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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (835565)	2/10/2015 11:17:10 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575622

"Whether you cover parking lots, or whether you just use open land, it's the same surface area that is required." When you cover parking lots, you get covered parking lots and open land. When you use open land, you get parking lots and covered land, but no open land, so there is a difference. One can either put them on houses across from open space, or one can have houses across the street from a solar farm. "That's a LOT of solar panels that needs to be manufactured" It is. Also to be installed. Also wind turbines. A real jobs creator. This is what the future looks like, only warmer. Princess Elisabeth Station. Antarctica Running on Renewable Energies Two of the most omnipresent features of Antarctic weather (during the Austral summer) are the wind and the sun. Two renewable sources that provide free energy to the “zero emission” Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. A Mix of Renewable Energy SourcesWhile the sun never sets in Antarctica for one half of the year, it never rises for the other half. This means that, in order to function properly during the Antarctic winter, the Princess Elisabeth Station needed a second source of energy that would be available all winter long. The katabatic winds on the Antarctic continent provided the answer to that issue, as the wind gusts from the plateau are as fierce in the winter as they are in the summer. Nine Wind TurbinesAlong the ridge of the Princess Elisabeth Station are nine wind turbines, installed by the IPF crew to complement the solar installations. Each of the wind turbines is designed to withstand the most vicious storms on Earth. The blades of the wind turbines can close down in the event of a storm, thus reducing the rotating speed in order to prevent any damage from occurring to the wind turbine. Two Breeds of Solar Panels Photovoltaïc Solar PanelsThese solar panels cover most of the surface of the “zero emission” Princess Elisabeth Station and the roof of the technical spaces. The panels feed the smart grid of the station with electricity, while any excess production is stored in the batteries. Thermal Solar PanelsLocated on one side of the roof of the Princess Elisabeth Station, the thermal solar panels are used to melt the snow and heat the water to be used in the station's bathrooms and kitchen. Batteries RoomThe energy-producing solutions implemented at the Princess Elisabeth Station are incredibly efficient, so much so that solutions had to be foreseen for storage of any excess energy. A room full of classic lead-acid batteries enables the station to store energy for times when demands exceeds the current energy production. Backup SolutionsWhile the renewable energy systems that power the station are reliable and continuously checked, even in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, two generators were installed for security and backup. They are also used to provide scheduled full load cycles which are part of the battery bank life performance. In the future, the station's engineering team plans to install hydrogen fuel cells as an additional intermediary backup system. antarcticstation.org

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (835565)	2/11/2015 1:25:59 PM
From: Wharf Rat	1 Recommendation Recommended By bentway Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1575622

"That means to match the generation capacity of one coal-fired power plant (i.e. 1,000 MW, or 1 GW), you need 10,000 acres. That's 5X more land " Are you implying that no land was used in the mining of the coal, and the transportation of the coal to the plant? This study is a bit old; solar is more efficient today. "the land footprint of coal is about 20 percent bigger than the land footprint of solar thermal." Which Has a Bigger Footprint, a Coal Plant or a Solar Farm? Exploding the myth of "Concentrated Energy."—By Ted Nace \| Thu Nov. 18, 2010 2:11 PM EST a reasonable estimate of the annual extent of surface mining, which accounts for 70 percent of US coal production, is 104,000 acres. An additional 15 percent of US coal is produced by an underground technique known as longwall mining, which causes land subsidence. Longwall affects 13,000 acres each year in ways that range from minor annoyance (cracked roads) to major damage (disappearance of streams and ponds). For anyone interested in seeing the full extent of longwall's effects on farms in southwestern Pennsylvania, Terri Taylor's documentary film Subsided Ground / Fallen Futures is an eye-opener. Overall, based on figures compiled by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the years prior to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and by the Office of Surface Mining for the subsequent years, approximately 8.4 million acres of land have been surface mined in the United States. Continuing the current rate of surface mining for the next 60 years would require about 7 million more acres to be surface mined or longwall mined—and that's based on the optimistic assumption that the quality of coal and the thickness of seams does not decline over time. In fact, such a decline is inevitable, based on the tendency to mine the best and most accessible coal first. So 7 million acres is a conservative estimate. motherjones.com