Water lily plan for solar power (Scotland)

[jpak]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7390663.stm

Large lily-shaped discs which harness solar power could soon be seen floating on the River Clyde.

The concept, from Glasgow-based ZM Architecture, has been handed to the city council with the hope that a trial project could go-ahead.

The proposal has already won the firm the International Design Awards (IDA) Land and Sea Competition.

Judges were impressed by the idea that energy harnessed on a river could help reduce a city's carbon footprint.

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[dkf]

1. We can do it! All we need is the desire.

[patrice]

2. Looks like about the right scale for small independent investors : - ) nt

[NNadir]

3. I note there are very few posts of this type without the word "could."

I have seen thousands of stupid posts on this website in the last decade that had the word "could" in them.

I wonder if the anti-nuke fundie cult - with its irrational opposition to the world's largest climate change gas free form of energy and its fantasies about "could happen" stuff - recognizes that climate change is not something that "could" be a problem. It is widely known by people called "scientists" that climate change is a problem.

Solar energy, and all other forms of non-hydro (so called) "renewable energy", are trivial forms of energy.

They can't even keep pace with the growth of dangerous fossil fuels.

All the shell games and "could" talk - just as has been true here for years and years and years now -will not put lipstick on this pig.

[msongs]

4. thanks for offering to put a nuke power plant in YOUR back yard :-) nt

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Maybe if you - I dunno - tried reading more of his posts,

you'd see that he in fact encourages the building of lots and lots of nuclear plants right in his home state of New Jersey. Even right in his back yard.

I'll step up to the plate for Vegas, while I'm at it. I'd rather see a nuke plant here than the death of the Colorado River any day of the week!

[kristopher]

6. Why would you put solar in a river in the middle of the desert?

In a city, space is at a premium so the river offers large unused open areas.

In Nevada? Not so much...

Lots of sunshine too.

[Systematic Chaos]

8. And, to repeat what I've already said in this forum more than once:

For the record, I no longer own a car. I use the city's paratransit service to get around due to my health conditions. Because of the nature of the service, my rides are sometimes not directly from point A to point B. I occasionally get to do a bit of "wandering" when the drivers have other pick-ups and drop-offs before my destination. During these periods of "wandering" I do a lot of looking around. My three favorite things to look for are, in no particular order, houses with "for sale signs", solar installations, and the level of activity at local businesses.

As far as the solar installations are concerned, I think I might have seen a couple of solar panels on the roofs of a couple oversized McMansions way down in the Green Valley area of Henderson a couple weeks ago. I may very well be wrong about just what the black objects were on these roofs in question, because it was from a distance of a couple hundred yards. Furthermore, these black objects were visible on only two of the roofs out of about 20 houses I could observe. Other than that, I'm only certain of one other solar installation in the entire goddamn city, and that would be a small facility about a mile from my house, near the corner of Flamingo Road and Swenson Street, on UNLV property.

Big fucking deal. And this while we're running out of water and Lake Mead continues toward historical low water marks.

Lot of good Hoover Dam will do us then.

It's gonna take some reactors to stop this place from turning into a ghost town by 2030. Bank on it.

[kristopher]

9. No it isn't going to require nuclear.

The reason you don't see the solar is because of the availability of cheap hydro from Hoover, duh.

Now if there is a problem with the water supply, (and I'll take your word there could be) there is no reason to jump into nuclear. Since the state isn't keen on dealing with waste I doubt it is a practical consideration anyway.

Did you buy a flat panel LCD TV when they first came out? Most people didn't because of the price. But the price has dropped how much in what period of time?

Why?

Because demand moved money into building production capacity. The reason electric cars, solar and wind languished after the run up of renewables in the late 70s early 80s is because of two factors. One, we shifted electric generation away from petroleum to coal, and two, the price of petroleum collapsed in 86.

Now we have both rising fuel costs and carbon costs to be factored in. This is creating demand which is moving money into production capacity. There is no reason to think any of these renewable technologies will not experience the same drop in prices as the TVs when production capacity comes online.

That's what I'll bank on.

Because of climate change, we may need yet need to add more nuclear, but I believe we should pursue the safest options first. In the long run they are also probably going to be the least expensive. In the case of LV, how much would it help th water situation if you could reduce just the daytime load 80%? It is a perfect place for solar.

Nuclear power in a warming world

Union of Concerned Scientists

Findings and Recommendations in Brief
Global warming demands a profound transformation in the ways we generate and consume energy. Because nuclear
power results in few global warming emissions, an increase in nuclear power could help reduce global warming—but
it could also increase the threats to human safety and security. The risks include a massive release of radiation due
to a power plant meltdown or terrorist attack, and the death of hundreds of thousands due to the detonation of a
nuclear weapon made with materials obtained from a civilian nuclear power system. Minimizing these risks is simply
pragmatic: nothing will affect the public acceptability of nuclear power as much as a serious nuclear accident, a
terrorist strike on a reactor or spent fuel pool, or the terrorist detonation of a nuclear weapon made from stolen
nuclear reactor materials.


Safety problems remain despite a lack of
serious accidents.
A serious nuclear power accident has not occurred
in the United States since 1979, when the Three
Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania experienced a
partial core meltdown. However, the absence of
serious accidents does not necessarily indicate that
safety measures and oversight are adequate. Since
1979, there have been 35 instances in which indi-
vidual reactors have shut down to restore safety
standards, and the owner has taken a year or more
to address dozens or even hundreds of equipment
impairments that had accumulated over a period
of years. The most recent such shutdown occurred
in 2002. These year-plus closures indicate that
the NRC has been doing a poor job of regulating
the safety of power reactors. An effective regulator
would be neither unaware nor passively tolerant of
safety problems so extensive that a year or more is
needed to fix them.

[kristopher]

10. You probably already know all of this

I found this year 2000 article from Forbes on LV's power problems. Even though it is dated it provides good information about the demand and generating structure of LV. You aren't even close to getting all your power from the dam. Predicted 8Gw peal load in the summer daytime by 2015. I suspect that is going to be high, however, as fuel costs will probably eat into the number of visitors.
As it stands, I'd guess that the value of new generation is going to be measured against the price of natural gas rather than the value of the water, but I could be totally wrong. If the market forces remain as they are, solar will probably start popping up as the per unit price drops.
If the electric load is causing excessive use of water (as opposed to downstream demand) or if there is an upstream supply problem that will affect the amount of water available to be used for generation (such as dramatically reduced snowmelt), then a public campaign to push legislators into mandating preemptive action (strong subsidies for solar) might be effective.

Just a thought.


http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/forbes/2007/0312/092.html

[NNadir]

7. I am a strong advocate of nuclear plants in my back yard. I care about my family.

How many coal plants are you willing to have in your backyard?

I am ecstatic about my Governor's recently announced plan to add three new nuclear reactors in my state.

I would gladly support one in my town. The tax revenue alone would be worth it, and maybe they could shut the so called "renewable energy" plant - a trash burner - that operates on Duck Island in Trenton.

It kills.

The existing nuclear plants - which provide 50% of the electricity in my state - have been spectacular performers. I live in New Jersey. If you can provide ONE CASE of any one injured in New Jersey, or any other state in the United States by nuclear power plants over the last year, the last decade, the last two decades, or the last 3 decades you are welcome to do so.

I note, with characeristic contempt, that you have not bothered to consider how many people died in the last two days from coal, gas, and oil powered plants.

My suspicion is that you couldn't care less.