cutting down the trees for...

[LowKey]

Saw a disturbing site on my way home yesterday. Rural road, lots of trees, hundred year old forests, then a cleared swath, looked like about 10 acres freshly bulldozed flat down to the clay. Thought it was another new housing development. Nope.
Solar farm. Ten acres of trees felled and the land scraped to clay to put in a solar power collector out here in the sticks. I'm sure there will be a chain link fence around it too.

If this is what the alternative energy industry thinks is acceptable, it makes me angry. More and more unbuildable land is going to fall to this. Buy cheap land that doesn't perk, instead of conservation land, gotta make it "profitable." Wait for it. Less trees. More heat sinks.

Why not just build solar farms along already cleared power lines.
Or put it on tops of buildings in the CITY. I was at the top of the Prudential tower recently and you could count the number of visible solar panels on one hand. Can't spoil the penthouse views you know. No, you have to cut down a tree-covered mountainside in MY rural neighborhood.

/rant

[hunter63]

I am sure Black Elk would agree with you:

"A long time ago my father told me what his father told him, that there was once a Lakota holy man, called Drinks Water, who dreamed what was to be; and this was long before the coming of the Wasichus. He dreamed that the four-leggeds were going back into the earth and that a strange race had woven a spider's web all around the Lakotas. And he said: "When this happens, you shall live in square gray houses, in a barren land, and beside those square gray houses you shall starve." They say he went back to Mother Earth soon after he saw this vision, and it was sorrow that killed him. You can look about you now and see that he meant these dirt-roofed houses we are living in, and that all the rest was true. Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking".

Wasichus was a term for the white men.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Black_Elk

[ClayPick]

And the added energy supplied to the grid? About as much as a fart in a hurricane.

[crashdive123]

For so many, it boils down to NIMBY. They think YOU should live a certain way........as long as they are not inconvenienced with the visual pollution that they call progress.

[hunter63]

Ever notice that each new subdivision and shopping complex is named after what the destroyed to build it?
Whispering Pines?.....Not any more, ......Babbling Brook Mall?....Now concrete ditch and Genarica....

[Rick]

It's a bit more complicated than that too. Building them along power lines would be okay if the folks building them were the power company. That's not always the case so they own neither the land nor the right of way. Building them on the top of buildings is a huge investment that won't ever pay for itself because it's too small of an area. It's economics. Would you rather have had another Walmart or a shopping center? At least sustainable energy can replace fossil fuel generators built along waterways. That land can then be reclaimed for nature.

Around here both solar and wind generation is a combination of power company and other private companies. Our airport just completed the world's largest solar farm. It's 75 acres. That's 75 acres of land that won't be farmed. It's owned and operated by a Taiwanese company. But offset that with the coal that won't be burned, that land that won't be dug up to mine the coal and the farm's surplus power is purchased by the local power company that doesn't have to build more generators.

[LowKey]

Ok then cover parking lots with the things. Saves on snowplowing. There are a few of those around here. We also have them built alongside power lines by the people who own the land the power company liens on. Can't really do anything else with it anyway.
There are alternatives for using solar collectors as windows too. And thin film technologies make plastering the sides of sky scrapers an option as well.

You may not be mining coal but you still have to mine stuff to make solar panels. Not that they are a large part of the market share but Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide cells and Cadmium-Tellurium cells require some pretty exotic minerals. According to wiki it takes 1000 tons of copper ore to realize 1kg of Tellurium. Typical Silica-based cells have thickness and efficiency drawbacks.

If no one cares that the land is ripped up, sterilized, continually sprayed with weed killer, fenced and turned into a hot glass field then that's the way it will be. Happy hiking.

[Rick]

If no one cares that the land is ripped up, sterilized, continually sprayed with weed killer, fenced and turned into a hot glass field then that's the way it will be. Happy hiking.

I think you just took it to the extreme. No one said or inferred that. Is there no room in your world for a balanced approach to renewable energy? Using your method...if you want to continue to scar the earth and pollute the air with fossil fuels then that's the way it will be. Happy hiking.

[Wildthang]

They could just be made to buy already cleared or barren land for solar farms, one simple law would fix that! I hate to see trees destroyed, to many have been destroyed already!

[kyratshooter]

How about putting all those empty medians on the millions of miles of interstate to work? I am sure that in most areas there is enough SQ/FT area to provide power for each small town along the highway in the sunny regions of our nation.

I feel they are still stalling on the technology made available to the public. It is still too expensive and too fragile, and our appliances still suck too much power for the services they provide.

One of the things I noticed lately, since the Kalifornia drought spurred shame photos of movie stars' greenery around their mansions, was that a few of them had actually covered their dwellings with solar panels and gone to decorative desert vegetation before the laws kicked in. I was a bit surprised at that.

Unlike some others I am not sent into raging grief when a tree is cut. Most of our eastern woods is second growth trash wood anyway and selective cutting is one way to control disease and wildfire.

Besides, they are not cutting down YOUR wilderness. They are cutting down private land which you do not have access too. You just drive past that spot on your way to the publicly owned land you hike and camp on.

[Wildthang]

How about putting all those empty medians on the millions of miles of interstate to work? I am sure that in most areas there is enough SQ/FT area to provide power for each small town along the highway in the sunny regions of our nation.

I feel they are still stalling on the technology made available to the public. It is still too expensive and too fragile, and our appliances still suck too much power for the services they provide.

One of the things I noticed lately, since the Kalifornia drought spurred shame photos of movie stars' greenery around their mansions, was that a few of them had actually covered their dwellings with solar panels and gone to decorative desert vegetation before the laws kicked in. I was a bit surprised at that.

Unlike some others I am not sent into raging grief when a tree is cut. Most of our eastern woods is second growth trash wood anyway and selective cutting is one way to control disease and wildfire.

Besides, they are not cutting down YOUR wilderness. They are cutting down private land which you do not have access too. You just drive past that spot on your way to the publicly owned land you hike and camp on.

Yeah Kyrat now that its too late, and have been shamed, they are finally trying to conform! The next ten years will be interesting to see what happens in that state!!

[Phaedrus]

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...

[LowKey]

Not an extreme. It's what those farms are. Concrete and sterile. I'm not into fossil fuels either. No where have I supported Big Oil.
But like usual, we'll just run head first into solar or wind, and forget about quality of life for a while when viable alternatives to clear cutting and concrete crap are already available. It's far easier of course to just take a spot of land and put up solar panels. Retrofitting the existing damaged environment costs too much. We've already ruined that part. Let's start on another. And so it goes.

So we should stop harping on the burning of the Amazon so farmers can grow their crops too?
Those aren't my trees either.

[Solar Geek]

Solar installations are, as Rick said, big bucks. I totally agree that cutting down the trees, willy-nilly, for this seems to make no sense. But there are the other factors (some mentioned above) that enter into the picture.

Low Key and Hunter, the problem with locating them on old abandoned properties or the highway medians are the IDIOTS who will throw rocks, vandalize, or otherwise render inoperable a very costly investment. Just as stupids throwing rocks from bridges onto cars on interstates caused most states to have to retrofit bridges with wire fences to prevent such idiocy, installing and the maintaining the panels from damage and theft would be cost prohibitive where you are suggesting.

Brownfields areas (areas in cities where blight has hit or there were hazardous wastes deposited and now capped) would seem to be the logical placement for these large or small solar farms. But since the equipment is so expensive, most private and public companies don't want the risk, liability and headaches.

We have a 10KW solar system for our homestead. Cost will be completely paid back in 9 years from installation (so about 6 more years). That is a long-term investment for me - I am sure it is a long-term investment for most companies. It seems it would be hard to justify it if I also had to worry about anything other than Mother Nature destroying it for me.
JMHO

[finallyME]

How about putting all those empty medians on the millions of miles of interstate to work? I am sure that in most areas there is enough SQ/FT area to provide power for each small town along the highway in the sunny regions of our nation.

After watching Joe Salatin, every time I drive past the overgrown medians, I wonder about how to use that as grazing land. In Kuwait, the city doesn't cut any grass. Local herdsmen run their herds of goats and sheep over all the medians and side of the highways. Anyways, just thinking out loud.

[Phaedrus]

I don't know much about the technology but I expect that solar panels will eventually become part of most houses. Especially as Tesla starts cranking out the batteries.

[tundrabadger]

I don't know much about the technology but I expect that solar panels will eventually become part of most houses. Especially as Tesla starts cranking out the batteries.

I'd love to get some on my place...price needs to come down some before I do, mind

[Faiaoga]

I don't know much about the technology but I expect that solar panels will eventually become part of most houses. Especially as Tesla starts cranking out the batteries.

I am no expert, but I think that right now a lot can be done with building codes and other incentives to use solar energy in a low tech way. I suggest that schools, restaurants, hospitals and other facilities that need hot water be encouraged to have solar water heaters as part of the initial design

[Rick]

It's like everything else, as technology improves and competition increases the price will go down. The day will probably come when homes are electrically self sustaining using clean technology. Even hydrogen cells for the home are getting cheaper. If you figure they serve as an air conditioner, furnace and power source all in one they aren't crazy expensive today.

[Phaedrus]

Yeah, prices will come down as technology matures, and when economy-of-scale kicks in. Again, stuff like Elon Musk's Gigafactory are going move the needle in a big way. And really this stuff makes a lot of sense. There's always somewhere on Earth the sun is shining, the wind is blowing and waves are moving. It's ridiculous to burn up non-renewable fuels when there's virtually unlimited reserves of renewable energy. And it's easy to see the benefits to the kind of folks that hang out on a survival forum! This site may be dedicated to wilderness survival but there are a lot of members into prepping and self sufficiency. Solar and wind power are great tools to help folks get off the grid or at least mitigate the impact of disruptions of that grid.