I had my own encounter with the Fake News here in Nebraska. I appeared before the Saunders County Planning Commission to oppose a 500-acre industrial-scale solar installation. (It is not a “farm” by any stretch of the imagination.)
It needed a conditional use permit and the development didn’t comply with the regulations. I made that argument along with a political argument. Nebraska is the Cornhusker state; not the Chinese solar panel state!
I won by a 5-1 vote. DDB stopped OPPD’s $125m development. David defeats Goliath. Again! I think they were shocked.
The Wahoo newspaper (Wahoo is the county seat of Saunders County) covered the story. At least 100 citizens were there. My argument wasn’t even mentioned. The story hardly made sense without a reference to my argument.
Me, being me, complained. No luck.
So even in rural counties where Republicans dominate, the Fake News exists. I suspect that “the powers that be” want the property tax money. I also know that the woman who is leasing her 500 acres is a powerful force in the county.
Lesson: The Masters of the Universe can buy off people. They will get $26m plus in free money from Uncle Sam if this thing goes through. But I’m fighting them every step of the way.
500 acres, 500 acres…how much is that in actual power?
According to GE, which makes the things (as well as conventional gas plant equipment), 1 GW worth of wind power (1000 megawatts) will need about 50,000 acres. So 500 acres should be good for about 10 megawatts. That’s nameplate capacity, on the average, no more than about half of that.
Meanwhile, a 1 GW gas plant needs 13 acres.
Meanwhile, a 1 GW gas plant needs 13 acres.
He’s referring to a solar installation, not a wind installation. And land isn’t the only input.
I don’t see the point of being hostile to particular technologies unless there’s something gruesome about them. What we should be hostile to is providing public subsidies and capital to particular sectors and subsectors. Except in odd circumstances, that’s bound to get you crony capitalism and deadweight loss. Of course, the federal tax code is a compendium of special preferences. Our politicians are awful.
ArtDeco….our energy infrastructure is about to be ripped apart via subsidies, edicts, and prohibitions, largely under assumptions about wind/solar promulgated largely by those who either by those who don’t understand energy very well and/or who don’t really care about anything but political advantage.
The same GE analysis put the land requirement of 1 GW of solar at 600 acres.
Capacity factor of solar depends on where you are; unlikely to be more than 20%. So while it might superficially sound like that 500 acres of solar would be just about equivalent to 13 acres of gas plant, it’s not.
Of course land isn’t the only input, but it’s one that is highly visible to the public in the area of the projected plant.
OPPD, a political subdivision of the State of NE, says the 500 acres will produce 81mw of power. Nothing re: how much standby natgas will have to be built.
I have also sued OPPD seeking to get the contract between it and the developer.
I have info showing that solar is not an efficient use of real estate. Nuke power, of course, is the most efficient. But OPPD shut down its nuke plant.
It is the statutory public policy of NE that electricity be both low cost and reliable. Neb. Rev. Stat. 70-1101. Solar is neither.
@Cornhead, I would have thought that any solar installation that far north is going to struggle to pay out. They must be getting one heck of a lot of incentives and tax breaks. They’re marginal in the desert southwest, where it’s sunny most of the time.
It drives me incandescent with rage that for each Clean Energy subsidy scam some poor little old people have to freeze to death or die of heat stroke because of the energy market distortions imposed by these grifters.
I’ve debated this with successful Managerialist types who love talking about their solar roofs and energy buy-back arrangements; they just do not care.
Sorry we can’t all be there to vote with you.
Keep up the good fight!
Yes, Cornhead, keep on keepin’ on!
Aggie:
I have sued OPPD to see the contract.
It is the statutory public policy of NE that electricity be both low cost and reliable. Neb. Rev. Stat. 70-1101. Solar is neither.
Kind of a silly thing to put in a statutory law. A better law would debar the state and local governments from making grants to commercial or philanthropic corporations – disaster relief excepted – and debar the use of eminent domain for any purpose other than to provide land for the construction of public works.
Art Deco:
Where’s the money in that? 🙂
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I had my own encounter with the Fake News here in Nebraska. I appeared before the Saunders County Planning Commission to oppose a 500-acre industrial-scale solar installation. (It is not a “farm” by any stretch of the imagination.)
It needed a conditional use permit and the development didn’t comply with the regulations. I made that argument along with a political argument. Nebraska is the Cornhusker state; not the Chinese solar panel state!
I won by a 5-1 vote. DDB stopped OPPD’s $125m development. David defeats Goliath. Again! I think they were shocked.
The Wahoo newspaper (Wahoo is the county seat of Saunders County) covered the story. At least 100 citizens were there. My argument wasn’t even mentioned. The story hardly made sense without a reference to my argument.
Me, being me, complained. No luck.
So even in rural counties where Republicans dominate, the Fake News exists. I suspect that “the powers that be” want the property tax money. I also know that the woman who is leasing her 500 acres is a powerful force in the county.
Lesson: The Masters of the Universe can buy off people. They will get $26m plus in free money from Uncle Sam if this thing goes through. But I’m fighting them every step of the way.
500 acres, 500 acres…how much is that in actual power?
According to GE, which makes the things (as well as conventional gas plant equipment), 1 GW worth of wind power (1000 megawatts) will need about 50,000 acres. So 500 acres should be good for about 10 megawatts. That’s nameplate capacity, on the average, no more than about half of that.
Meanwhile, a 1 GW gas plant needs 13 acres.
Meanwhile, a 1 GW gas plant needs 13 acres.
He’s referring to a solar installation, not a wind installation. And land isn’t the only input.
I don’t see the point of being hostile to particular technologies unless there’s something gruesome about them. What we should be hostile to is providing public subsidies and capital to particular sectors and subsectors. Except in odd circumstances, that’s bound to get you crony capitalism and deadweight loss. Of course, the federal tax code is a compendium of special preferences. Our politicians are awful.
ArtDeco….our energy infrastructure is about to be ripped apart via subsidies, edicts, and prohibitions, largely under assumptions about wind/solar promulgated largely by those who either by those who don’t understand energy very well and/or who don’t really care about anything but political advantage.
The same GE analysis put the land requirement of 1 GW of solar at 600 acres.
Capacity factor of solar depends on where you are; unlikely to be more than 20%. So while it might superficially sound like that 500 acres of solar would be just about equivalent to 13 acres of gas plant, it’s not.
Of course land isn’t the only input, but it’s one that is highly visible to the public in the area of the projected plant.
OPPD, a political subdivision of the State of NE, says the 500 acres will produce 81mw of power. Nothing re: how much standby natgas will have to be built.
I have also sued OPPD seeking to get the contract between it and the developer.
I have info showing that solar is not an efficient use of real estate. Nuke power, of course, is the most efficient. But OPPD shut down its nuke plant.
It is the statutory public policy of NE that electricity be both low cost and reliable. Neb. Rev. Stat. 70-1101. Solar is neither.
@Cornhead, I would have thought that any solar installation that far north is going to struggle to pay out. They must be getting one heck of a lot of incentives and tax breaks. They’re marginal in the desert southwest, where it’s sunny most of the time.
It drives me incandescent with rage that for each Clean Energy subsidy scam some poor little old people have to freeze to death or die of heat stroke because of the energy market distortions imposed by these grifters.
I’ve debated this with successful Managerialist types who love talking about their solar roofs and energy buy-back arrangements; they just do not care.
Sorry we can’t all be there to vote with you.
Keep up the good fight!
Yes, Cornhead, keep on keepin’ on!
Aggie:
I have sued OPPD to see the contract.
It is the statutory public policy of NE that electricity be both low cost and reliable. Neb. Rev. Stat. 70-1101. Solar is neither.
Kind of a silly thing to put in a statutory law. A better law would debar the state and local governments from making grants to commercial or philanthropic corporations – disaster relief excepted – and debar the use of eminent domain for any purpose other than to provide land for the construction of public works.
Art Deco:
Where’s the money in that? 🙂