New Solar Power Plant Nearby

Discussion in 'Energy & Fuel' started by Frank Sanoica, Mar 3, 2017.

  1. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    One of the posters here I think Faye said she saw a couple who were falling dead from the sky .o_O
     
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  2. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    My neighbor had to replace the headlight assembly in his car because he hit a hawk. He saw it's prey fly across the road, and the hawk jumped right after it into the path of his Jeep.
     
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  3. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Nice timing to have a heart attack, huh?
     
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  4. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    :D
     
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  5. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I've not heard of there being wildlife issues with solar panels. Even if the panels don't represent a danger to critters, one would think the critters would represent a danger to the panels. I just read that the largest risk present by critters is with the wiring getting chewed. And the primary risk to critters presented by solar energy are the setups with mirrored panels that reflect sunlight onto boilers, which then create the steam that generates electricity.

    I guess nothing is benign. High-orbit satellites and some terrestrial systems communicate via microwave. I was in the industry for a while. Birds have been known to get fried if they fly in the right spot in a receiving dish.
     
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  6. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @John Brunner

    The "sweet area" of a satellite dish is that immediately between the receiver, which sticks out on an arm, and the dish itself. Being parabolic, parallel rays hitting the dish are reflected back to the centroid where the receiver is located.

    Frank
     
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  7. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    upload_2021-9-11_21-44-14.png
    Look close toward center /right and you’ll see a bulldozer. They’re disposing of windmill blades. Why bury them? That’s the only way they have figured out on how to dispose of them. Bury them.
     
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  8. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I have heard of this problem. Aren't they made out of something that does not decay, like fiberglass?
    This is second only to pushing photo-degradeable plastic grocery bags on us and then burying them.

    I'm not certain which type of stupid I loathe the most: willful or aggressive.
    Maybe "forced on me" is at the top of the list.
     
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  9. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    There is an aura of widespread concern which I simply cannot understand here. Doesn't almost all of the crap we humans discard out into the environment originate there in the first place? For example, the government "releases" crude oil for general consumption, after taking control of every single barrel brought into our country as well as every single barrel produced here, by confiscating about 20% of it and committing it to the "Strategic Petroleum Reserve". WTH do they do with it? They STORE it: by PUMPING IT INTO THE GROUND! Now if I spill oil into the ground, I may go to jail for that!

    Uranium? There are 6 million TONS of it buried in the Earth. Why hell, we better not go burying any more after it has "worked" for us instead of burning coal, oil, or gas, right?

    Plastic bags, 6-pack ring-tops, plastic of all kinds, is clogging the precious oceans. Why? NOT BECAUSE OF THE PLASTIC, BUT RATHER MANKIND'S STUPIDITY.

    So what is the dastardly problem with burying cut-up wind-generator blades in the earth, if it is non-polluting, produces no poisonous "afterbirth", and does nothing more there than replace original earth?

    How much of this ecological concern is in reality a mania?

    Frank
     
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  10. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    @Frank Sanoica, that's similar to something that I have said before, which is that everything will compost. It might take a couple of millennia, but eventually it will compost.
     
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  11. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Dunno about the blades not having any effect. Formaldehyde was used in the binding process and small amounts can leach into the soil if and when they do break down.
    Formaldehyde is longer in use but I still can’t see why they can’t be ground up and used for something else like plastic being turned into bricks.
     
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  12. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Bobby Cole

    Where would you rather the formaldehyde escape, into the ground, or into the air we breathe, if bricks are "OK"?

    Frank
     
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  13. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Part of the problem (or at least the perception) is that raw materials are gathered from all over, they are synthesized in factories (many of them overseas), then they make their way into the hands of consumers in densely populated areas, and the refuse from that aggregated global process is dealt with locally, where "space to spread" is limited, and in many places is running out. Many people are living at the end of a huge funnel.

    Our county's Board of Supervisors was on the verge of agreeing to be New Jersey's public dump until we fought back. Nobody wants somebody else's trash, for a lot of reasons (appearances and pride being on the top of the list.) We can argue that the stuff will eventually decompose, but until then the raw materials are gathered globally and then dumped in a much smaller geography. The decay rate cannot keep up with the dump rate.

    Regarding the hazardous stuff...I'm a big believer in the Earth's filtration abilities (I've thought of routing my grey water to a dry well to save stress on my septic system.) But it's a matter of concentration, and our system aggregates this stuff worldwide into county landfills.
     
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  14. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    It would seem to me that in the process of recycling the harmful gases could be captured but alas, according to any and all information I have read, as of this very minute there is no suitable solution to the problem that is cost worthy.
    If in the ground, the harmful stuff can leach into an aquifer system and / or prevent plant growth for a very long time but it’s cheap to do. if in the air, we’re also hosed.
     
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