Seems the good ole US of A is behind the 8 ball when it comes to implementing renewable infrastructure. I seem to recall Dutch companies being the lead on some of the wind farm projects underway off the North East Coast.
i'm in the dark about wind and geothermal swanson's law is probably positioning solar to make more economic sense renewables are going to help but they have reliability, storage and scale challenge as more intelligent people explore the needed transition, nuclear (SMRs) seem to make more sense for the base energy need i think the US has declining CO2 emissions but we should incentivize and accelerate production of better "green" tech globally there's a large population that are going to need much more energy as they modernize solar will help, especially in certain areas with copious sunshine
Israeli energy company Doral Renewables is spearheading the project, and will sell the power thatâs generated at Mammoth to Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power. Doral is the owner-operator of over 400 energy facilities globally, and has three other projects underway in the US right now
Seems the good ole US of A is behind the 8 ball when it comes to implementing renewable infrastructure. I seem to recall Dutch companies being the lead on some of the wind farm projects underway off the North East Coast.
The transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources is underway, with solar and wind farms popping up everywhere from the UK to China. A new project in the central US will pile on some significant green energy capacity, as the countryâs biggest solar farm starts construction.
The Mammoth Solar farm, as itâs been appropriately dubbed, will be built in a rural area of Indiana about 80 miles south-east of Chicago. Once itâs complete, the farm will occupy 13,000 acresâthatâs equivalent to about 1,000 football stadiums. Distributed throughout that space will be 2,850,000 solar panels, which will generate 1.65 gigawatts of electricity.
How big is that, exactly? Letâs do some comparisons. The biggest solar farm in the world is Bhadla Solar Park in India; it spans 14,000 acres and has a capacity of 2.25 GW. The biggest operational farm in the US is Solar Star in California, which cranks out 579 megawatts (0.58 GW). Mammoth falls somewhere in the middle, but will be almost three time as big as the California farm.
Israeli energy company Doral Renewables is spearheading the project, and will sell the power thatâs generated at Mammoth to Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power. Doral is the owner-operator of over 400 energy facilities globally, and has three other projects underway in the US right now: Goonies Solar in Pennsylvania (so named because of the rocks that litter the piece of land where this farm is going up), Deere Acres Solar in Delaware, and Anthracite Ridge Wind, also in Pennsylvania.
The transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources is underway, with solar and wind farms popping up everywhere from the UK to China. A new project in the central US will pile on some significant green energy capacity, as the country’s biggest solar farm starts construction.
The Mammoth Solar farm, as it’s been appropriately dubbed, will be built in a rural area of Indiana about 80 miles south-east of Chicago. Once it’s complete, the farm will occupy 13,000 acres—that’s equivalent to about 1,000 football stadiums. Distributed throughout that space will be 2,850,000 solar panels, which will generate 1.65 gigawatts of electricity.
How big is that, exactly? Let’s do some comparisons. The biggest solar farm in the world is Bhadla Solar Park in India; it spans 14,000 acres and has a capacity of 2.25 GW. The biggest operational farm in the US is Solar Star in California, which cranks out 579 megawatts (0.58 GW). Mammoth falls somewhere in the middle, but will be almost three time as big as the California farm.
Israeli energy company Doral Renewables is spearheading the project, and will sell the power that’s generated at Mammoth to Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power. Doral is the owner-operator of over 400 energy facilities globally, and has three other projects underway in the US right now: Goonies Solar in Pennsylvania (so named because of the rocks that litter the piece of land where this farm is going up), Deere Acres Solar in Delaware, and Anthracite Ridge Wind, also in Pennsylvania.
Because of the greed of the private sector in this country to sell our technology or have them steal it with the manufacturing with slave labor and their government backing.
We have bigger problems than that with no chip manufacturers in this country as we see today. Major National Security problem with China flexing its muscles.
I saw this on tv a few years ago and itâs the coolest thing to be able to plant in in accessible areas.
there is a tree that has superior carbon capture too empress, i think (there are non-invasive varieties) maybe put some of those in the mix super fast growth and can sequester up to 10x more co2 than other trees
Thank you for this! The Naturschutzbund (German nature conservation society) is a credible source. Birds of prey (and vultures) are the top predators and don't have to look out for others, they look for mice. A massive expansion of land based wind turbines will have its effects on birds (and even will slow the wind down, helped by reforestation).
Thanks for this! Still want to do some math myself.
But do you happen to know if they actually did something new?
The are some thoughts about storing wind energy as H2 to secure energy supply. OK. If you want an uninterrupted supply of 1 wind turbine then, assuming for ease of the calculation that a wind turbine normally only produces 33% of the time (it is a little bit higher than 33% but definitively less than 50%), then you will need 3 turbines if you discard any conversion losses. This extra production has to be stored and batteries are not a real option.
Now factor in conversion losses. Electricity from the turbine -> some synthetic fuel (H2?) -> burn -> electricity. If each step is 90% efficient (quite good) then we have 73%. With 80% (still good) it is 52%. However H2 has its issues so let us convert it to an easy simple fuel (for storage and transport) like gasoline, diesel, or kerosine which you can store as a liquid (e.g. in a simple jerrycan). So an additional step. With 90% you will find 65% overall, and 80% gives 40%. With 90% efficiency the 2 extra turbines require 1 extra turbine, with 80% you will need 3 extra wind turbines. So to secure long term energy of 1 wind turbine you will need 4 to 6 wind turbines. If you don't want the extra turbines (or nowhere to put them), then what do you use? Gas turbines ... (you can switch them on and off when needed, somehow I am not so keen on nuclear).
Sorry but I get horror visions of the north sea (with devastating effects because of the noise for sea life (whales, dolphins), and migrating birds) or landscapes (birds of prey look downward, there was this rare bearded vulture who wandered into the Netherlands who was chopped in half in May).
Agreed that you would need to factor in a high level of redundancy if you want to power the whole thing with wind or PV. Not entirely sure about the environmental impact of wind farms. Totally agree that they are an eyesore. And I know you need to protect offshore farms from scouring, which basically creates a reef around each one. But this might actually be beneficial to local marine biodiversity. Birds it seems, learn the hard way, but learn quite fast.
Agreed that burning fossil fuels to generate electricity to hydrolyze water is at least one stage of inefficiency too many given that refineries routinely use steam reforming methods to make it directly from feedstock.
But the goal is to produce zero-carbon hydrogen, which as I understand it can only come from renewables or nuclear. Not simply as a transportation fuel but also to replace coke in steelmaking. Just looks like we are a zillion miles away from this at present.
We looked at a solar powered hydrolyzer many years ago. It was supposed to be able to power a remote communication relay. The idea was solar in the day, and excess power to make hydrogen that would power a fuel cell overnight. The scale was never there. It wasn't even close. After doing the basic math we walked on the whole concept (we did do solar to supplement battery and generator). That was one of the projects that led me to the belief that the only green future we have is the one that glows. Wind, solar, hydro and conservation are all important components, but there is no true solution to our energy needs without nuclear. Small, standardized, distributed, reactors. Without nuclear, we don't make it to the place where we quit burning dinosaurs. And until we stop doing that, we are just wandering down the path to oblivion (but our cell phones will be fully charged).
Doesn't look like much has changed in the meantime. I remember getting excited about fuel cells 30 years ago, which never made a breakthrough for much the same reasons.
ok, these guys just won an Earthshot prize for this electrolyzer, which got me curious.
Can someone check my math on this?
(schnipp)
Thanks for this! Still want to do some math myself.
But do you happen to know if they actually did something new?
The are some thoughts about storing wind energy as H2 to secure energy supply. OK. If you want an uninterrupted supply of 1 wind turbine then, assuming for ease of the calculation that a wind turbine normally only produces 33% of the time (it is a little bit higher than 33% but definitively less than 50%), then you will need 3 turbines if you discard any conversion losses. This extra production has to be stored and batteries are not a real option.
Now factor in conversion losses. Electricity from the turbine -> some synthetic fuel (H2?) -> burn -> electricity. If each step is 90% efficient (quite good) then we have 73%. With 80% (still good) it is 52%. However H2 has its issues so let us convert it to an easy simple fuel (for storage and transport) like gasoline, diesel, or kerosine which you can store as a liquid (e.g. in a simple jerrycan). So an additional step. With 90% you will find 65% overall, and 80% gives 40%. With 90% efficiency the 2 extra turbines require 1 extra turbine, with 80% you will need 3 extra wind turbines. So to secure long term energy of 1 wind turbine you will need 4 to 6 wind turbines. If you don't want the extra turbines (or nowhere to put them), then what do you use? Gas turbines ... (you can switch them on and off when needed, somehow I am not so keen on nuclear).
Sorry but I get horror visions of the north sea (with devastating effects because of the noise for sea life (whales, dolphins), and migrating birds) or landscapes (birds of prey look downward, there was this rare bearded vulture who wandered into the Netherlands who was chopped in half in May).
