^ Getting lithium out of its raw states can be a pretty environmentally unfriendly process, mainly (with the brine process) in the amount of water it consumes and rarely puts back into the ecosystem. But that can be remedied with good management, and once the lithium is out it's very recyclable. Seeing obstacles and insta-decrying the proposition is lacking imagination.
^ Getting lithium out of its raw states can be a pretty environmentally unfriendly process, mainly (with the brine process) in the amount of water it consumes and rarely puts back into the ecosystem. But that can be remedied with good management, and once the lithium is out it's very recyclable. Seeing obstacles and insta-decrying the proposition is lacking imagination.
I'm not "insta-decrying" anything. Solar has a huge and lengthy list of obstacles that have been studied for decades- technological, environmental, economic, safety (all those batteries), etc. and yet is being advocated for against far better options for purely ideological reasons. There are much better ways to improve the environment. Sadly, one of those ways is going to have to be enacting legislation to protect habitat and farm-land from being destroyed by mega-solar.
Solar is not without problems (the batteries and solar panels have environmental impact for sure) but we've seen great progress and with companies like Apple pushing large scale use its only a good thing. Well, unless you are in the oil or coal business. Someone mentioned Hawaii and he was absolutely spot on having worked with that utility myself. Here is a link http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/How-Much-Solar-Can-HECO-and-Oahus-Grid-Really-Handle
Obviously coal is bad. However, the future I want for my children is not one where millions of acres are sacrificed to large-scale solar farms while hundreds of millions of tons of caustic lithium batteries are produced (requiring enormous mining operations) and disposed of each year to get us through the nights and cloudy days (as Musk / Tesla is currently advocating). Being renewable and carbon free doesn't mean the impacts will be small. I'd much rather they have a few small, modern nuclear plants running off recycled nuclear waste, of which we already have enough to last for centuries without the need for further mining.
Well, maybe they'll just use something else than Lithium in batteries; see no drama at all. Science fixes everything.
Or we could go for Sodium-Ion batteries. Salt is more plentiful and less toxic (obviously) than Lithium
Myself, I've got nothing against a modern nuclear design, but 70 years of bad PR has made regular nuclear use not probable unless strangely enough it becomes a strategic decision (like the Chinese are running ahead in energy production because of it).
I have to say, While I applaud companies installing solar power. I do not think destroying forests or clearing land to build solar is the answer.
The pictures in North Carolina clearly show a dominating solar plant that now occupies areas once covered by vegetation. And yet there are no solar panels on the roof of the data center!
Apple and others would be better off covering existing roofs in industrial or residential areas (which they can lease and would serve as an incentive to neighbors to install solar) than clearing land and installing solar arrays in obscure locations so no one sees it.
All companies that claim to be green should then start to also purchase and regrow forests around the world. It's one thing to be 100% renewable now the goal is to start taking a positive greater than 100% spiral and encourage others!
The waste is not the only problem with nuclear. There is also the breakdown of storage areas resulting in stream pollution. And the mining and refining of nuclear components has its own environmental and health liabilities, known well to those who have bothered to investigate this.
I defy anyone to show a solar panel or other alternative energy source accident on the scale of 3-mile island, the recent Japanese accident and so on. And while we are on this, with carbon products at an all high in our atmosphere, the oceans at an all time high record temperature, glaciers and ice caps at a record melting pace, and so on, we are at a crossroads and the path we take will be telling as far as our priorities of immediate comfort and greed status quo vs the future of our civilization.
The waste is not the only problem with nuclear. There is also the breakdown of storage areas resulting in stream pollution. And the mining and refining of nuclear components has its own environmental and health liabilities, known well to those who have bothered to investigate this.
I defy anyone to show a solar panel or other alternative energy source accident on the scale of 3-mile island, the recent Japanese accident and so on. And while we are on this, with carbon products at an all high in our atmosphere, the oceans at an all time high record temperature, glaciers and ice caps at a record melting pace, and so on, we are at a crossroads and the path we take will be telling as far as our priorities of immediate comfort and greed status quo vs the future of our civilization.
A 50 year old style reactor and a 9.1 earthquake (one of the 4-5 biggest in the world for 1000 years), plus the biggest tsunami in a 1000 years in Japan, and what took the plant down.... Putting the electricals for the pumps for the cooling pools in the basement. If the electrical plant had been at 20 feet instead (completely doable), there would had been no issue at all despite that massive earthquake.
Are you really obliviously to the huge drop in ecological output that happens when you block out the sun, are you content with replacing actual diverse ecosystems with a little bit of quack grass, or is this a pathetic attempt to be clever?
So you don't foresee any ecological complications resulting from building a billion refrigerator sizes batteries to give us energy when solar doesn't? That's every bit as short-sighted as the fossil fuel economy ever was.
Yeah, you might be right, but in that case sacrificing the environment and future of our planet on the altar of some terrorist boogie-man is exactly what Greenpeace should be protesting. The actual threat of dying from terrorist activities occurring in the US is far, far less than the chance of being killed by getting trampled by a moose. Time to get our priorities straight.
The technology is already there and it is already happening.How do you think the grid meets the demands during peak and off peak hours without storing ?Hydroelectric and Thermal power plant can provide only so much power?
Comments
^ Getting lithium out of its raw states can be a pretty environmentally unfriendly process, mainly (with the brine process) in the amount of water it consumes and rarely puts back into the ecosystem. But that can be remedied with good management, and once the lithium is out it's very recyclable. Seeing obstacles and insta-decrying the proposition is lacking imagination.
^ Getting lithium out of its raw states can be a pretty environmentally unfriendly process, mainly (with the brine process) in the amount of water it consumes and rarely puts back into the ecosystem. But that can be remedied with good management, and once the lithium is out it's very recyclable. Seeing obstacles and insta-decrying the proposition is lacking imagination.
I'm not "insta-decrying" anything. Solar has a huge and lengthy list of obstacles that have been studied for decades- technological, environmental, economic, safety (all those batteries), etc. and yet is being advocated for against far better options for purely ideological reasons. There are much better ways to improve the environment. Sadly, one of those ways is going to have to be enacting legislation to protect habitat and farm-land from being destroyed by mega-solar.
Someone mentioned Hawaii and he was absolutely spot on having worked with that utility myself. Here is a link http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/How-Much-Solar-Can-HECO-and-Oahus-Grid-Really-Handle
Obviously coal is bad. However, the future I want for my children is not one where millions of acres are sacrificed to large-scale solar farms while hundreds of millions of tons of caustic lithium batteries are produced (requiring enormous mining operations) and disposed of each year to get us through the nights and cloudy days (as Musk / Tesla is currently advocating). Being renewable and carbon free doesn't mean the impacts will be small. I'd much rather they have a few small, modern nuclear plants running off recycled nuclear waste, of which we already have enough to last for centuries without the need for further mining.
Well, maybe they'll just use something else than Lithium in batteries; see no drama at all. Science fixes everything.
Or we could go for Sodium-Ion batteries. Salt is more plentiful and less toxic (obviously) than Lithium
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-na-ion-batteries-closer-li-ion.html
Myself, I've got nothing against a modern nuclear design, but 70 years of bad PR has made regular nuclear use not probable unless strangely enough it becomes a strategic decision (like the Chinese are running ahead in energy production because of it).
The pictures in North Carolina clearly show a dominating solar plant that now occupies areas once covered by vegetation. And yet there are no solar panels on the roof of the data center!
Apple and others would be better off covering existing roofs in industrial or residential areas (which they can lease and would serve as an incentive to neighbors to install solar) than clearing land and installing solar arrays in obscure locations so no one sees it.
All companies that claim to be green should then start to also purchase and regrow forests around the world. It's one thing to be 100% renewable now the goal is to start taking a positive greater than 100% spiral and encourage others!
That made my morning.
I defy anyone to show a solar panel or other alternative energy source accident on the scale of 3-mile island, the recent Japanese accident and so on. And while we are on this, with carbon products at an all high in our atmosphere, the oceans at an all time high record temperature, glaciers and ice caps at a record melting pace, and so on, we are at a crossroads and the path we take will be telling as far as our priorities of immediate comfort and greed status quo vs the future of our civilization.
The waste is not the only problem with nuclear. There is also the breakdown of storage areas resulting in stream pollution. And the mining and refining of nuclear components has its own environmental and health liabilities, known well to those who have bothered to investigate this.
I defy anyone to show a solar panel or other alternative energy source accident on the scale of 3-mile island, the recent Japanese accident and so on. And while we are on this, with carbon products at an all high in our atmosphere, the oceans at an all time high record temperature, glaciers and ice caps at a record melting pace, and so on, we are at a crossroads and the path we take will be telling as far as our priorities of immediate comfort and greed status quo vs the future of our civilization.
A 50 year old style reactor and a 9.1 earthquake (one of the 4-5 biggest in the world for 1000 years), plus the biggest tsunami in a 1000 years in Japan, and what took the plant down.... Putting the electricals for the pumps for the cooling pools in the basement. If the electrical plant had been at 20 feet instead (completely doable), there would had been no issue at all despite that massive earthquake.
Are you really obliviously to the huge drop in ecological output that happens when you block out the sun, are you content with replacing actual diverse ecosystems with a little bit of quack grass, or is this a pathetic attempt to be clever?
So you don't foresee any ecological complications resulting from building a billion refrigerator sizes batteries to give us energy when solar doesn't? That's every bit as short-sighted as the fossil fuel economy ever was.
Yeah, you might be right, but in that case sacrificing the environment and future of our planet on the altar of some terrorist boogie-man is exactly what Greenpeace should be protesting. The actual threat of dying from terrorist activities occurring in the US is far, far less than the chance of being killed by getting trampled by a moose. Time to get our priorities straight.
The technology is already there and it is already happening.How do you think the grid meets the demands during peak and off peak hours without storing ?Hydroelectric and Thermal power plant can provide only so much power?