Photos Of Apple's Massive Solar Farm

Must suck on a cloudy week.

But its a good idea, considering that solar power is currently the most cost effective, practical, space efficient, and reliable means of adding power to the grid.
 
Ducman69 said:
Must suck on a cloudy week.

But its a good idea, considering that solar power is currently the most cost effective, practical, space efficient, and reliable means of adding power to the grid.
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PVe's don't stop functioning on cloudy days.
 
Ducman69 said:
Must suck on a cloudy week.

But its a good idea, considering that solar power is currently the most cost effective, practical, space efficient, and reliable means of adding power to the grid.
Click to expand...

Interesting...I've heard a lot of things about how it is significantly less cost effective and practical than wind power.
 
the-one1 said:
Sure beats a coal powered plant any day of the week.
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How so? Coal is the most abundant domestically readily available power source, it is currently the most cost effective means of producing power, the emissions with the exception of very high CO2 output are absolutely excellent since the advent of "clean coal" plants with essentially no pollution of nearby water sources or chemicals released into the atmosphere (particulates and sulfur and the like are all captured thanks to syngas and other processes... you don't actually burn coal anymore), and with new carbon-sequestration designs that are already implemented in three large plants here in Texas even the CO2 output is a non-issue.

And the output of a coal plant (many are well over 3000 megawatts) is actually significant to meeting the power needs of the nation, unlike that giant solar array that couldn't even power a small town.
 
This is ridiculous. It's like mowing down a dense forest just to put up an array of solar panels... oh wait. Normally applause would be in order, but these aren't solar panels placed on top of concrete structures, desert or desert-like landscape.
 
Their land their rules?

I wouldn't waste time on it. When they crack and leak the chems kill anything in the ground. No thanks.
 
Oh and just to give an idea of how completely insignificant solar output is for its cost and land use, please look at the Nellis solar plant in Nevada. Its built out in the desert in the most idealistic of conditions for solar power, is an absolutely mind boggling size using up a ton of land and I imagine costing a fortune to maintain, and at its absolute PEAK efficiency outputs... wait for it... wait for it... 13.5 megawatts of power.

BWAHAHAH!!! So if you had several hundred of those, you could approach the power ouput of our large coal plants. Yeah, that is why this is more a marketing tool and tax writeoff for the company than a practical solution.
 
Maplehamwich said:
What an eye sore!
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Here, I fixed it for you. Now it should be more to your liking.

coal-power-plant-pic1.jpg
 
Solar power is not feasible IMO, it's a huge waste of resources to use right now. Maybe in the future it'll get better.
 
Ducman69 said:
BWAHAHAH!!! So if you had several hundred of those, you could approach the power ouput of our large coal plants. Yeah, that is why this is more a marketing tool and tax writeoff for the company than a practical solution.
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Wasn't it in Iron Man that was said that Arch Reactor was a publicity stunt? I know, totally fictional source of power, but we must look into alternatives for power. Just cause the technology isn't great now, doesn't mean we can't continue to improve upon it. If we don't use it, then how can we?

Solar Power in every home would remove the need to have any coal power plants. I personally like the idea, plus when a tree falls and destroys a power line, you don't need to wait weeks for the repairs to be done. That alone is enough to get me to switch, but solar panels are still too expensive.
 
schizrade said:
But Smoke stacks are BAD. EVERYONE knows that!
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If its a really old plant and for some reason the state hasn't updated it and installed scrubbers and the like, OK, the tall stack actually is spitting out bad stuff... and that's why its tall, it gets dispersed high into the atmosphere thanks to stronger air currents that pick it up.

But the new clean-coal plants that use gasification, its nonsensical to worry about the stacks since its mostly just steam from the steam turbine.

Same thing with nuclear plants, people see the big steam stacks and think its outputting tons of pollution when its just a cooling tower and carries no radiation or anything... water vapor, relax! :D
 
Ashbringer said:
Solar Power in every home would remove the need to have any coal power plants.
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First off, people wouldn't be living in homes because they wouldn't be able to afford them if that were the case. Without massive subsidies (which is just forcing everyone in the nation to pay for the few that use it), solar power would be even MORE expensive than it is already, and sorry but my electricity bill is high enough as it is.

And even if it were affordable, no it wouldn't remove the need for coal plants. Assuming somehow that you could meet the power needs of your home entirely, the cells aren't able to produce anywhere near peak power all the time. I don't know how you would economically build a home to where the solar panels actually followed the sun across the sky for reasonable efficiency, but obviously you aren't going to be producing much power on a week that is full of storm clouds nor at night.

So that means you now have to have a large battery store, and the cost and environmental impact of building and replacing that regularly. Look at how much NiMH packs cost in hybrids, now can you imagine each home owner investing in a larger version of that which can handle just the central AC and vacuum cleaner and gaming computer turning on simultaneously (can happen from time to time) without overloading and tripping the circuit? And you have to replace it likely every 10 years... chaching!

And you don't need to implement inferior solar designs to continue lab-work, and if they want to subsidize R&D I'm not as opposed to that.
 
i dont get why not on top of their building and all over a plot of land?
 
Subsidies, tax deductions, public goodwill, green platform, grid independence, etc... Money on infrastructure is rarely a bad thing for companies that have already achieved that level of success.
 
Marlfox said:
This is ridiculous. It's like mowing down a dense forest just to put up an array of solar panels... oh wait. Normally applause would be in order, but these aren't solar panels placed on top of concrete structures, desert or desert-like landscape.
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Sigh. There has been no dense forest or anything other than agriculture in that area for generations.
 
Ducman69 said:
How so? Coal is the most abundant domestically readily available power source, it is currently the most cost effective means of producing power, the emissions with the exception of very high CO2 output are absolutely excellent since the advent of "clean coal" plants with essentially no pollution of nearby water sources or chemicals released into the atmosphere (particulates and sulfur and the like are all captured thanks to syngas and other processes... you don't actually burn coal anymore), and with new carbon-sequestration designs that are already implemented in three large plants here in Texas even the CO2 output is a non-issue.

And the output of a coal plant (many are well over 3000 megawatts) is actually significant to meeting the power needs of the nation, unlike that giant solar array that couldn't even power a small town.
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LOL. Fucking L^OL.

you don't actually burn coal anymore
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ROFLCOPTER. What is it then? alchemy? Are you a wizard?
 
ianken said:
LOL. Fucking L^OL.



ROFLCOPTER. What is it then? alchemy? Are you a wizard?
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You make yourself look like an idiot, not because you couldn't do two seconds in a google search, but because I already posted not only that its gassified but that its called syngas.

By burning the gas produced by the chemical reaction and capturing the heat produced to drive a steam turbine instead of the coal, you greatly reduce pollution.

Next time, do us all a favor and avoid going full-retard if you don't know what you're talking about.

7986101674_5f77f3a691_z.jpg
 
So I looked up the Nelis Plant and like said earlier it peaks out at 13MW or so and it about 140 acres in size. From the article it says it will generate 20MW on 100 acres and it does state that these panels are more efficient, but according to those numbers the apple panels are generating twice the electricity per acre than the Nelis Plant. Are they claiming newer panels are that more efficient?

The both seem like a waste of space.

We have this plant not all that far from where we used to live:
http://www.we-energies.com/home/MCPP.pdf
It generates 11MW on 15acres and this location was originally build in the 50s though from the description is has been upgraded multiple times. I've ran, biked, and walked my dog at a nearby dog park and never had any air quality issues with it. There is a major hospital complex just south of it.

Seems like a much more practical solution to power generation, but if your Apple you got a shit ton of money to waste. If they don't like the issues with coal then use just natural gas which is plentiful, easy to transport, and not at all hard to get out of the ground.
 
Care to share any of the surplus power there Apple "Who the f#@k do you think we are, Google?".
 
wtf

The hardocp article just shows a blank page when I go to it. I wanna see it!
 
damn no edit button...

Seems hardocp.com's home page is blank for me to. What the eff yo
 
Ducman69 said:
Must suck on a cloudy week.
But its a good idea, considering that solar power is currently the most cost effective, practical, space efficient, and reliable means of adding power to the grid.
Click to expand...

Ducman69 said:
I was making my sarcasm face as hard as I could, guess it didn't translate over text.
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I was hoping that was sarcasm.

It's hare to tell now days as there are so many ill-informed nuts out there.
 
solar on a commercial level is retarded. On a consumer level it is a much better idea. Combining an energy efficient home with solar or wind power is the way of the future, not gigantic solar farms
 
Why don't they find a way to harness the power of an Apple Fanatic's feeling of self-satisfaction? That'll blow the solar array out of the water.

More seriously, though, most other forms of electricity generation are much more efficient, but if solar power is ever going to go anywhere, someone's got to take the plunge to help fund it. Kinda like the early adopter phenomenon PC and hardware enthusiasts go through. Maybe they'll eventually be efficient enough to provide the power people need, even if they don't do it now.

And whatever happened to the methane plant idea, or Nuclear power? I know the nuclear power plants that the US always uses are dangerous, but what about the CANdu reactor model? I've never heard of any incidents with that design, and it's all over the world.
 
Maplehamwich said:
It works for my in FireFox, it's blank in chrome.
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Enable the site through AdBlock and it will work.

ballistic90 said:
And whatever happened to the methane plant idea, or Nuclear power? I know the nuclear power plants that the US always uses are dangerous, but what about the CANdu reactor model? I've never heard of any incidents with that design, and it's all over the world.
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Because Americans are fucking retarded and are afraid of Nuclear power.
 
Ducman69 said:
How so? Coal is the most abundant domestically readily available power source, it is currently the most cost effective means of producing power, the emissions with the exception of very high CO2 output are absolutely excellent since the advent of "clean coal" plants with essentially no pollution of nearby water sources or chemicals released into the atmosphere (particulates and sulfur and the like are all captured thanks to syngas and other processes... you don't actually burn coal anymore), and with new carbon-sequestration designs that are already implemented in three large plants here in Texas even the CO2 output is a non-issue.

And the output of a coal plant (many are well over 3000 megawatts) is actually significant to meeting the power needs of the nation, unlike that giant solar array that couldn't even power a small town.
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-_U1Z0vezw
 
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