Solar power farm at Wheal Jane · AditNow Community

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viewer
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-11450372

Planning permission granted for 5000 2 metre high panels on over 7 acres at Wheal Jane.

At full tilt they are expected to generate enough electricity to power up to 300 homes. If that's the future for UK power generation, we might have to start re-colonising the Empire just to have enough space to power a few kettles.

:ban: :guns: :curse: :thumbdown:

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simonrl
51% (Neutral)
Administration

15 years ago

7 acres... 300 homes... that's a fair bit of acreage per house 😮

my orders are to sit here and watch the world go by

viewer
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

if there is 25,000,000 households in the UK, it would require 580,000+ acres (going at a highly unlikely full tilt) to power the UK.

'Learning the ropes'

scooptram
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

just think of the fun the local kids would have lots of targets to throw stones at! looks like they are turning cornwall into a power station with the above ,wind turbines (waste of space) and the wave hub thing (think its broke again the boats back!)

Tezarchaeon
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

I think I'd prefer them to just leave the tailings dam there to be honest... what a load of rubbish.

derrickman
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

just highlights the basic problem, which is the overall constraints of any sort of green energy - ie the basic arithmetic is complete bollix.

Plus they are usually unable to produce power when it is most needed.

as far as actually producing industrial-scale power they don't even warrant consideration. We're not in Kansas now, Toto.

but the greens and fluffies don't want to know any of this, because it doesn't suit their pre-determined conclusions.

''the stopes soared beyond the range of our caplamps' - David Bick...... How times change .... oh, I don't know, I've still got a lamp like that.

rufenig
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

Solar power site near Stoke.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire

Solar panels will be fitted on up to 1,000 homes in Stoke-on-Trent.
The city council has signed a £4m agreement with energy provider E.On to put the panels on council and privately-owned houses.
The first panels will be installed on 54 council properties over the next few months.

Also one near Shrewsbury
http://www.shrewsburychronicle.com/2010/09/30/60m-solar-farms-plan/

Five hi-tech solar farms will be created near Shrewsbury in a £60 million pound renewable energy scheme to help power thousands of homes, if ambitious plans get the go-ahead.
The five farms near Westbury, nine miles west of Shrewsbury, have been earmarked for the solar research project which will see each site benefit from £12 million investment and transform them beyond recognition.[i]🅱

Dolcoathguy
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

Have they cracked the economics?
Last debates I saw a few years ago reckoned the panels(electrical type) would possibly need replacing before they had paid for themselves.
Of course as Electricity becomes more expensive the payback time is reduced however the lifetime of a given design of solar panel is a bit of an unknown as well, especially in a region with a rather variable climate.

Is it safe to come out of the bunker yet?

ChrisJC
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

The whole argument depends on your perspective.
The economic argument is whether there's money to be made, and with the benefit of subsidies and obligatory feed-in tariffs, clearly there is.

However, that is to miss the point.

If the sum of energy production over its lifetime is more than the sum of energy consumption for construction, maintenance and decommissioning, then the project is of benefit to the planet.
It is this point to which answers are very thin on the ground.

I once visited an exhibition of vendors of such green technology, and I asked them all for figured for the 'embodied energy' in their products, so I could make a judgement if they would really save the planet.

Nobody knew.........

People are focussed on the economic argument, and greenwashing the environmental argument.

To the detriment of the planet.

Chris.

Knocker
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#10

With a FiT of 42p per kWh, we'd best brace ourselves for some serious hikes in power bills if these projects go ahead on the scale proposed. The total cost per kWh to the consumer will be nearly 60p per kWh. There are plans at present to build approximately 400MWH of installed capacity in Cornwall, that is more than the demand for electric in the county, as well as this there will be approximately 150MWH of installed wind shortly (Wind attracts a lower FiT of 24p /kWH). So we'd best pray for some sunny windy days.

The big issue with solar is the land requirement, all the sites proposed in cornwall except Jane are greenfield, the land requirement is approximatly 1500Ha, all prime agricultural land, ths will impact food production, so look forward to higher food bills as well!

stuey
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

#11

Well done those who got it passed through. They stand to make a lot of money out of it and it's all forward thinking, sustainable, yada yada. Cornwall leading the UK in combatting climate chaos......

Photovoltaics don't make any sense, not even in the Sahara. Having said, if it makes some jobs and I'm not paying for it, that's fine.

Crazy crap and I don't know what the instigators of the project were thinking of, apart from money and glory. The outcome will for sure be a bigger joke than putting the inhabitants of Baldhu on exercise bikes driving a big alternator....