More solar farm

[cowgirl8]

It was less than $200, which from doing a little research sounds low to me.

lol.... he got hosed if he was telling the truth.. People who signed in are under contract to not discuss what they are getting paid. He may be feeling around to see what others are being offered. Our daughter was trying to buy 200+ acres next to the place of ours they are putting panels on. It had been going on for years, before the panel farm, and the guy had just told them he had it under contract to someone else, pre panels... Anywhoot, i told them, call him anyway and if the contract is no longer on, tell him to get the papers in order and buy it... They did, and solar farm hit them up and they signed the lease with them for the total place. They will make payments with half and the other half will go into building a house..a big one. They will never use that 200+ acres...lol.. they will never put any money into it.. They are the lucky ones... Its a crap piece of land and i hated seeing them trying to buy it before the panels but there is nothing to buy to put cows on anywhere and they needed it. The guy who owned it tried to farm it. Was quite the show. He sunk so much money into that place getting rid of brush. Had a bulldozer out there for weeks and the place was still crap. It needed solar panels. They also just bought 80 acres that looks down onto Brushy Creek, beautiful hilly place, they plan to put a house on it.... it will make that payment too... lucky bas%#rds..lol

 

[Lucky]

That's good and I'm happy for them. The guy I talked with just saw a horse saddled in my trailer and started talking, I left thinking surely not.

My problem isn't with anyone that leased to the solar farm, I'd have to consider it too if the money was right. My problem is solar in general. It's not economically feasible, neither is wind or ethanol for that matter. It all has to be heavily subsidized to make it work. Too be perfectly honest I really hate to see any progress in RRC. Guess as I get older and ready to slow down I like a slower pace. There's folks moving in on us from all over. Most are nice but I'd just as soon keep the cattle as neighbors.

 

[callmefence]

That's good and I'm happy for them. The guy I talked with just saw a horse saddled in my trailer and started talking, I left thinking surely not.

My problem isn't with anyone that leased to the solar farm, I'd have to consider it too if the money was right. My problem is solar in general. It's not economically feasible, neither is wind or ethanol for that matter. It all has to be heavily subsidized to make it work. Too be perfectly honest I really hate to see any progress in RRC. Guess as I get older and ready to slow down I like a slower pace. There's folks moving in on us from all over. Most are nice but I'd just as soon keep the cattle as neighbors.

Claiming it inefficient and subsidized doesn't hold water. The oil industry is subsidized and has been heavily subsidized. The fact that the wind and solar industry hasn't been perfected doesn't mean the potential isn't there. Both having the ability to put power to the grid without any fuel source being mined or hauled is a huge potential.
A tiny example is my front gate. Half a mile from a plug. Provides it's on power , reliably and efficient. I am not against fossil fuel. Just for working on other options. If you think a solar farm would be a bad neighbor. Go visit the eastern part of the Texas coast and see what a oil refinery can be as a neighbor........
Just saying

 

[cowgirl8]

It will bring money into the county without bringing in more people.

 

[Silver]

I have read that the cost to produce a kw/h of solar is now less than hydro, and trending lower.
Cheaper and better storage of electricity will be the final piece of the puzzle.
I'm with Fence on this. Not against fossil fuel, I realize we need fossil fuel for the time being, but working on other options is not a bad thing.

 

[Lucky]

Claiming it inefficient and subsidized doesn't hold water. The oil industry is subsidized and has been heavily subsidized. The fact that the wind and solar industry hasn't been perfected doesn't mean the potential isn't there. Both having the ability to put power to the grid without any fuel source being mined or hauled is a huge potential.
A tiny example is my front gate. Half a mile from a plug. Provides it's on power , reliably and efficient. I am not against fossil fuel. Just for working on other options. If you think a solar farm would be a bad neighbor. Go visit the eastern part of the Texas coast and see what a oil refinery can be as a neighbor........
Just

Wind and solar are skewing the playing field and causing heartache on Fossil plants. At the same time fossil plants are aging and shutting down. Investors won't invest in fossil so new plants aren't being built. If this continues rolling blackouts will be the norm in the near future. If renewables were required to replace what they can't provide with peakers it would even the field and fix the reliability problem. Currently renewables are hoping for battery storage which will come and be great but is years away. I've watched wind drop of 10,000 MW in an afternoon. That's enough to power 70,000 homes. Currently gas plants come online to replace this. Problem is you can't just bring a wind farm online when you need extra power. A good running 1,000 MW gas plant probably cost $1.5 billion to build , makes a MW for $16 and sells for say $24-30 on and avg day. A wind farm gets subsidized to build, cost hardly anything to make power and sells for a MW for $50 subsidized. This is just part of the problem. Rooftop solar would be great, 25,000 acre solar farms aren't that great. Wind is better than solar because it doesn't cover as much ground but it's proven unreliable.
Fence, as close as you are to Goergetown I'm sure you know about the disaster they had " Going Green".

 

[cowgirl8]

The other day we drove by the working farm near the big one. There was a severe thunderstorm watch and they had all the panels vertical. I'm guessing that if there is a chance of hail, someone presses a button that makes them all go into storm mode. People wondered what these places do if there is hail... well, now we know.

 

[callmefence]

Wind and solar are skewing the playing field and causing heartache on Fossil plants. At the same time fossil plants are aging and shutting down. Investors won't invest in fossil so new plants aren't being built. If this continues rolling blackouts will be the norm in the near future. If renewables were required to replace what they can't provide with peakers it would even the field and fix the reliability problem. Currently renewables are hoping for battery storage which will come and be great but is years away. I've watched wind drop of 10,000 MW in an afternoon. That's enough to power 70,000 homes. Currently gas plants come online to replace this. Problem is you can't just bring a wind farm online when you need extra power. A good running 1,000 MW gas plant probably cost $1.5 billion to build , makes a MW for $16 and sells for say $24-30 on and avg day. A wind farm gets subsidized to build, cost hardly anything to make power and sells for a MW for $50 subsidized. This is just part of the problem. Rooftop solar would be great, 25,000 acre solar farms aren't that great. Wind is better than solar because it doesn't cover as much ground but it's proven unreliable.
Fence, as close as you are to Goergetown I'm sure you know about the disaster they had " Going Green".

I get my electric from pedernales same as georgetown..no disaster just inconveniences. Some rolling blackouts . Long-term blackouts caused by trees and ice formed on limbs. All problems caused by a 100 year weather event and poor plumbing at experienced gas and nuclear plants. Just because they are finger pointing at wind and solar doesn't work it wind and solars fault.
You want a real disaster...look up deep water horizon or exonn valdez.

Edit to add...water our most precious resource is consumed , brought to the surface from our aquifers and turned into steam in huge amounts by oil and gas production...yes it goes back into the atmosphere.....and goes somewhere else.

 

[wbvs58]

I like what Fence and Silver just said, neither of them are extreme "green" people just down to earth practical realists. Both can see the benefits of further developing solar and wind but not jumping off the cliff and cutting out fossil fuels just yet. This is my view as well.

Ken

 

[504RP]

It's kind of strange in a way that modern day civilization doesn't have alot more options to produce energy than what we have to choose from in this day and time.

Electricity depending on how it is generated in my opinion would be one of the most enviromental friendly source's of energy to use.

They are alot of different methods to generate electricity. Solar energy is one way and as far as I know. It doesn't cause pollution or green house affects, pretty much a 100 % safe method to produce electricity.

All it takes to generate electricity is to move an electric conductor through a magnetic field. So you need motion and a magnetic field to produce electricity.

There are all kinds of motion that can be used to move an electric conductor through a magnetic field to generate electricity.

Wind is used on wind farms to to generate electricity. Water flow can be used to turn turbine generators on a stream or flowing river. Using all of thoes methods mentioned so far are environmentally safe ways to generate electricity.

But instead of producing environmentally safe electricity. Society all across the world has chose to use methods to generate electricity in an unsafe bad for the environment and every living organism that lives on earth.

Societies choice to use fossil fuels and neculer energy to move a electrical conductor through that magnetic field is what is making the use of electricity an environmental problem.

That neculer reactor melt down in Russia at neculer plant Gernoble, probably spelt Gernoble wrong. But I don't care. It is an example like the deep water horizon disaster. I am guessing it will take alot more years than the deep water horizon disasters scars to go away if it is even possible for all the damage each disaster has caused to ever completely recover from.

The neculer reactor melt down in China is another example of a major disaster using an unsafe method to produce electricity.

My personal opinion, I feel pretty strong that there are and have been for generations safe environmentally safe methods that can be used to produce clean safe energy.

Don't get me wrong. I can not even imagine using an electric powered truck to pull my stock trailer instead of using my 5.9 Cummins with its NV4600 six speed transmission. But if it would make the world a better place i would probably go along with it. Maybe !!!

My opinion the real reason electricity is generated using unsafe methods is because of all the money that would be lost to the fossil fuel industries. But even at that I don't understand why we can't have one industry that wants to produce the source of energy ( Environmentally safest engery) that we would all benefit from. Their is a never ending supply of both types of energy. In fossil fuel or electric energy.

So everyone who reads this long winded line of B.S and gets a big laugh out of it. Just keep in mind they just legalized marijuana here in Arkansas and i had a hard day working cows. I had to unwind a little and relax.

 

[Lucky]

In the post above I meant to say 10,000 MW provides power to 7,000,000 homes not 70,000.

Fence, maybe disaster was the wrong term for Goergetown. The city got grants to go 100% green and it was a total failure that cost a ton of money.

I totally agree that wind, solar, hydro, and battery storage are all great options when it comes to producing power. However the public needs to be properly informed of how each plays a role in the bigger picture. Coal plants are dirty and will soon be a thing of the past, Nuclear is just too costly but Combined Cycle Natural gas is a surprisingly clean way to make reliable power. Allot of plants are even using city waste water in the cooling towers and sending it out cleaner than it comes in.

One of the big pushes is to have all battery powered cars in the near future. Elon Musk is the main inovator and even he agrees that there isn't enough power available to support going to 10% EV.

All industries have "disasters" it just part of doing business. Has anyone seen the stack of used up wind tower blades piling up in the desert? Nobody Knows what to do with them.

Not sure if anyone on this board except maybe Fence has filled with diesel at the EZ mart in Hamilton, Tx on a hot August afternoon but standing on that white concrete with no awning will melt you. Imagine living next to 25,000 acres of mirrors on the same day with a good south wind.

Sorry for the long post. I really do believe in innovation and protecting the environment but think we need to be realistic about it and not just try to find something that fits a false narrative. Hope everyone has a good night and a great day tomorrow.

 

[RDFF]

How about if we built our energy farms to look like this instead? Something tells me that it'd make for a whole lot nicer neighborhood. Projects would share generation benefits broadly throughout the whole community, with ALL the landowners getting a piece of the pie, instead of only the "lucky??? few". Farms would likely end up over time naturally migrating back to being smaller again, with more farmers on the land... AND more animals too. Would help to minimize wind and water erosion, wildlife habitat would be created. Small communities would become more engaged with each other again.... "Walmart farming" would be "ostracized"... "Just sayin' " Corn and beans as the only commodities, and being grown as far as the eye can see, isn't as pretty a picture as this, IMO.

 

[cowgirl8]

How about if we built our energy farms to look like this instead? Something tells me that it'd make for a whole lot nicer neighborhood. Projects would share generation benefits broadly throughout the whole community, with ALL the landowners getting a piece of the pie, instead of only the "lucky??? few". Farms would likely end up over time naturally migrating back to being smaller again, with more farmers on the land... AND more animals too. Would help to minimize wind and water erosion, wildlife habitat would be created. Small communities would become more engaged with each other again.... "Walmart farming" would be "ostracized"... "Just sayin' " Corn and beans as the only commodities, and being grown as far as the eye can see, isn't as pretty a picture as this, IMO.

View attachment 3815View attachment 3816

You might ought to see what all goes into one before you start on this one....lol...

 

[RDFF]

Yeah... been there, done that. I was on the advisory board for a wind farm here... so I'm not totally foreign to all the inner workings of energy development. Have been involved with the legislative side of it, and PUC too.

And before anyone assumes that I'm a "naive tree hugger", I "traditionally" had been raising corn and beans exclusively on my farm... now been transitioning into regenerative farming practices and cattle. Many of you I'm sure have seen my posts here before....

 

[cowgirl8]

CBS with Norah O'Donnell Eye on Earth. It was on today. Husband didnt get very much air time, maybe 20 seconds.. I think it comes on again later tonight....

 

[Lucky]

Maybe you can post a link if possible

 

[wbvs58]

He mustn't have said what they wanted to hear.

Ken

 

[Lucky]

Drove through the area the solar plant is going in last Sunday. It will definitely be taking up allot of good ground. I feel bad for the people that live in the town, looked like most won't be getting anything but lower property values.

I was told once completed they will have 7-10 full time employees. One of the guys I work with said he worked at one in California 20 years ago that was owned buy a foreign country and once they got all the govt money they packed up and left it. Hopefully this won't happen.

 

[callmefence]

With only 7-10 employees it sounds like it has the potential to be pretty efficient.

 

[Lucky]

With only 7-10 employees it sounds like it has the potential to be pretty efficient.

Yes..... 1,310 unreliable megawatts on 20,000 acres at a cost of $1.6 Billion and 7-10 employees to run it. The same size modern gas plant would cost $1 billion and take up about 75 acres. The Gas plant would take 20-24 employees and could go from zero to 1,300 megawatts in about an hour. Progress at it's best....Exciting times.