China Built a 250-Acre Solar Farm Shaped like a Giant Panda

Megalith

Megalith

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There’s a new solar farm in China called the Panda Power Plant that took its name a little too seriously. Apparently, the project is part of a larger effort to raise awareness among young people in China about clean energy. I am pretty sure the photo is just a concept image, but the United Nations Development Program site does confirm “panda-shaped solar plants.”

Most solar farms align their solar arrays in rows and columns to form a grid. A new solar power plant in Datong, China, however, decided to have a little fun with its design. China Merchants New Energy Group, one of the country's largest clean energy operators, built a 248-acre solar farm in the shape of a giant panda. The first phase, which includes one 50-megawatt plant, was completed on June 30, according to PV magazine. The project just began delivering power to a grid in northwestern China, and a second panda is planned for later this year.
 
Please tell me how the solar panels don't do any environmental damage or use massive amounts of land displacing local wildlife from the area yada yada.

Nuclear is still cleanest there is, maybe the USA will actually stfu about oil sands in Canada being toxic while they burn massive amounts of coal and follow Chinas lead
 
So ironically did they chop down 250 acres of bamboo forest to put this in, which is the pandas only food source?
 
shad0w4life said:
Nuclear is still cleanest there is
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Doesn't matter, because each reactor costs $4 billion f'ing dollars. Cost of capital has killed them. Not to mention wind and gas are cheaper.

shad0w4life said:
maybe the USA will actually stfu about oil sands in Canada being toxic while they burn massive amounts of coal and follow Chinas lead
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Coal will be dead in America within 15 years. It's also more expensive than wind and natural gas. Those oil sands aren't much cheaper, but motor vehicles don't run on electricity yet, so they get a reprieve.
 
Just think, if they start doing that here in the USA companies can start charging people to get pictures or names made from them. Imagine a large solar farm in a desert and they move the panels around or change the color of panels each month. People are dumb and would probably pay a solar company a lot of cash to have a picture of their face on there for a month.
Just imagine some alien civilization who has been studying us for thousands of years and one day they look through the telescope and they start seeing huge pictures of people's faces.
 
shad0w4life said:
Please tell me how the solar panels don't do any environmental damage or use massive amounts of land displacing local wildlife from the area yada yada.

Nuclear is still cleanest there is, maybe the USA will actually stfu about oil sands in Canada being toxic while they burn massive amounts of coal and follow Chinas lead
Click to expand...


Did you notice that for 248 acres they're getting a mere 50 MW? That's just pathetic. complete waste of land. I wonder what the actual cost of construction was? cost/MW? I also wonder how much toxic waste was generated to build this many panels?

Nuclear is not clean, but it is by far the best we have. New plants are expensive, but tend to be cheap to operate. Refurbishment is also expensive.

But let's get to the heart of the matter here guys. Nuclear is not failing because it's too expensive. It's failing because of natural gas. They're keeping the cost low to push nuclear out and they're using green energy to do it. Once they've gotten all the market share they can, do you really think they'll keep it cheap? Let's not forget history, natural gas has traditionally been volatile in the price department.

Renewables do not supply constant load. Natural gas turbines make wonderful backup. But the public doesn't see that, they see the windmills and solar panels.

Here in Ontario, we have the clean air alliance, very anti nuclear. They're also heavily funded by enbridge, but they sure don't like to talk about that.

So what's the solution? New reactor designs. Only reason we don't have them years ago is because of irrational radiophobia. It's far easier for a politician to put money into useless windmills than nuclear energy.

The new designs would be far cheaper, more reliable, burn waste fuel and be impervious to meltdown. It's a little like saying that the ford pinto was unsafe so I'm never buying a car ever again. They must all be unsafe if that one was.
 
shad0w4life said:
Please tell me how the solar panels don't do any environmental damage or use massive amounts of land displacing local wildlife from the area yada yada.
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I think the idea is they do less damage than removing a mountain top covered in forest to get to coal, with runoff contaminating the local streams if not the groundwater and that's before any of it is actually burned.

Nuclear is still cleanest there is, maybe the USA will actually stfu about oil sands in Canada being toxic while they burn massive amounts of coal and follow Chinas lead
Click to expand...
Well it's nice and clean as long as nobody fucks up, then it's the dirtiest imaginable for tens of thousands of years. Fukushima still isn't a wonderful place to visit these days. Or hey, it's not always reactor design. We could just store the waste in containers right next to the ocean:

1,800 tons of radioactive waste has an ocean view and nowhere to go

I'm sure they'll never corrode. It's not that I'm anti-nuclear, it's that even small mistakes can turn into nightmares that never go away. I think you have a lot more faith in humanity not fucking up than I do.
 
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Geef said:
Just think, if they start doing that here in the USA companies can start charging people to get pictures or names made from them. Imagine a large solar farm in a desert and they move the panels around or change the color of panels each month. People are dumb and would probably pay a solar company a lot of cash to have a picture of their face on there for a month.
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Imagine if they just put solar panels, or solar water heating panels on roofs of houses instead... However there's not much money to make in that for anyone except the people doing the installations.


I seem to recall about 10 years ago they wanted to require that new housing developments have solar panels on them to off set their energy costs. Developers bitched and moaned up a storm saying they'd add an extra $20k to the cost of the houses for the buyers! All the while happily giving them custom interiors that easily doubles the cost of that, and we're talking houses that today are easily $800-$1M+.
 
for some reason, that panda looks photoshopped onto the landscape.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So ironically did they chop down 250 acres of bamboo forest to put this in, which is the pandas only food source?
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Pandas are a shitty animal that should just die out, those pos barely live, hell you gotta force em to fuck at this point we just need to lie them die. Pandas are not adorable they are shitty bears ruining the names of good bears.
 
dear business insider:
no, i will not turn off my ad blocker. i can get the content 2500 other places that do not block me from content because i have an adblocker (many of which i disable so i can support them).
 
Not only does it have a lazy eye but does that look more like Po, of the KungFu Panda series or is that just me?
 
It's all good. Before they put the Panda Farm there, there were some farmers trying to live on that land. Those farmers, before they were shot/jailed, were doing bad things like farming and breathing and polluting with CO2. Now it's better. Thanks, China!

(Okay...maybe that didn't happen.)
 
bigstusexy said:
Not only does it have a lazy eye but does that look more like Po, of the KungFu Panda series or is that just me?
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It isn't just you. Looks like a direct rip off from the Kung Fu Panda series, possibly being even baby Po himself. A quick google shows quite a few screenshots that look almost exactly like this one, lazy eye included.

Keeping it classy, China!
 
Intellectual Property Rights? What does that mean? Most Favored Nation...my ass. Follow the money.
 
THRESHIN said:
Did you notice that for 248 acres they're getting a mere 50 MW? That's just pathetic. complete waste of land. I wonder what the actual cost of construction was? cost/MW? I also wonder how much toxic waste was generated to build this many panels?

Nuclear is not clean, but it is by far the best we have. New plants are expensive, but tend to be cheap to operate. Refurbishment is also expensive.
Click to expand...

That's precisely the problem. When nuclear works, its great. When it doesn't, you sometimes need the pocketbook of a nation state to fix whatever broke. Those high capital and repair costs and the potential risk of being responsible for a nuclear disaster make it tough for private owners to stay afloat, as we've seen in the US in the UK and elsewhere. IMO to make it work you really need a completely state-managed program like they have in France.

The US added more solar capacity to the grid in the past year than all the nuclear capacity brought online in the past decade. For better or worse that's where we're going.

Renewables do not supply constant load. Natural gas turbines make wonderful backup. But the public doesn't see that, they see the windmills and solar panels.
Click to expand...

Build out excess solar/wind capacity and use it to pump water into a reservoir, release water through turbines as needed. Or use excess solar/wind to generate liquid hydrogen and/or ammonia to use as fuel.

Renewable energy certainly has high capital costs, but the people who complain about that seem to gloss over the incredibly high cost capital costs for nuclear power.

So what's the solution? New reactor designs. Only reason we don't have them years ago is because of irrational radiophobia. It's far easier for a politician to put money into useless windmills than nuclear energy.

The new designs would be far cheaper, more reliable, burn waste fuel and be impervious to meltdown. It's a little like saying that the ford pinto was unsafe so I'm never buying a car ever again. They must all be unsafe if that one was.
Click to expand...

The US has actually tripled it's nuclear energy output since the Three Mile Island accident. Ultimately, it's just not economical for private companies to finance new plants and the US government has been reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons that are not irrational, particularly concerns about proliferation. If the US started making huge investments in nuclear power it would likely trigger similar investments elsewhere.
 
VirtualMirage said:
It isn't just you. Looks like a direct rip off from the Kung Fu Panda series, possibly being even baby Po himself. A quick google shows quite a few screenshots that look almost exactly like this one, lazy eye included.

Keeping it classy, China!
Click to expand...

I expect nothing less actually. Thanks for the information.
 
tetris42 said:
Well it's nice and clean as long as nobody fucks up, then it's the dirtiest imaginable for tens of thousands of years.
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Keep in mind this is coming from someone who slagged nukes as ridiculously expensive just a few posts above you, but if something has a half-life of tens of thousands of years, it's not radio-hazardous. Just don't eat it, as it's still a heavy metal and those are chemically toxic. There isn't enough heavy metal in a reactor to contaminate much either. Like Fukushima, the biggest dangers are confined to the plant property.

The "kill you quick" radioisotopes have a half-life on the order of days. The "will give you cancer" stuff lasts up to a couple of decades. Humans don't live long enough for anything more stable than that to be a significant hazard.

THRESHIN said:
Did you notice that for 248 acres they're getting a mere 50 MW? That's just pathetic. complete waste of land. I wonder what the actual cost of construction was? cost/MW? I also wonder how much toxic waste was generated to build this many panels?
Click to expand...

Actually, the completed 248 acre project will provide 100MW.
http://abc7chicago.com/technology/panda-power-plant-is-cute-and-green/2185142/

For comparison, the nearest nuclear power plant to me is rated for ~2500MW and covers ~8.5 square miles including the facility itself, the security buffer and the cooling pond.

100/248 = 0.4 watts per acre
2500/5500 = 0.45 watts/acre

Given that nuclear is the gold standard for energy density, that doesn't seem all that bad. Also, it's not like they build either of these kinds of things where land is scarce and expensive.

DeathFromBelow said:
The US has actually tripled it's nuclear energy output since the Three Mile Island accident. Ultimately, it's just not economical for private companies to finance new plants and the US government has been reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons that are not irrational, particularly concerns about proliferation. If the US started making huge investments in nuclear power it would likely trigger similar investments elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Does anyone here really think we should be publicly funding a YUGE reactor buildout before we settle on where we're going to store the waste? Because right now, we're just hoarding dry storage casks all across the country. This stuff needs to be buried far away from our population and agricultural centers. It's not going to be hazardous forever, but it's a danger right now.
 
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sfsuphysics said:
So ironically did they chop down 250 acres of bamboo forest to put this in, which is the pandas only food source?
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Are they? Plus bamboo is easy to grow so you can just plant bamboo somewhere else and in a year you'll have a bamboo forest.
 
STR said:
Keep in mind this is coming from someone who slagged nukes as ridiculously expensive just a few posts above you, but if something has a half-life of tens of thousands of years, it's not radio-hazardous. Just don't eat it, as it's still a heavy metal and those are chemically toxic. There isn't enough heavy metal in a reactor to contaminate much either. Like Fukushima, the biggest dangers are confined to the plant property.

The "kill you quick" radioisotopes have a half-life on the order of days. The "will give you cancer" stuff lasts up to a couple of decades. Humans don't live long enough for anything more stable than that to be a significant hazard.



Actually, the completed 248 acre project will provide 100MW.
http://abc7chicago.com/technology/panda-power-plant-is-cute-and-green/2185142/

For comparison, the nearest nuclear power plant to me is rated for ~2500MW and covers ~8.5 square miles including the facility itself, the security buffer and the cooling pond.

100/248 = 0.4 watts per acre
2500/5500 = 0.45 watts/acre

Given that nuclear is the gold standard for energy density, that doesn't seem all that bad. Also, it's not like they build either of these kinds of things where land is scarce and expensive.



Does anyone here really think we should be publicly funding a YUGE reactor buildout before we settle on where we're going to store the waste? Because right now, we're just hoarding dry storage casks all across the country. This stuff needs to be buried far away from our population and agricultural centers. It's not going to be hazardous forever, but it's a danger right now.
Click to expand...


how much of that complex for the nuclear plant is for buffer vs actual production? Prairie Island is on 528 Acres and makes 1100MW or 2.083...MW per acre

source for above figure is in here section 2

https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfi...ate PDFs/002PrairieIslandER_04.24.08(Web).pdf
 
Our alien overlords will think we upgraded the Nazca lines, maybe a smiling Panda will prevent them from enslaving the human race, or maybe they will think we pussified ourselves enough and it's time to invade...

Either way, that panda will change the world ;)
 
shad0w4life said:
Please tell me how the solar panels don't do any environmental damage or use massive amounts of land displacing local wildlife from the area yada yada.

Nuclear is still cleanest there is, maybe the USA will actually stfu about oil sands in Canada being toxic while they burn massive amounts of coal and follow Chinas lead
Click to expand...

Totally agree...Wind and Solar is such a waste of space.

https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/Nuclear-Power-Plants-Are-Compact,-Efficient-and-Re


http://www.rebresearch.com/blog/nuclear-vs-wind-and-solar-land-use/
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
how much of that complex for the nuclear plant is for buffer vs actual production? Prairie Island is on 528 Acres and makes 1100MW or 2.083...MW per acre

source for above figure is in here section 2

https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe/Corporate/Corporate PDFs/002PrairieIslandER_04.24.08(Web).pdf
Click to expand...

It's ~90% cooling pond. You example dumps waste heat into the nearby waterway. Which makes the plant itself more compact, but requires accommodating geography.

Either way, even using your example it doesn't matter. It's not that much of a difference, and particularly not enough to make nuclear less costly than PV solar. Land itself is not scarce, at least not where they build utility-scale power plants. Land acquisition costs approach "rounding error" levels in any of these projects.
 
not that much of a difference? .45 watts per acre vs 2,000,000 wats per acre? Come on now.. Most plants are built near water bodies so they CAN use the water to cool off the reactors via a steam to water cooler

The David Cook plant in Lake TWP MI generates 2155MW on 650 acres resulting in a 3.315MW per acre


Monticello MN plant does 671MW on 215 acres or 3.121MW per acre

Sorry but Solar cannot compete with a properly designed Nuclear power plant in terms of power density per acre
 
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DejaWiz said:
Totally agree...Wind and Solar is such a waste of space.

https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/Nuclear-Power-Plants-Are-Compact,-Efficient-and-Re


http://www.rebresearch.com/blog/nuclear-vs-wind-and-solar-land-use/
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Compact energy creation is cool and all, but when a hacker gets a hold of a solar array, they may only be able to cut power or move the array inefficiently...maybe make the Panda flip the bird.

What can a hacker do to a Nuclear plant... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/technology/nuclear-plant-hack-report.html ...not cool.

Lots of give and take to consider.
 
I only came in here to say fuck bamboo, seriously that shit is impossible to get rid of.
 
RayderR6 said:
Compact energy creation is cool and all, but when a hacker gets a hold of a solar array, they may only be able to cut power or move the array inefficiently...maybe make the Panda flip the bird.

What can a hacker do to a Nuclear plant... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/technology/nuclear-plant-hack-report.html ...not cool.

Lots of give and take to consider.
Click to expand...

they cannot even verify network penetration and most of those old reactors (40+ years old) do not in any way need connection to the internet.. the last power plant was completed in 2016 and that pant was still based off a 1970's era design

Most control room looks something like this

nuclear_power_plant_control_room_full.jpg


I am not too worried about a nuclear plant being hacked
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
they cannot even verify network penetration and most of those old reactors (40+ years old) do not in any way need connection to the internet.. the last power plant was completed in 2016 and that pant was still based off a 1970's era design

Most control room looks something like this

I am not too worried about a nuclear plant being hacked
Click to expand...
Yeah I'd be more worried about how unsafe it inherently is because of how old the design is. Considering we can make nuke power plants that can't melt down now of days and use the fuel much better so you get less waste. Although they still cost an arm and a leg.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
not that much of a difference? .45 watts per acre vs 2,000,000 wats per acre? Come on now.. Most plants are built near water bodies so they CAN use the water to cool off the reactors via a steam to water cooler
Click to expand...

0.4 megawatts. 100MW/250ac = 0.4 megawatts/ac 2.0/0.4 = 5-fold difference. Always check math before citing it in your argument

A fivefold difference in the usage of almost worthless land in the middle of nowhere. There is no scarcity of land. The issue is scarce capital, which is why no one is building nukes without 100% free money from the state.

I mean, look at all that prime real estate being taken up by this thing:
(Large scale solar farm in the middle of a barren desert in SoCal)

Won't SOMEBODY PLEASE think of the windswept sand and sun bleached rocks?

Also labor, a solar plant or wind farm (once built) is almost unmanned. Maybe a dozen techs? Nuclear plants have on-site crews numbering in the hundreds. Those hundreds of people need hundreds of acres for their homes. And those homes become worthless when the plant decommissions, leaving ghost towns in the wake. If you're so concerned about precious land in Bum****, Nowhere you have to include the totality of the operation.
 
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