Another day, another solar fight in GD

[XemaSab]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3795876&mesg_id=3795876

[phantom power]

1. Benign.

Benign, I say!

[MineralMan]

2. When They Benign the Benignue!

Sorry. I'm punch drunk this afternoon.

[CreekDog]

3. Xema, when you say development plans include "blading"...

does blading mean to denude all ground cover and level ground?

when a development of this sort is say, 10 square miles, is the amount of areas to be "bladed" that size?

to me if that is indeed the plan, it is a disaster in the making. the scale of these projects, if they include "blading" by this definition would create a moonscape in terms of habitat and wildlife out of big swaths of desert.

but is that really what would happen?

i'm curious your take on this. :hi:

[XemaSab]

4. It would be a total moonscape, yes

:(

[phantom power]

5. However, the moonscape will be benign.

[CreekDog]

6. if you consider living on Mars to be benign, then yes

nothing would kill anything because nothing would live there in the first place after it was destroyed.

[phantom power]

7. Oh, I was making a funny.

[CreekDog]

8. or there's that

:rofl: :pals:

[phantom power]

12. I'm a big believer in the healing power of laughter

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. But, what about the old saying…

"It only hurts when I laugh!" (Ouch!)

[XemaSab]

9. Life on Mars got cancelled

:(

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Or… (perhaps) postponed…

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. However, at some point, you must consider the alternatives

For example, let's max the solar development out. Build a 100 mile square of solid panels, with nothing to interrupt them; complete and utter devastation in that 10,000 square miles. (No, that's not exactly what it would be, I'm talking about a worst-case scenario here.)

In return, you can shut down every single coal plant, every single nuclear plant, every single hydro-electric dam in the country. You can put a serious dent in greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/myths.html#1

…

Myth 1: Solar electricity cannot serve any significant fraction of U.S. or world electricity needs.

PV technology can meet electricity demand on any scale. The solar energy resource in a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply the United States with all its electricity (about 800 gigawatts) using modestly efficient (10%) commercial PV modules.

A more realistic scenario involves distributing these same PV systems throughout the 50 states. Currently available sites—such as vacant land, parking lots, and rooftops—could be used. The land requirement to produce 800 gigawatts would average out to be about 17 x 17 miles per state. Alternatively, PV systems built in the "brownfields"—the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation's cities—could supply 90% of America's current electricity.

These hypothetical cases emphasize that PV is not "area-impaired" in delivering electricity. The critical point is that PV does not have to compete with baseload power. Its strength is in providing electricity when and where energy is most limited and most expensive. It does not simply replace some fraction of generation. Rather, it displaces the right portion of the load, shaving peak demand during periods when energy is most constrained and expensive.

In the long run, the U.S. PV Industry Roadmap does expect PV to provide a "significant fraction of U.S. electricity needs." This adds up to at least 15% of new added electricity capacity in 2020, and then 10 years later, at least 10% of the nation's total electricity (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/gen/fy03/30150.pdf">PDF 674 KB). …

While you're at it, consider the current devastation associated with strip mining coal!
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/25/124622/152

Solar land use: less than coal

Nevada Solar one is a better and smaller neighbor than a coal mine

Posted by Gar Lipow (Guest Contributor) at 12:13 AM on 26 May 2008

Every now and then, one hears complaints about solar energy: "But it takes too much land!" "An entire Idaho!" "Three Californias!"

http://www.acciona-na.com/About-Us/Our-Projects/U-S-/Nevada-Solar-One.aspx">Nevada Solar One takes up about 400 acres, mostly for mirrors and heat engines. You would have to mine about 5,300 acres to feed a coal-fired powered plant producing the same amount of electricity. Even acre for acre, I'll take Solar One's pleasant campus over a coal mine.

…

Let's face it, we're looking at a possibility of mass extinction, not just in 10,000 square miles of desert, but over the entire face of the planet…