Fighting 'Solar Farm' Installation

[Hay Dude]

Wind, solar and hydro generation produces 20% of US electricity. Wind and solar will account for 60% of added generation capacity in the US this year. Nuclear power plants generate 18% of power with that figure declining rapidly. Five nuclear plants were shuttered in the last two years. Renewable energy is the path we are on.

Well, ya I know that.
Doesn’t mean it’s right.
And as far as the “path we are on”, it doesn’t mean it’s the correct path, or a path that isn’t subsidized with trillions of taxpayer money.

 

[Hay Dude]

It is kinda funny that there is such animosity towards using natural resources to our advantage. Farms used windmills long ago before electricity. We have used hydropower for quite a long time and you hear very few complaints about that.

Of course I think fossil fuels as a natural resource as well. Use it all and any of it if you want.

No animosity from me.
My animosity comes from the amount of that has to be subsidized because it‘s so much more costly to produce and uses a lot of foreign made equipment to produce it.

My state alone sits atop a NG reserve that could power the US for hundreds of years!
Yet we don’t use it to our advantage and continue to import a lot of foreign made equipment to generate American energy.

It is profoundly stupid to do this and subsidize it with taxpayers money, especially when the extraction, transportation and energy generation infrastructure is already in place!

 

[K5lwq]

No animosity from me.
My animosity comes from the amount of that has to be subsidized because it‘s so much more costly to produce and uses a lot of foreign made equipment to produce it.

My state alone sits atop a NG reserve that could power the US for hundreds of years!
Yet we don’t use it to our advantage and continue to import a lot of foreign made equipment to generate American energy.

It is profoundly stupid to do this and subsidize it with taxpayers money, especially when the extraction, transportation and energy generation infrastructure is already in place!

I do not disagree with your point. But I do believe there is validity in utilizing wind and solar power. The cost to utilize it should be a lot less than it is though. If it was done properly the subsidies wouldn’t be a part of the equation. The incentives would come from companies doing what they do best.

I try to stay out of the political side of discussions because it never leads anywhere although I bet my views do not differ much from yours.

 

[walhondingMF]

No animosity from me.
My animosity comes from the amount of that has to be subsidized because it‘s so much more costly to produce and uses a lot of foreign made equipment to produce it.

My state alone sits atop a NG reserve that could power the US for hundreds of years!
Yet we don’t use it to our advantage and continue to import a lot of foreign made equipment to generate American energy.

It is profoundly stupid to do this and subsidize it with taxpayers money, especially when the extraction, transportation and energy generation infrastructure is already in place!

Do we have numbers on how much more it costs to produce? Do those numbers over lap with the costs that all the people in my area spend on cancer treatment because their risk of lung cancer is 15% higher then the rest of the country due to all the coal that WAS (not still) burnt in the area?

I do not know the situation in your state, but there have been ZERO issues in my state and the surrounding state with extracting natural gas. So much so, that the corporations that owned the 3 coal plants within a few hours of my home made a business decision (before the current administration was even an option) to either close them down or convert them to natural gas. The infrastructure is not all still there. There are hundreds of miles of oil pipelines all over the country that are due for repair or replace but companies are fighting over who should pay for it because its not profitable for them (read about the lines that run under the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan).

I am with you on not wanting to buy anything really from China, especially anything related to this topic. What a great way for America to start getting back to manufacturing, which is one of the reasons those subsidies are used. They are the same subsidies that coal and oil companies have received for years. The reasons China is the primary provider of these materials is because they saw how the markets were going to go and made a good economical decision. Now, we are behind.

Also, if you were to look at the trends on the increased use of alternatives, including cleaner natural gas, they were trending up fast long before the current subsidies were put in place. That is because there is actually a market for these options in our country.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

How about this (EPA):
"Propane is an environmentally-friendly choice. While it does emit a low level of carbon dioxide, it's relatively clean burning when compared to gas or diesel. It does not emit sulfur dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, and other wastes. The 1990 Clean Air Act lists it as an approved source for clean energy."
And yet the current administration wants to ban the sale of propane gas stoves!
This $1,200,000,000,000 spending package is insane.

 

[Hay Dude]

Do we have numbers on how much more it costs to produce? Do those numbers over lap with the costs that all the people in my area spend on cancer treatment because their risk of lung cancer is 15% higher then the rest of the country due to all the coal that WAS (not still) burnt in the area?

I do not know the situation in your state, but there have been ZERO issues in my state and the surrounding state with extracting natural gas. So much so, that the corporations that owned the 3 coal plants within a few hours of my home made a business decision (before the current administration was even an option) to either close them down or convert them to natural gas. The infrastructure is not all still there. There are hundreds of miles of oil pipelines all over the country that are due for repair or replace but companies are fighting over who should pay for it because its not profitable for them (read about the lines that run under the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan).

I am with you on not wanting to buy anything really from China, especially anything related to this topic. What a great way for America to start getting back to manufacturing, which is one of the reasons those subsidies are used. They are the same subsidies that coal and oil companies have received for years. The reasons China is the primary provider of these materials is because they saw how the markets were going to go and made a good economical decision. Now, we are behind.

Also, if you were to look at the trends on the increased use of alternatives, including cleaner natural gas, they were trending up fast long before the current subsidies were put in place. That is because there is actually a market for these options in our country.

But we do. And we buy FAR too much from them, and they are hostile towards us. Yet on we go buying transformers, batteries and solar panels from them. Why do we give them our money instead making the equipment here? I mean like 99% here, not 10% or even 50 or 70%.
If taxpayers are paying for an energy production system thats supposed to lead us away from fossil fuels, I’d be on board if:
1. it was American made and created American jobs
2. it did not require massive subsidies to overtake dependable fossil fuels.

 

[two_bit_score]

I do not disagree with your point. But I do believe there is validity in utilizing wind and solar power. The cost to utilize it should be a lot less than it is though. If it was done properly the subsidies wouldn’t be a part of the equation. The incentives would come from companies doing what they do best.

I try to stay out of the political side of discussions because it never leads anywhere although I bet my views do not differ much from yours.

One of the problems with windmills that a lot of people are not aware of is that they have a tremendous concrete base below the surface. So converting a wind farm back from a wind farm is going to be extremely costly in addition to the non-recyclable blades.

I know a family who turned down a tremendous lease for a windfarm on some land in west Texas because of the amount of concrete in the
bases. They had no need of the money so that helped.

 

[tradosaurus]

The parts for that is only $20k. The installer has marked up labor and "system design" by $15k because with the ignorance of the market they can.

Since it would be ground mounted I was wondering how hard it would be to do it myself and then hire an electrician to run the wires to my house?

 

[Hay Dude]

One of the problems with windmills that a lot of people are not aware of is that they have a tremendous concrete base below the surface. So converting a wind farm back from a wind farm is going to be extremely costly in addition to the non-recyclable blades.

I know a family who turned down a tremendous lease for a windfarm on some land in west Texas because of the amount of concrete in the
bases. They had no need of the money so that helped.

What an ugly rape of the land. Talk about destroying ecosystems. That foundation probably took out 5+ acres. Each site is a small “strip mine” adding up to millions of acres filled with concrete.

This “environmentalist” approach to energy transformation has some lies and deceit.

 

[MossRoad]

When the turbine's complete life is over, why would someone want to take the concrete foundation out? That's silly. You can plow and plant right up to the base that's sticking up out of the ground. You'd have about a 20 foot diameter circle that couldn't be farmed. That's a little over 300 square feet. There's over 43,500 square feet in an acre.

So in the big picture, it would take 145 wind turbine bases to remove 1 acre of crop land once the towers are removed.