Panel Installation Nearly Complete at Apple's Massive North Carolina Solar Farm

[ThunderSkunk]

Solar is great. Ten years ago you could still make an argument that it was lossier and dirtier than the alternatives, but, not so easy today.

However.

North Carolina? Where you have regular cloud cover and have to tear down a forest to do it...

vs

Reclaim disused property in the desert, whose macrobiotic crust is ruined anyway, w/360+ days of sunshine per year.


Seems like kind of a weird choice.

 

[thasan]

Then hydroelectric power generation much seem too gimmicky to you as well. What is the point of commenting on a subject(s) [Heat Transfer and many more] you know nothing about, other than to stir the implied political pot?

Seriously, I don't see a lot of people questioning the internal combustion engine and it's paltry 20-25% engine efficiency, but solar arrays are getting critiqued constantly for not surpassing 50%.

Mm... I have a degree in mechanical engineering and a phd in renewables...and yes, I make research grade solar cells.... They are not the most gimmicky, wind turbines are. But still, solar cells, 'in my opinion' are not the way forward.

And please don't assume I support internal combustion engines over solar cells. Every sensible engineer knows about their efficiency and limit. Hydroelectricity is not too gimmicky to me. I was voicing my opinion, not assuming what someone else 'might have in their mind'

 

[Craigy]

We continue to find more oil every year as well. Planting more trees puts more land under tillage.

I'm only talking about this in context - that is that if 10 acres were cleared for the array then plan 10 acres on some land that could do with the trees on to stop soil erosion etc... The following 'rant' is not directed at you BTW

I sort of consider myself fairly green I have a PV system, live off mains water and sewerage and do my bit wherever I can but I know it's a difficult balancing act, there is no black or white, just shades of grey.

For the people who are bleeding-ege eco warriors on this form complaining about the loss of trees and raping mother earth - I suggest they turn off their computers and breed some pigeons to handle their communication needs...

I does wind me up a little...sorry. It is - almost - impossible to live in a 'civilized' society without some give and take environmentally. In this PV array's case - I think the logic and ethics are good... but thats only my opinion

So before anyone else starts complaining about large PV arrays I suggest:

1) Check your car efficiency and journeys
2) Sort out your own collection of water and waste
3) Buy locally wherever possible
4) Be nice to everyone and try and be a little hypocritical now and then.. it won't do you any harm.

 

[RappleRapple]

Solar panels work even under cloud cover.

Their efficiency can be reduced depending on how cloudy it is. But something tells me Apple has this figured out.

 

[Puevlo]

Waste of space. Just use a fossil-fuel power station. Much more efficient.

 

[oliversl]

Impressive

 

[wizzerandchips]

They should build a solar farm in an arid, life-less desert

Yea like Saudi Arabia...which consumes huge a amounts of its own oil to power their oil fired stations...when they have areas so large to fill with solar panels!... Could even export electricity...and no trees to cut down either

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But how to run the cables all the why from North Africa? The US deserts re fragile environments not lifeless.

It is all relative compared to coal this is very good.

Do it wirelessly

 

[ihuman:D]

When people use the word green, they're talking about the energy produced, not the equipment. Some anti-renewable guys hedge their arguments by saying, welllllll you had to manufacture a solar panel which has toxins and what not, so can't reallllly be called green per sayyyy. If you use that logic, nothing can ever be called green.

And a natural gas plant is used by a utility for baseload generation or as a peaker to cover a city. It's not used by a corporation to cover the tiny load of a building. Apple's not gonna build a nuke plant or a natural gas plant or a coal plant. It's not a utility or a corporation that sells electricity to utilities. It's a consumer electronics corporation that's trying to make use of the land they own to offset as much of its load as possible by using renewable energy.



Do you know what the alternative is? It's destroy 100 acres somewhere else to extract fossil fuels. Then in X years after that area is depleted, pick another 100 acres somewhere else to destroy. Repeat every X years. So destroy one area vs destroy multiple areas. And you're advocating destroying multiple areas.

Finally, a smart person!

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Yes it is. Trees are renewable resources and so is solar. You can re-plant tress easily for the ones cleared for solar farms.

Exactly.

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I've said this time and time again:
Only those with vast sums of wealth (companies who need to be PC and have disposable income etc) can afford to go "green" or "self-sustaining" or "renewable". Otherwise it doesn't pay off because the cost of doing so is so high. The return will never materialize for small guys/homeowners like me.
It's going to be like this for at least the next 150 years because nuclear power has once again become the unnecessary pariah when in fact it's the one thing that could solve so many problems.
Solar power, wind turbines, they do not pay off in the long run except if you can afford them (vast sums of disposable income) or if you can afford to offset the inefficiency with larger and larger installations.

And create them too. Anyone remember Chernobyl? There's a list here. And around WW2 when countries were experimenting with nuclear bombs underground they caused damage to metals etc. that made them less durable.

 

[ihuman:D]

Yeah, but solar farms don't poison everything around them for 10,000 years when things go wrong.

Another good point.

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Waste of space. Just use a fossil-fuel power station. Much more efficient.

You won't be saying that in 10 years when you can't go outside without an oxygen mask...

 

[nickgri]

roof

Why in gods name did they not at least put some on the roof??? It is insane that they did not design the building to have solar panels on the roof. They already took out the trees for the building footprint why not use it for the panels as well???

I agree-at least a good portion of the roof could have been used.

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I am puzzled as to why the solar panels are not raised high enough to make space for say raised garden beds underneath them-having some shade sure allows for better growing conditions in hot climates. They could capture runoff rainwater to water the beds and have food for the workers and local stores.
Not my idea of intelligent design.

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People keep ranting about how they will never get the return on costs to make solar power but somehow they ALWAYS forget to include the costs of health problems from fossil fuels, the costs of war from oil and the toxic hazards and costs of cleanup from disasters-add THESE into the equation and the costs far outweigh the oil and coal and nuclear options.

 

[damir00]

You won't be saying that in 10 years when you can't go outside without an oxygen mask...

You're about half a century too late with doomsaying - air in North America is noticeably cleaner today than it was 30-40 years ago - you've got the wrong trend.

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Fuel Cell = size of a trailer, small output that easily matches the load of a non-industrial building

A fuel cell - of that design - is just a natural gas plant with really good branding.

 

[JAT]

Hey, Hey! Thats stupid talk!
Bringing that up is like bringing up what we're supposed to do with the tons and tons of battery chemicals in all these super-awesome non-selling electric cars thats being forced down our gullets.

You may want to check history, first.

Toyota made some electric cars a decade ago, then stopped suddenly, mainly due to supply issues, which I think were mainly due to bickering over patents. (sound familiar?) They had just finally begun selling to the public, and all cars sold easily. There weren't that many, and I don't think they ever left CA. When these old models are put up for sale, they generally sell in days if not minutes. Actually, they wouldn't even sell them at first, lease only. And then they started denying renewals and destroyed vehicles instead of allowing people to use them. Kinda the opposite of forcing them on you, wouldn't you say?

Tesla just began shipping their first production-level electric vehicle and if the company stopped selling today it would take them 2 years to build all the pre-sold units. And they are helping Toyota restart its EV line, as well. Elon seems determined.

Among govts, only CA has supported EV vehicles, I hardly think that is "forced down our gullets". Ok, the Federal govt extends their "green" rebates to such cars, but they've done little else.

 

[Liquorpuki]

A fuel cell - of that design - is just a natural gas plant with really good branding.

Sure it is. And a Harley is just a bicycle with really good branding

Apple's fuel cells aren't even being powered by natural gas. They use biomass

 

[jmpnop]

So it's ok to knock down tress for solar panels.....

Its okay for Apple to knock down trees for solar panels

 

[Atomike]

In discussions like these, there is a common indisputable truth:
1). People who are anti-nuclear and pro-solar display that they have no real understanding of physics, the electrical grid (specifically storage capacity and base-load use), or statistical relative dangers.

Put simply, these people are uneducated and rely on myth for most of their over-arching opinions on pretty much everything. If you are one of these people, I would encourage you to have a single conversation with anyone who knows anything about how the electrical grid actually works, followed by anyone who didn't fail 10th grade physics. You'll change your mind instantly.

 

[mdog]

A lot of waste

Apple is planting well over 100 acres of trees on its properties, a net win.

Planting trees inside a campus is not the same as contiguous 100 acres. To sustain wildlife you need contiguous land. It takes about 20,000 acres to sustain one cougar and more for larger animals like grizzly. That's why in places like CA with their state animal as a grizzly they have extremely few grizzly left. They cut up the land too much.

Plus photovoltaic is highly inefficient and there have been few improvements over the years to increase that. Solar thermal is about 5-6x more efficient and has higher EROEI but because the manufacture of photovoltaic is currently cheaper probably because of the highly subsidized Chinese manufacturers they go with the cheap route. Not optimal.

Also, they could have covered the roofs of the facilities with these things and had covered parking but it doesn't look like they did. Another waste.

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In discussions like these, there is a common indisputable truth:
1). People who are anti-nuclear and pro-solar display that they have no real understanding of physics, the electrical grid (specifically storage capacity and base-load use), or statistical relative dangers.

Put simply, these people are uneducated and rely on myth for most of their over-arching opinions on pretty much everything. If you are one of these people, I would encourage you to have a single conversation with anyone who knows anything about how the electrical grid actually works, followed by anyone who didn't fail 10th grade physics. You'll change your mind instantly.

Exactly. We need balance and nuclear is extremely clean and statistically extremely safe. People have this "Jaws" fear factor where they think it's so dangerous because every 20+ years there is an incident. Well, look how many people's lives have been downgraded by nuclear accidents vs. carbon based emissions and it's no contest. More people have died and health degraded from the latter by far. And it's guaranteed it will happen. Nuclear only when an extremely unlikely accident happens.

And for all the shark haters, we've killed off 70% of the worlds shark population so far. 99% of them harmless to man. I think a few chomps here and there is more than warranted retribution if they had feelings.

 

[damir00]

Apple's fuel cells aren't even being powered by natural gas. They use biomass

Sorry, not true in any meaningful sense. They're using fuel cells from Bloom. The fuel for these cells is natural gas and will, in Apple's case, be *augmented* with a bit of methane captured from landfills.

It is grossly grossly misleading to say these are powered by "biomass".

There's nothing wrong with what Apple is doing, but to cloak this as being green in any meaningful way is ridiculous. They're building a giant-ass building that will suck up a giant-ass lot of energy and produce a giant-ass lot of waste byproduct - that's just reality. Could they do it a worse way? You bet - and they do deserve kudos for not doing so.

 

[mdog]

Rooftop solar pannels are far too expensive to physically support and maintain, especially in a snow climate.

You could use some of that energy to warm a slightly pitched roof to let it run off as water instead of collecting.

 

[mdog]

I know it's fashionable to hate Greenpeace but if not for those annoying s h i t disturbers there'd be no ozone layer, no whales and the French would still be dumping 50 gallon drums of nuclear waste into the ocean. They single-handedly lead the charge on every one of those issues and won. So unless you consider dumping barrels of radioactive waste into the ocean "green" then yes, they have actually done a lot of good.

Disagree. There are plenty of other ethical conservationists that made these things happen. Greenpeace are just a bunch of media seeking terrorists that are higher than mighty about themselves.

There are a lot of whales but some that are overfished are dangerously low in population so we would still have a lot of whales, just some species that we would want to protect more aggressively. Honestly I don't get why they need to eat whale as it doesn't taste that great. Over the next generation it will phase out naturally. We just need to protect the endangered species.

Dumping nuclear waste in the deep oceans may or may not be the best approach because we don't know what goes on down there that affects the whole world's ecosystem but from a nuclear physics standpoint it makes total sense because water naturally kills off radiation quickly while cooling it so the effects of the spread of nuclear particles that manage to escape the barrels is minimized. Guess why they use water in the reactors and place nuclear reactors along the ocean?

And yes I'm a conservationist and believe in minimizing our adverse effects on the earth but the end goal doesn't justify the means. Greenpeace = thugs that get us nowhere with public opinion on conservation.

 

[mdog]

Unfortunately a lot of people on this forum only watch FOX news though

FNC is actually a good counterbalance to every other network which believe it or not actually does lean left of center or extremely left. Just don't watch it only and don't listen to half of what Hannity says as he's the Rachel Maddow of the right and you should discount half of what she says too. Not watching FNC is actually doing yourself harm by making yourself exposed to only progressive kool-aid.

 

[StyxMaker]

They should build a solar farm in an arid, life-less desert

There is no such thing as a lifeless desert.

 

[mdog]

Yeah, but solar farms don't poison everything around them for 10,000 years when things go wrong.

There has been one incident like that with Chernobyl where there was extreme negligence in the operation of the plant as they didn't give a rats a55 about safety. 3 Mile Island released the amount of radiation external to the plant that you and I receive from rocks and soil in a year. Fukushima is in between that but each time you learn things and get better.

Nuclear haters are just like shark haters and airplane haters, they don't have a rational reason for fearing it but they do.

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First Solar has a 550MW solar farm built in the US. I work on a current 20MW being built and it spans over 500Acres. We use a I beam system of installing 10's of 1000's of posts and connecting rails. The panels slide into the rail and your done. We don't affect or touch the earth below the panels what so ever. When the farm/If the farm gets decommissioned. We just yank all the steel and recycle it all and it goes back to agriculture practices.

Ag

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Don't be fooled, the panels are very active in moonlight and twilight conditions.

It's a shame there aren't more solar thermal plants being planned as its way more efficient than PV and it doesn't produce the same poisonous elements as PV panels as it's mostly mirrors.

 

[shulerg]

I wonder if they can be controlled to all focus and reflect on a certain point.

Maybe Steve wanted his own Blofeld-type laser weapon?

 

[Liquorpuki]

Sorry, not true in any meaningful sense. They're using fuel cells from Bloom. The fuel for these cells is natural gas and will, in Apple's case, be *augmented* with a bit of methane captured from landfills.

It is grossly grossly misleading to say these are powered by "biomass".

Go look at this form Apple filed with the PUC. Under energy input, what's checked? Biomass. What's not checked? Natural gas. Further down what is Apple's NG input into the facility? 0

NG is a fossil fuel. If they were using NG, there's no way Apple could claim they were 100% renewable

 

[Ugg]

In discussions like these, there is a common indisputable truth:
1). People who are anti-nuclear and pro-solar display that they have no real understanding of physics, the electrical grid (specifically storage capacity and base-load use), or statistical relative dangers.

Put simply, these people are uneducated and rely on myth for most of their over-arching opinions on pretty much everything. If you are one of these people, I would encourage you to have a single conversation with anyone who knows anything about how the electrical grid actually works, followed by anyone who didn't fail 10th grade physics. You'll change your mind instantly.

The naysayers like yourself, conveniently ignore history in your search for some universal scientific truth about energy.

Three Mile Island
Chernobyl
Fukushima
All the nuclear waste that is lying around waiting for a permanent home
The phenomenally destructive mining practices that are needed to supply the raw product

You ignore the above and all the other historical issues associated with nukes at our own peril.