How's the brazillion solar roofs bill going? Are we powering the hydrogen Hummers yet?

[NNadir]

I keep looking from the Google satellite pictures, and I can't find any signs of Arnie Steroid's promised brazillion solar roofs. It was a great bill, I heard and it was going to solve California's energy problems.

Why don't you play this fun game, wherein you think of a city in California, plug it into the Google satellite map page and see if you can find even one of the Brazillion solar roofs that Governor Arnie so promoted during the recent election campaign.

I'll start.

West Covina:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=West+Covina&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=34.069636,-117.937793&spn=0.001884,0.003616&t=k&om=1

Paadena:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=Pasadena,+CA&layer=&ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=k&om=1&z=19&ll=34.147932,-118.143612&spn=0.000941,0.001808

Indio (In the sunny desert):

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Indio&sll=34.147932,-118.143612&sspn=0.000941,0.001808&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=33.721332,-116.2198&spn=0.001892,0.003616&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

Pismo Beach:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Pismo+Beach&layer=&sll=35.367268,-120.84712&sspn=0.001855,0.003616&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=35.157223,-120.66708&spn=0.003719,0.007231&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

Bishop:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=Bishop,+Inyo,+California,+United+States&layer=&ie=UTF8&sll=35.157223,-120.66708&sspn=0.003719,0.007231&hl=en&z=18&ll=37.367007,-118.395351&spn=0.001808,0.003616&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

If one of the brazillion solar roofs is in these pictures, I can't see it.

[johncoby2]

1. uh the satellite pics are not updated regularly

aint they old?

[drm604]

2. I was just about to say the same thing.

It's not like Google Earth updates every day. Some of their pictures are years old, some are newer. In any case, things like this take time. When did Arnie promise it? (Not that I'm a big political fan of Arnie.)

[NNadir]

3. You mean that there really are a brazillion solar roofs?

And here was thinking that Arnie was a liar.

[papau]

4. What's Brazil got to do with solar roofs in California? :-) n/t

n/t

[NNadir]

5. George W. Bush comes into a State Department meeting and Condi says...

..."Mr. President, a Brazilian was killed in Iraq today." George ponders her remark...

[papau]

6. Very good! :-) n/t

n/t

[Massacure]

7. Google claims that all the photos are current to within the last three years I believe.

[skids]

8. Nope, can't see it either.

Even though it's there. If it's where I think it is it's just a bunch of dots that could be anything. The resolution is too poor to distinguish them from other building features.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Monterey+elementary+school+Pasadena,+CA&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=19&ll=34.103914,-118.164654&spn=0.001515,0.001947&t=k&iwloc=A

http://www.solardepot.com/testimo/pasadena_commercial06.htm

[NNadir]

9. You'll be happy to know that my school district budget just appropriated

$400,000 for a solar system on one of our schools.

This is a wealthy town.

I calculate at $5/"magic peak watt" and 20% capacity utilization (typical of solar) that this system will produce about 140,000 kw-hr per year, worth, at current prices for electricity, about $15,500 year. So for about 5 teacher's salaries next year, we will be able to pay for the system, ignoring the Staebler-Wronski degradation of the system, in about 25 years.

I have no idea about what fraction of a "brazillion" my school will represent.

I have a feeling that you ignored the random California city part of the game. When I play the game, I just let a name of a California city pop into my head and let it fly. The resolution is good enough to see that most California roofs do not have solar systems. This is also born out by the EIA data that shows that solar has yet to equal 1% of California renewables. If the Colorado river dries up, reducing the bulk of California's renewables, of course, the solar fraction in percentage terms could become significant.

Blythe:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=Blythe,+Riverside,+California,+United+States&layer=&ie=UTF8&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.578161,59.238281&hl=en&z=18&ll=33.610701,-114.598861&spn=0.001894,0.003616&t=k&om=1

[BeFree]

10. Can't see any nuke plants either

I'd be willing to bet. They must not exist!

Ya just gotta luv the Nuke Firsters! They'll do anything and say anything to make sure Nukes First!

[NickB79]

11. Then you're not looking hard enough

http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

"Operating nuclear power plants in California are Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, and San Onofre, about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Nuclear units at both plants use ocean water for cooling."

[BeFree]

12. So

These plants are dumping hot water into the warming oceans? And what else is in that water?

And you have a google earth picture of those plants?

[NNadir]

14. You could ask the surfers outside the plants these questions.

San Onofre is visible from I-5, just South of San Clemente. Lots of people surf and camp in view of it.

It produces far more energy than all of the solar plants in California, including the brazillions on Arnie voter roofs.

[BeFree]

15. Indeed

But where is the waste going?

And given that the solar roof program is just cranking up, so to speak, it shouldn't be long before solar generated electricity generates power to cheap to meter.

[NNadir]

19. What waste?

Have you suddenly identified a single person killed by so called "nuclear waste?" You've been unable to do this for years, and I've been asking you this question for years, and still you sit here and repeat the question.

:banghead:

Are you asking this question just to make noise or do I really have to explain it to you once a week?

Spent nuclear fuel from San Onofre is doing what it has been doing for decades. Sitting in a container harming zero people, unlike the hundreds of millions of metric tons of dangerous fossil fuel that California dumps into the atmosphere every year.

Being uninformed on environmental issues, you are probably unaware of the world-wide problem of electronic waste. I don't think that there ever will be a brazillion solar roofs in California, any more than the "ZEV bill" produced a brazillion electric cars
by 2003". But if there ever are a brazillion solar roofs, there is going to be a huge waste problem, and the toxicity of landfills in California is going to rise.

Solar energy gets a waste bye only because it is such a trivial form of energy that nobody notices the waste. If it ever becomes a significant form of energy, that bit of "head up the ass" thinking is going to vanish, and vanish quickly.

[BeFree]

20. So you have no clue?

I guess you don't care what happens to the nuke waste?

Oh wait, you say let it sit there.

That is the head-up the ass attitude along with claims that it is safe. But about all I've come to expect from Nuke Fisters.

[NNadir]

23. I have made my views on this subject clear many times.

I have discussed the chemistry of the actinides and fission products in this space many times, only to be met by dull witted commentary of the "Oh wait..." type.

Duh.

I favor the massive recycling of nuclear fuel, which will, by the way happen whether you ever understand rudimentary science or not. Basically the world doesn't give a fuck what you think. Japan has just completed its recycling plant at Rokkasho and will shortly become the first country to fuel it's reactors with recycle uranium. Of course you don't know this, because your comprehension of nuclear issues has never extended beyond repeating the same line of puerile "aw shucks" witticisms year after year. Japan is demonstrating what has always been true. Spent nuclear fuel is a resource.

The storage of spent nuclear fuel awaiting reprocessing has proved harmless now for many decades.

In the meantime, you still exhibit zero concern for the millions of people who die each year from fossil fuel waste.

You have learned no science in your years here and apparently no ethics either.

What is depressing is that you're at least four years older than you were when you started muttering here. It is one thing to be poorly educated, but another thing to be proud of being poorly educated and to insist on remaining so.

[BeFree]

28. .......

Not worthy of a reply.

[NNadir]

31. You're not capable of a reply.

Once again you're engaged in a dodge. You can't reply because you have nothing to say.

[BeFree]

32. Oh

I had plenty to say but the personal attacks made me not want to reply.

Frankly, if you were anywhere near the truth your ideas would be incorporated by the NRC. And nuclear power would be too cheap to meter.

[Dead_Parrot]

30. Where is is the waste from solar going?

The Elkem silicon smelter at Alloy burns hundreds of tons of coal a day.

Sequestering the CO₂, are they?

[hunter]

16. Here's San Onofre:

Interesting place, and I've been in that water. I've been inside the plant too.

Coal plants are raising the temp of the ocean and dumping more radioactive waste into it than nuclear plants.

Or perhaps you don't believe in Global Warming and all that?

Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are not responsible for this sort of thing:

Since 1976-77, warmer ocean temperatures off the coast of southern California have resulted in declining abundance of fish and lower productivity in the southern California coastal ecosystem. The proportional abundance of cold-water, northern fish species (represented in the figure at the right by the greenspotted rockfish) in the reefs along the shore near Los Angeles has dropped by about half, whereas the proportional abundances of southern, warm-water fish species (represented at right by the Garibaldi) have increased by nearly one half.



http://sbc.lternet.edu/research/c3.html

It's not nuclear power that has changed the temperature of the oceans I remember as a kid, it's coal and natural gas. The oceans would have been a much healthier place if we hadn't abandoned nuclear power for coal and natural gas.

[BeFree]

17. That's crap

Or perhaps you don't believe in Global Warming and all that?

I asked a question of the *scientist*. He said to go ask the surfers. Crap, too. Then you come in and crap.

Are you actually claiming that nukes have not produced any increase in water temps? That nukes run cool?

ALL the heat generating plants that use water to cool have contributed to higher temps. To make a statement exonerating nukes is ridiculous and makes all Nuke Firsters! look incredible.

[XemaSab]

21. I am a tree-hugger

and I am willing to admit that the impact of nukes on warming of the oceans is like, nothing.

I'm more worried about sewage and litter. :P

[BeFree]

22. That's not the point

And unless you know for a fact that no nuke waste, or by-product, are not entrained in the cooling waters you may not want to keep to the point, eh?

[XemaSab]

24. I know how cooling systems work

and the water does not touch the radioactive material.

And I'm pretty sure I'm keeping to the point.

[BeFree]

26. Pretty sure?

Well, that's the idea, anyway. But the funny thing about radiation... it moves through solid pipes.

So what you get is radiated water. Pretty soon it gets too radiated and they got to let some of it go. And pipes leak.

Do you think they bottle it up or let it run down the drain?

[Dogmudgeon]

27. But doesn't nucular core turn the water radioactive???

The water was so close to the nucular core that it HAS to be radioactive ... radiation does something to the water, it just has to ... it's just plain common sense ...

--p!
(of course not)

[Dogmudgeon]

25. That's interesting

Of all the reactors' problems, real and imagined, I've never heard that they were warming up the oceans. Heating of rivers and watersheds locally (owing to poor engineering), certainly. But there are only about 600 reactors world-wide compared to tens of thousands of coal and petroleum fired generators, which produce enormous amounts of greenhouse gases. (Coal, in addition, produces a huge amount of radioactive fly ash that goes right into the atmosphere, but that's another issue.)

Nuclear reactors produce a lot of heat, but only enough to turn the turbines. I wouldn't think there was enough waste heat to heat the oceans at all. Local damage occurs in areas where the water can't move, and I also didn't think it was a problem with most reactors.

"Waste" reactor heat can also be used in energy cogeneration; the Russians have heated entire towns from reactor-cogenerated heat. The same technology can be used in solar thermal energy generation.

I would be interested in reading up on the scope of this nuclear thermal problem. And, no, I'm not starting a citation fight. If you do have any links or other sources, I would be grateful if you posted them. I am naturally skeptical about it, but will read what evidence I can find.

--p!

[BeFree]

18. double or nothing

nothing

[hunter]

29. You can get a good overview of Diablo Canyon starting here:

http://www.dcisc.org/general_information/general_information.html

You can pick through things like this with a quasi-religious anti-nulear point of view --- oooooooh...radiation...evil --- or you can recognize that nuclear power is vastly cleaner and better regulated than other forms of energy production.

I myself am not "pro-nuclear" in any sense. I'm a radical left wing social justice tree-hugging anti-consumerist. I don't like cars, I don't like industrial agriculture, I don't like much at all about modern society. If I sound pro nuclear it's because I think fossil fuels are much, much worse. I believe that halting our nuclear power program in favor of coal and natural gas, whether we meant to do that or not, has caused us and our environment to suffer terrible consequences.

Double or nothing.

[NNadir]

13. Nuclear power plants are compact and don't require much land or mass.

That is the point, of course. They can do a great deal with very little resources in land or mass. This is exactly why nuclear power plants are environmentally superior to every other exajoule scale (or bullshit toy scale) form of energy.

I am very much a "nuke firster" because I have a sense of what scale is involved. If I was a jerkoff and couldn't tell an exajoule from a "peak watt," it would be otherwise, of course.

The failure to appreciate these simple facts is why the antinuclear position reminds one of other antiscientific fantasy worlds.

The world needs 470 exajoules of greenhouse gas free energy, and 5 brazillion shell games advertised by Governor Hydrogen Hummer boy is not going to change that.