I hope Cerro County rejected the project. at this point, if solar is installed on the roofs of existing buildings, I think it can probably add some value, but the idea of a solar field as a thing seems incredibly stupid
In the case of using roof area of existing buildings, though, one might do nothing more than solve a terrible land use problem by amplifying issues of fire and extreme storm safety. Permitting has real value in some cases.
Behind the meter solar on rooftops is second best, I think, but behind the meter also raises rates for all classes of ratepayers because with less utility service each unit of consumption costs more. The best use would be off-grid in places where running utility power is quite expensive.
I strongly agree. Solar has no place as a major component of grid-scale generation, as in California with 22,444 MW as of 01 15 26 per CAISO. Solar power is parasite power, because it cannot function at grid scale by itself since it lacks the ability to generate reactive power or synchronous grid inertia.
As the mid-day April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout demonstrated, a grid can have too much solar to maintain grid frequency stability. Solar only makes sense for niche applications such as powering LEDs for illumination and signage. It also works for the International Space Station because the cost of bringing up fossil fuels and the required oxygen is so exorbitant.
Nicely done. Hope the county turned down the application. The question I have, is that since it’s no longer 2021 when the lunatics were in charge, doesn’t everyone know that besides being a part time energy source, solar takes up vast amounts of land?
That we need to prove that natural gas is preferable to a part time energy source which kills birds, devours arable farm land, and destroys our landscapes still boggles the mind. But, then again, it’s never easy to argue with ideology, especially with ideologues that have no understanding of basic scientific concepts.
Devouring arable farm land is a feature not a bug for our misanthropic overlords. As their minion Kissinger stated: "To control the energy supply is to control the nation, to control the food supply is to control the people". One thing these rent seeking elites despise is a World of plenty. Especially plentiful energy & food. Using these devious means to create shortages = wealth, power & control for these psychos.
This is the Malthusian, misanthropic globalists at work, infiltrating our governments, municipal, state & federal pushing the UN Agenda 2030, SDG goals. Using their power of money creation, the ultimate power to promote their agenda. Destruction of the middle class, a feudal socio-economic system. Usufructual land ownership. Trump has done a lot to reverse their efforts in the US but the agenda marches forward most everywhere else, including in State administrations.
It’s going to necessitate a buildout of gas infrastructure to accommodate the larger volumes of gas that need to get from point a to b and that infrastructure will benefit everyone
Absolutely, I have been hearing that the USA is going to run out of oil and nat gas since the 1st oil embargo back in 1973. There will always be the occasional spike in prices, but time and time again, the phrase "high prices cure high prices" plays itself out, and before you know it, we have surplus/glut.
The huge footprint of solar is one of my main objections, right up there near the top of the long, long list of reasons to quit subsidizing solar. Thank you for sharing this.
Wheat and corn to eat or power for data centers and AI? The ethanol industry in Chuck Grassleys district might not like all their corn fields being covered in solar panels. Better to put them on the ski mountains of New England it never snows there…wait…when the panels are covered with snow they don’t work so well…what is an enviro to do!!?? You can’t mask this level of stupidity up.
Yep, it has been a ride for this dumb mechanical engineer to swallow the theft of trillions of Y(OUR) dollars into the hands of a few, many CCP members, over a total Potemkin Village.
Given 10mW nameplate wind turbines as standard, with a real (intermittent) ouput average of about 3mWH per turbine, land use for wind energy must be even greater - maybe ten times that of solar.
Agreed. However, the solar cells don't have the low-frequency sound problem (disputes over it started in Germany, I think) or the avian hazard problem that characterize wind turbines. I've also seen crop damage from turbine facilities "upgrades" in Illinois, allegedly without compensation to the farmer. In New Mexico older 1MW towers were destroyed so that newer 6 or 10MW towers could be put up (all in aid of replacing a tribally owned coal generation facility). No farm land was affected in the latter case, only National forest.
And since wind is unpredictable, there's no way of planning around the direction of hazard from an operating turbine. Farm work and pasturing just don't work this way, and crops are worked when it is time, not when the wind doesn't blow.
Unlike solar farms, most wind farms do have the towers far enough apart that the land can be used to grow row crops. It's a bit more tricky because for farm worker safety, you have to plant, cultivate, and harvest those crops without endangering the hearing & health of the worker. That means either feathering the turbine blades to a stop, or doing that work when there is too little wind to make power.
Usually they want to fence in the wind farms and keep everyone out, especially those who attempt to count all the dead birds and bats. And in colder areas the blades can ice up and throw deadly ice missiles hundreds of yards from the turbines.
The area i'm most familiar with is southwestern Ontario. The wind turbines set up to capture the fairly steady wind across Lake Erie are all on farmland, because the lake shore summer cottages are too valuable to displace. The farmers lease the land for the turbine tower base, plus an access road to either an investor, or to Ontario Hydro, the local electric utility.
A significant fraction of the farms in that region also have jack pumps in one or a few fields to harvest oil or natural gas. Those feed into an undergroundG pipeline, so they don't need an access road once they've been built. Farmers get royalties from the oil or gas based on the volume pumped from each well on their property. This sort of dual-use agriculture and energy was alreasy a thing those farmers were familiar with when the provincial government wanted to build near-shore wind turbines.
Yes, that was crazy, Dalton McGuinty went to a Bilderberg meeting and came back and enacted their Green Energy act which paid outrageous prices for low grade wind & solar power from13-45 cents/kwh, several times what much cleaner nuclear was costing, and in a grid that was already one of the lowest emissions in Canada. In fact the wind & solar increased emissions.
After selling Ontario power consumers down the sewer he got a cushy patronage job in Europe as a reward, after he got booted from office.
The figures on land use effect on CO2 are quite remarkable as well. I saw a study that said the average land effect of solar and wind in Europe is 40-70g/kWh of electricity. Solar's official number is about 30, and with other considerations like the heat island effect where its dark colouring absorbs sunlight that would have been partly reflected, the real world CO2 effect of solar could be well over 100g/kWh, perhaps even close to 200 or more
I think CO2 costs have been greatly exaggerated, but with natural gas at 500g/kWh, there's no justification for building solar over cropland, adding land use CO2 to its own production
Also they've been using phony theoretical numbers based on European data for the embodied emissions in the solar panels. Whereas in fact most are made in China, where the embodied emissions from actual real world data are much higher than that claimed. Pushing solar close to the emissions level of CCGT. And then add to that the inevitable overbuild/curtailment effect that occurs as solar & wind grid penetration increases. Same embodied emissions but lower energy output.
The only place I can see solar panels are as "roofs" in parking lots. Seems a good use of what is an ugly thing anyway, so killing two birds with one stone.
I helped build the CPV Towantic CCGT plant in CT. It was 805MW on 26 acres. It had dual fuel capability (Aka a 1M gallon oil tank) and utilized Air Cooled Condensers (ACCs). Both of which are not typical with CCGT's, and of course, they take up more land. Your calc's used 500MW/56 Acres or about 9 MWs per acre, whereas Towantic has proven that a nat gas plant's energy density can be as high as 31MW/Acre. Put that figure in your formulas and see how much worse solar is. https://www.power-technology.com/projects/cpv-towantic-energy-center-oxford-connecticut/
The last major coal plant built was the Prairie State Generating Plant in Illinois, supercritical, super clean emissions, water discharge met municipal water standards.
It takes up ~500 acres for 1600Mw(net), or ~ 3 MW per acre making coal about 10X more "energy dense" than solar
Note: the 500 acres above is for a very generous power island, (probably could have fit it in <400 acres if we had too), the adjacent ash disposal area adds another 500 acres
I hope Cerro County rejected the project. at this point, if solar is installed on the roofs of existing buildings, I think it can probably add some value, but the idea of a solar field as a thing seems incredibly stupid
In the case of using roof area of existing buildings, though, one might do nothing more than solve a terrible land use problem by amplifying issues of fire and extreme storm safety. Permitting has real value in some cases.
I don't disagree, just trying to find any sensible use of solar
Behind the meter solar on rooftops is second best, I think, but behind the meter also raises rates for all classes of ratepayers because with less utility service each unit of consumption costs more. The best use would be off-grid in places where running utility power is quite expensive.
I strongly agree. Solar has no place as a major component of grid-scale generation, as in California with 22,444 MW as of 01 15 26 per CAISO. Solar power is parasite power, because it cannot function at grid scale by itself since it lacks the ability to generate reactive power or synchronous grid inertia.
As the mid-day April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout demonstrated, a grid can have too much solar to maintain grid frequency stability. Solar only makes sense for niche applications such as powering LEDs for illumination and signage. It also works for the International Space Station because the cost of bringing up fossil fuels and the required oxygen is so exorbitant.
Nicely done. Hope the county turned down the application. The question I have, is that since it’s no longer 2021 when the lunatics were in charge, doesn’t everyone know that besides being a part time energy source, solar takes up vast amounts of land?
I think that’s much more common these days. Looking at it from an acres of accredited capacity is new though
That we need to prove that natural gas is preferable to a part time energy source which kills birds, devours arable farm land, and destroys our landscapes still boggles the mind. But, then again, it’s never easy to argue with ideology, especially with ideologues that have no understanding of basic scientific concepts.
People will pay a lot of money for “free” stuff!
Especially when they’re spending someone else’s money!
Devouring arable farm land is a feature not a bug for our misanthropic overlords. As their minion Kissinger stated: "To control the energy supply is to control the nation, to control the food supply is to control the people". One thing these rent seeking elites despise is a World of plenty. Especially plentiful energy & food. Using these devious means to create shortages = wealth, power & control for these psychos.
Agree 💯
This is the Malthusian, misanthropic globalists at work, infiltrating our governments, municipal, state & federal pushing the UN Agenda 2030, SDG goals. Using their power of money creation, the ultimate power to promote their agenda. Destruction of the middle class, a feudal socio-economic system. Usufructual land ownership. Trump has done a lot to reverse their efforts in the US but the agenda marches forward most everywhere else, including in State administrations.
Just wish folks in New York etc would wake up and actually look seriously at energy.
Good luck!
Of course i do. Just like ag exports help farmers
It’s going to necessitate a buildout of gas infrastructure to accommodate the larger volumes of gas that need to get from point a to b and that infrastructure will benefit everyone
ET’s decision shows companies understand they can make a lot of money serving domestic demand all on their own without an export ban.
We’ve been increasing exports for years and HH has remained low. The cure for high prices is high prices.
Absolutely, I have been hearing that the USA is going to run out of oil and nat gas since the 1st oil embargo back in 1973. There will always be the occasional spike in prices, but time and time again, the phrase "high prices cure high prices" plays itself out, and before you know it, we have surplus/glut.
Does anyone really think that acres and acres of solar cells is better for the environment than acres and acres of trees?
Only those developers who profit from it because of the subsidies.
Yes, every D in America, and that can be 45% to 60%, depending on what state you live in.. of course, the MSM and academia also believe in it too
Yeah, but the msm and academia are PAID to believe in it.
If it’s not dispatchable it’s not capacity.
Amen
BINGO. to make it dispatchable, it needs to add expensive battery storage
The huge footprint of solar is one of my main objections, right up there near the top of the long, long list of reasons to quit subsidizing solar. Thank you for sharing this.
Wheat and corn to eat or power for data centers and AI? The ethanol industry in Chuck Grassleys district might not like all their corn fields being covered in solar panels. Better to put them on the ski mountains of New England it never snows there…wait…when the panels are covered with snow they don’t work so well…what is an enviro to do!!?? You can’t mask this level of stupidity up.
Starve? Haha
Indeed corn ethanol is an even stupider source of energy than wind & solar.
Yep, it has been a ride for this dumb mechanical engineer to swallow the theft of trillions of Y(OUR) dollars into the hands of a few, many CCP members, over a total Potemkin Village.
Wow. Hadn't seen those figures before.
Given 10mW nameplate wind turbines as standard, with a real (intermittent) ouput average of about 3mWH per turbine, land use for wind energy must be even greater - maybe ten times that of solar.
Anna is on the mark here. It’s about the amount of land taken out of productive use. The turbines don’t take up as much land with the bases.
Agreed. However, the solar cells don't have the low-frequency sound problem (disputes over it started in Germany, I think) or the avian hazard problem that characterize wind turbines. I've also seen crop damage from turbine facilities "upgrades" in Illinois, allegedly without compensation to the farmer. In New Mexico older 1MW towers were destroyed so that newer 6 or 10MW towers could be put up (all in aid of replacing a tribally owned coal generation facility). No farm land was affected in the latter case, only National forest.
And since wind is unpredictable, there's no way of planning around the direction of hazard from an operating turbine. Farm work and pasturing just don't work this way, and crops are worked when it is time, not when the wind doesn't blow.
Unlike solar farms, most wind farms do have the towers far enough apart that the land can be used to grow row crops. It's a bit more tricky because for farm worker safety, you have to plant, cultivate, and harvest those crops without endangering the hearing & health of the worker. That means either feathering the turbine blades to a stop, or doing that work when there is too little wind to make power.
Usually they want to fence in the wind farms and keep everyone out, especially those who attempt to count all the dead birds and bats. And in colder areas the blades can ice up and throw deadly ice missiles hundreds of yards from the turbines.
The area i'm most familiar with is southwestern Ontario. The wind turbines set up to capture the fairly steady wind across Lake Erie are all on farmland, because the lake shore summer cottages are too valuable to displace. The farmers lease the land for the turbine tower base, plus an access road to either an investor, or to Ontario Hydro, the local electric utility.
A significant fraction of the farms in that region also have jack pumps in one or a few fields to harvest oil or natural gas. Those feed into an undergroundG pipeline, so they don't need an access road once they've been built. Farmers get royalties from the oil or gas based on the volume pumped from each well on their property. This sort of dual-use agriculture and energy was alreasy a thing those farmers were familiar with when the provincial government wanted to build near-shore wind turbines.
Yes, that was crazy, Dalton McGuinty went to a Bilderberg meeting and came back and enacted their Green Energy act which paid outrageous prices for low grade wind & solar power from13-45 cents/kwh, several times what much cleaner nuclear was costing, and in a grid that was already one of the lowest emissions in Canada. In fact the wind & solar increased emissions.
After selling Ontario power consumers down the sewer he got a cushy patronage job in Europe as a reward, after he got booted from office.
The figures on land use effect on CO2 are quite remarkable as well. I saw a study that said the average land effect of solar and wind in Europe is 40-70g/kWh of electricity. Solar's official number is about 30, and with other considerations like the heat island effect where its dark colouring absorbs sunlight that would have been partly reflected, the real world CO2 effect of solar could be well over 100g/kWh, perhaps even close to 200 or more
I think CO2 costs have been greatly exaggerated, but with natural gas at 500g/kWh, there's no justification for building solar over cropland, adding land use CO2 to its own production
Also they've been using phony theoretical numbers based on European data for the embodied emissions in the solar panels. Whereas in fact most are made in China, where the embodied emissions from actual real world data are much higher than that claimed. Pushing solar close to the emissions level of CCGT. And then add to that the inevitable overbuild/curtailment effect that occurs as solar & wind grid penetration increases. Same embodied emissions but lower energy output.
Great piece boys, there must have been some new funding released because there there has been a flood of solar will save the world posts on LinkedIn.
The only place I can see solar panels are as "roofs" in parking lots. Seems a good use of what is an ugly thing anyway, so killing two birds with one stone.
That is true but those installations, what the EIA calls "Distributed Solar" have lower capacity factors and much higher generation costs.
Sorry you mixed up your “green energy” boondoggles. Bird killing is for the windmills. ;)
Ha Ha! You never know....
When the math be mathing!
I helped build the CPV Towantic CCGT plant in CT. It was 805MW on 26 acres. It had dual fuel capability (Aka a 1M gallon oil tank) and utilized Air Cooled Condensers (ACCs). Both of which are not typical with CCGT's, and of course, they take up more land. Your calc's used 500MW/56 Acres or about 9 MWs per acre, whereas Towantic has proven that a nat gas plant's energy density can be as high as 31MW/Acre. Put that figure in your formulas and see how much worse solar is. https://www.power-technology.com/projects/cpv-towantic-energy-center-oxford-connecticut/
Thanks Colin!
As an FYI...
The last major coal plant built was the Prairie State Generating Plant in Illinois, supercritical, super clean emissions, water discharge met municipal water standards.
It takes up ~500 acres for 1600Mw(net), or ~ 3 MW per acre making coal about 10X more "energy dense" than solar
Note: the 500 acres above is for a very generous power island, (probably could have fit it in <400 acres if we had too), the adjacent ash disposal area adds another 500 acres
This is great info. Keep it coming!
"Lunch has been canceled due to lack of hustle"
- Heavyweights
Nobody’s seen more butts than you uncle Tony!
So much has been written about wind and solar, all true. This article precisely identifies the most pressing problem.
We will promote Energy Bad Boys.
allaboutenergy.net (closing soon - unresolvable cost and technical problems )
johnshanahan.substack.com/ (replacement, 2026, being uploaded with content)
Thanks!