Vast solar panel footprint produces only 350 MW electricity on a sunny day. Covering 3300 acres of prime farmland which could produce 5000 tonnes wheat annually worth $1.67m USD and feed a lot of people
A few days ago, a 3,300 acre solar power plant in Texas suffered major hail damage. This was a plant so new it was still under construction. The Fighting Jays solar project started generating in 2022, but was not expected to be fully complete until the end of 2024. In theory it was supposed to last for 35 years.
It is so large they boasted that it covers 2,499 football fields (like that is a good thing). Despite the vast footprint, it was rated at only 350 MW. At noon at peak production it could generate about half of what one forty year old coal fired turbine makes all day every day, and every night too.
Collecting low density energy is more expensive than the wish-fairies might think.
At an average construction price of $1 million per megawatt the project likely cost about $350 million dollars. In order to rebuild it, they will need to remove and dispose of the broken panels, so it may cost even more.
The Fighting Jays solar farm was insured against hail damage. Presumably insurance premiums will be rising.
Locals are worried about the possibility of contamination with heavy metals, plastics and other chemicals in the local water supply. Hopefully they won’t leave it all there to rot.
On the plus side, the hailstorm reduced some pollution of the Texas energy market.
In Australia, and I imagine everywhere else too, hail will destroy every solar farm within 20 years and the same timespan will see the obsoletion of every wind turbine. I imagine Windscreen O’Brian can tell you about average hailstorm incidence. But with between one third to three quaters less population to pay for replacment, it is all looking like a very steep silppery slope to stoneageville.
Well, guess what. I am a dinasaur and I like stone age. Another seven months and my own private stone age will be replete with 21st century technology where this is considered a desirable luxury. If it dies on me, I really don’t care. Those of us who were around in WWII, or who lived in debris following cyclones and earthquakes, already know how to survive.
Those who dread the appocalapse need to get off their arses and make sure the coal fired power stations and coal mines are kept functional because if you don’t, then survival after 2045 will be tenuous at best.
We have always been told that everything about the US and particularly everything in Texas is the biggest and best. But is it?
Big is not always a good thing. I myself am a small man but I believe I am more of a man than many big fellows that I know and have known. I have also known numerous big, fit and healthy looking people who died at the age of 50 or there-a-bouts.
Ha Ha Ha! This video made my day. So good to see the folly of fragile glass solar panels exposed to the forces of nature. I mean who didn’t see this coming? Coal and nuclear power stations don’t fear hail or tornadoes!
“OH how terrible BUT it is RENEWABLE”
Of course it’s renewable. Get another 3300 acres of solar panels from China every time it hails. Too easy. lol
When is some genius going to put solar panels on top of all the electric cars, if there are one billion people left on earth after SEERS-2025â„¢, TurboCancerâ„¢, M-poxâ„¢ etc., each survivor with a car, that is several billion square metres of panels in total with energy source connected directly to the user. Maybe we could create some genius by splicing Einstein’s genes into Elon Musk’s brain and implanting several NeuraLinks and then when the current was turned on maybe he would be smart enough to think of this idea.
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OH how terrible BUT it is RENEWABLE>>>>when will the majority of people wake up…. and recognise that these PV’s and “windmills” ARE NOT at all renewable. and the destruction of really renewable farmland is unconscionable behaviour by our Peoples representative>>>> who are these people that give the OK for this kind of ,…….