Given reports that Massey Energy has started blasting away on Coal River Mountain, where environmentalists and local citizens hoped to see a wind farm instead of a strip mine, it’s worth taking a look at what recently happened in another one of these United States …
Today, President Barack Obama is touring Florida Power and Light’s new DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia on Tuesday – the largest photovoltaic facility in the U.S. This comes two years after Earthjustice fought FPL’s plan to build the nation’s largest coal plant near Everglades National Park.
There’s more about this FPL facility here, and background on Earthjustice’s fight against the coal plant here.
According to a statement from Earthjustice:
In June 2007, Earthjustice gathered evidence and experts which helped convince the Florida Public Service Commission to consider the full costs associated with polluting coal plants. It was the first time that global warming played a role in a PSC decision, and the first time in 15 years that state regulators rejected a new power plant.
David Guest, managing attorney for Earthjustice in Florida, said:
Instead of having a dirty coal plant to provide power, we have clean solar energy. It is gratifying to know that Earthjustice helped change public policy and moved our state to more common-sense technology. We are finally putting the sunshine back in the Sunshine State.
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How dare they destroy this Florida swamp land! This natural habitat for many animals is destroyed, all for an inconsistent, ineffecient way to generate power. I say we march!
I really don’t have an issue with alternative energy as long as it makes sense. I’m not saying this project doesn’t, but the link said it is a 25 mw plant built on 180 acres. Scaling this up to say John Amos levels would take about 280 square miles.
MC
Matthew,
I am no expert on solar … so I’m not sure that the math works that way — there may be some economies of scale as you scale up a project like that. I just don’ t know. I’ll try to find out.
On the other hand, as for the issue of whether it makes sense … the depends on whether you are interested in saving the planet from the worst impacts of climate change. You may not be interested in doing that, but most Americans are.
Ken.
Also remember the footprint of the mining and railroad system it takes to keep John Amos huffing away, factors you don’t have with renewables, if your main concern is MW per acre of impacted land.
Also think of the footprint per KW of the constant march of coal trucks on our highway system. Think of the millions of gallons of fuel used in transporting the coal and the wear and tear on our highways.
The footprint of coal is huge no matter which angle you look at it.
Mathew makes a great point, but I have a question about the math-
If Amos is a 2900 MW plant, or 116 x the size of the solar installation. 116 x 180 = 20,880 acres, or 32.6 sq miles. Correct me if I’m wrong, Mathew, but this is about the size of three or four typical Appalachian strip mines with a productive life of 10-15 years?
Going back to Mathew’s point-we need to be very careful about siting solar because of energy sprawl–siting where solar is efficient and making use of rooftops.
I think solar thermal is more efficient w/ respect to land use than PV–Perhaps others know more about this. Here is a link to a 300 MW (180,000 homes) solar thermal project in Spain (currently about 15% complete). I couldn’t get an area calculation.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40204
Keep in mind that biofuels like ethanol are much worse w/ respect to energy sprawl than solar. PV is a more efficient collector of solar energy–by a factor of nearly 10. Add in the energy to make the biofuel and the inefficiencies of internal combustion engines and the ratio gets really, really crazy:
http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog/going-all-electric
Red Desert,
I’m not sure you’ve got that math right, either — you’re saying that three or four typical Appalachian strip mines cover nearly 21,000 acres. If you’re talking about three or four typical PERMITS, that’s not right.
Permits are big, but a 2,000-acre one is still very big, and your estimate would put a typical permit at more than twice that.
Ken.
Hi Ken–
I think my math was OK (I was assuming 5000 acres for a typical MTR mine), but my knowledge may not be complete. I realize that mines are permitted in stages. Hobet 21 is about the size of Manhattan–32 sq miles–or–using the numbers above–about what it would take for a 2900 MW PV facility in FL.
Any help on the numbers appreciated.
Try about a tenth of that, Red Desert.
What’s to argue about anyway? Coal is the original solar panel, much more efficient that todays manmade junk. So I say let’s unearth all the existing panels before we start building new ones.
These MTR permits are individual permits and may have smaller acreage per permit, however many of these permits join together like a huge jigsaw puzzle therefore the acreage becomes huge in cumulative damage. That is one point I believe a lot of people tend to forget.
“Try about a tenth of that”
Olly, can you clarify a bit? Thanks
Red,
My mistake you are correct – I was estimating Amos at 2500 MW but put in one too many zero’s. Thanks for the peer review.
RD
I’m saying a typical strip permit is more on the order of 500 acres. I’ll bet the problem you’re having with your numbers is related to that solar powered calculator you’re using.
Red Desert,
With this being a 25 MW installation and Amos a 2900 MW installation, as you pointed out Amos has 116 times as much nameplate capacity. According to the link posted above the solar facility will generate 42000 MW-h/yr. According to DirtyKilowatts.org, in 2006 Amos generated 20,083,907 MW-h/yr. On this basis Amos would be 478 times bigger than this solar facility which assuming it scales linearly means a solar facility of 86,040 acres or 134 square miles or about 1/4 of Boone county. – Assuming I did the math right this time – Thanks
MC
Mathew–
I wondered when someone would catch that. I guess the sun doesn’t shine all night in Florida after all.
I wouldn’t have caught your comment, but I accidentally clicked back here. I will do some research on area required for PV so we can discuss on a future posting. Of course the area would vary with panel efficiency and geographic location.
Solar is the largest source of energy we have–the earth receives more solar in a couple hours than humanity uses in a year. Collecting the energy in a dense form is the problem.
In the meantime, I found this:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/35097.pdf
Matthew – good job in pointing out the importance of capacity factor. What the numbers show is that the average capacity factor of the 25 MWe (peak at noon on a clear day) is predicted to be only 19%. What I translate that to mean is that the 180 acre, $150 million dollar investment – paid for by both ratepayers and taxpayers – will be idle about 81% of the time on average.
The capital cost for largest solar installation in the US is $6,000/kw if you only look at the peak capacity number, but compared to a generation source that can achieve a CF of 90% (which is a bit less than average for US nuclear power plants) the capital cost is more like $28,000 per kilowatt. That is extraordinarily expensive, especially since the power will only be available at the whim of the weather.
FPL currently operates 4 nuclear reactors and has plans to eventually build two more. With nuclear power, the quantity of fuel required is not zero, but it is amazingly close to that when compared to burning coal. Instead of requiring about 30,000 of tons of coal each day, a station (probably with 2-3 individual reactors) the size of the Amos facility discussed in this thread would require just 50 tons per year. That number could be reduced by a factor of nearly 100 if already proven breeder technology is used. Fission power plants would not release ANY waste gases to the environment and would not require a slurry pond retaining millions of gallons of waste every year.
It is not surprising that the coal industry worked diligently to slow down the development of nuclear fission during the first Atomic Age. Most bullies and dominant industries hate competition.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
Mr. Adams,
I am probably inclined to agree with you that objectively nuclear is the way to go with at least a good percentage of baseline power. However, based on my observations, I don’t think significant new generation will be built anytime soon.
MC
Keep in mind that the solar will peak with demand and peaker plants are generally expensive.
I agree, solar is expensive. Using Mr. Adam’s numbers, a 1-kw , $28,000 system on a roof to provide most of the domestic demand, contributing back to the grid when overall demand (and production) is high, is not a bad investment over 30 years.
Another important thing to keep in mind is this. Adams is talking about processed nuclear fuel–not the much, much greater amounts of raw material that is mined and processed. That mining is very nasty and there is a lot of upstream waste. No one talks about this, but he National Academy of Science’s study Ken linked to cited it as a critical environmental problem with nuclear energy.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/10/19/national-academy-blockbuster-coals-huge-hidden-costs/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/science/earth/20fossil.html
Would you rather be downstream of a coal mine or a uranium mine?
Breeder technology is very dangerous-even the Bush admininstration ended up rejecting it–because the fuel produced can be used in a nuclear weapon. Not exactly what we have in mind by, “too cheap to meter.”
To my mind, all of this means we need to invest in efficiency first and be very careful about the energy choices we make.