a year, and apparently without pollution. I need to read more about this technology.


Read away.  Fusion is a great source of energy - it's essentially nonpolluting and can generate huge quantities of energy.  However, the problem is that it generates so much energy in such small space and time that there is no way to confine it as yet.  So basically it holds tremendous promise but is still in the R&D stage, not the usable stage yet. 
quote:



And what is this fixation with nuclear power? It's okay for us to glow in the dark using nuclear power but using solar power is bad, go figure?



Nobody is glowing in the dark.

There are two dangers with nuclear energy.  One is an unintended criticality - when too much fissile material gets concentrated, it goes critical and emits enough energy to kill anyone close by.  The other is that if not contained, nuclear contamination can build up and cause cancer.

The first danger is taken very seriously and there are groups of criticality engineers that do nothing but check amounts and configurations of fissile materials to ensure that the dangerous configurations will not occur.  The second danger is dealt with both by analyzing possible releases to verify that the effects will not be noticeable, and by designing safeguards that prevent release of contaminants. 

Nobody is stating that solar power is bad.  It is a very good energy source, especially for heating purposes.  However, it is not as concentrated an energy source as nuclear or fossil fuels, nor as cost effective as simply conservation.

quote:



Hydrogen fusion power | Technology Futures

ITER is an international consortium that is planning to build a 500 megawatt fusion reactor by 2016. Fusion power is the holy grail of the energy industry because it uses relatively inexpensive fuel (hydrogen), creates little contaminated nuclear waste, and can generate large amounts of power.


Agreed. 
quote:



Advanced engineering is underway, and one of the goals of the project is to use pre-qualified and off the shelf materials and components. The ITER fusion reactor will generate ten times more power than it needs to maintain the fusion reaction.



Advanced engineering is NOT underway.  Fusion energy is not yet feasible. 
quote:



A usable fusion power plant would replace coal and oil power plants, and would have a dramatic impact on CO2 emissions, which may contribute to global warming. Fusion plants would also be pollution free. China, which uses a lot of coal that is causing pollution problems, is a partner in the project.

http://www.designnine.com/news/content/hydrogen-fusion-power



Brain, did you read any of the comments when you posted this link before?  It's out of date, makes claims that are ridiculous, and appears in a network server source, not an energy one.


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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/3/2010 4:54:24 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

Heretic, what is funny is to take a look at the org he is talking about. You can click the link to the "international consortium" doing "advance engineering on the project" (posted by acohill 5 years ago) in the blog brain references. Its fucking hillarious. Brain is a perfect example of a die hard Obama supporter. There is nothing there. An impressive introduction on the blog, follow the link....nothing


What does this topic and the link have to do with Obama?

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/3/2010 5:12:25 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

One small example- clothes dryers are extremely convenient, but consume absurd amounts of energy; ...


You can have my clothes dryer when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

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< Message edited by rulemylife -- 1/3/2010 5:15:06 AM >

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/3/2010 7:01:40 AM   
rockspider


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Status: offline 		I have had a great deal of interest in to this field since my youth. I also worked in micro solutions for renewable energy (wind and solar power for farming and other remote and rural use). Today I live in a society which has got the world pioneer and market leader, Westas Wind, as its absolute major employer. None of these solutions (wind and solar) is competitive pricewise when we are talking production of power on large scales. Everywhere they are in place is only due to heavy subsidies from the government of the respective countries. They also suffer from the quite obvious that while power demand is determined by the end-users, the generating power is determined by how much the wind blows or the sun shines. In effect it means that irrespective of how many renewable sources you put up you still have to have the conventional as a backup, making them standing idle and thereby uneconomical.
The only real viable solution today is nuclear power. But that also got economic problems, in that it is an enormous investment and do take a long time to build. Payback time for those plants is normally counted in decades. Ok, when you come out in the second decade they really are moneymakers.
This leads us to the fission power process. It has been worked on since the sixties, but no real significant process has been made. The fact that it is possible is quite clear, as this is duplicating the process taking place in the sun. CERN as we just got finished (and fucked up ) here in Europe is the world’s supreme biggest toy for the scientists. The hope is of course that among others it will solve the riddle of getting fission power to work. I bet they mean they can, as else we would have spend hundreds of billions on a useless effort.
In USA as most other countries power generation is a private matter and which private investor likes to put in billions of dollars with a return maybe in 15 - 20 years, when really you got the world’s finest scientist with government funding trying to screw up that process. If fission suddenly becomes viable it will cut cost power costs to half and make any other investment in power generation look like a joke. The same with the whole renewable energy industry, which has sprung up. It is not just something I say. It has been on the agenda on board meetings in Westas Wind. They are taking it extremely serious.
However it should not stop people from thinking a bit out of the box for micro solutions. Stuff like solar heaters for water, ground heat exchangers for home heating, small domestic windmills to cut electricity costs (the British has developed a 1 Kw. unit to stick on the house which I am looking in to purchase), insulation and heat/cold retention building design (like the idea of painting all roofs in hot areas white) and many more. We the individuals can really do a lot to conserve energy and if it also cuts or bills it is a win – win situation. Like hanging the washing out on warm and sunny days. I certainly not going to scrap my tumbler ever, but I do have a clothesline in my garden and it is used in summer.


< Message edited by rockspider -- 1/3/2010 7:38:05 AM >

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RE: Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home - 1/3/2010 9:01:40 AM   
servantforuse


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Status: offline 		It was 3 degrees above zero here in Milwaukee this morning. I'm thinking that my wet clothes on a line would freeze and I couldn't wear them until Spring. I'm keeping my dryer.

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