SOLAR FARM?

When I picked my sister up at the Indy airport, I noticed a good size solar farm on the right side of the enterance to airport.

Who put it up? It had to cost a pant load. Largest collection of solar cells I've seen.
george

The Chinese. They have many pantloads of money.

"Two Indianapolis-based companies—Telamon Corporation and Johnson Melloh Solutions— have partnered with the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA), the City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL), General Energy Solutions (GES) and Cenergy Power to build the largest solar farm on airport real estate in North America."

http://indsolarfarm.com/the-solar-farm/

Goggle "Indianapolis solar farm". Looks like a a lot of tax payer dollars are involved.

Good to hear, sounds like a great place for solar panels.

Cool, nice to know. Are there more solar panels on
the airport grounds?

Have one south of me about 50 miles. They have it fenced in and run sheep and goat in the fenced area to keep it clean. The animals do a great job too.
http://www.researchtriangle.org/news and events/person county solar park expansion nears completion

Same thing at Denver Int. Airport.

Bloomington, IN is putting in a 15 acre solar energy farm for their city. Don't know if it is on the airport. The solar panel materials are coming down in cost. They are using German technology with US manufactured panels. All out war on coal has been declared so we have to find some other energy sources to take up the slack.

Agree, war on coal, however when the price of electricity goes up and so will natural gas because that is what they are converting to, then perhaps wind and solar may look like a better deal.

In Terre Haute, there is a natural gas peaking plant just across the river from me. 11 miles north on the river is a coal fired plant. There are plans to run new high voltage lines to connect the two places.

Just like LP prices went up, people looked for something cheaper, when electricity goes up wind and solar may not look so bad.

(quoted from post at 06:16:13 06/18/14) When I picked my sister up at the Indy airport, I noticed a good size solar farm on the right side of the enterance to airport.

Who put it up? It had to cost a pant load. Largest collection of solar cells I've seen.
george

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Take away the taxpayers Grants, the elevated power price to subsidize "green energy" and trading carbon credits. You would only see PV cells on remote cottages.
There has been a lot of the public's money disappear in these schemes.

But it's OK to subsidize the coal industry?

You have to remember that government has subsidised a lot of past infrastructure projects, railroads, REC, highways, airports.

Coal power does not stop when the sun goes down.

Solar has the advantage that peak usage occurs when it is hot and sunny. I still believe a base load of coal with natural gas and solar peaking capacity is the way to go.

Conservation helps at all times.

...not to mention rural electric service.

War on coal? I suppose you'd be okay with one of those old smoke-belching coal plants in your backyard?

The reason power companies are going to gas plants is because it's cheaper to build a new gas plant than it is to update an old coal plant to burn clean, or build a new clean-burning coal plant.

Why is it cheaper? Because the natural gas lobby got to the politicians before the coal lobby did, and got the subsidies.

It's all about manipulating the system to put the most money in your own pocket, and if you've got to step on a few necks to make it happen, so be it.

The Solar Farm is owned by the Indy Airport Authority. I am not sure if they maintain it, or someone else does. It was put up in the last 2 years. I cant remember for sure; but I think it is around 20 acres +/-.

Funneled to political donors that then funnel it back into political campaigns, money laundering, before they go bankrupt and scoot off with the rest of the taxpayer funded loot. Lets start...A123 Systems, Solyndra, Bright Source, Solar Trust of America, LSP Energy, Energy Conversion Devices, Abound Solar, Sun Power, Beacon Power, UniSolar, Azure Dynamics, Ecotality, Evergreen Solar, Ener1, Fisker, and the list goes on and on.

I heard someone mention the other day that if RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) were extended to our nation's rotunda and oval office which are exempt currently, and they faced the opportunity of prison time like we are, well...we wouldn't be $17 TRILLION in the hole for starters. Now there's hope and change that I'm up for.

Mark

They started building gas plants next to existing
plants many years ago. They were called peaking
plants. Perhaps coal plants will be called peaking
plants and the gas will carry the load.

Here is a simple chemistry lesson for all.
Carbon(which is in coal) is 12, oxygen is 16 but
oxygen is diatomic so O2 is 32 and CO2 is 44
atomic mass units. Well it works the same if we
are talking about tons. 12 tons of carbon needs 32
tons of oxygen to burn making 44 tons of CO2. A
guy that worked in the control room of the Cayuga
power plant said they could go through a 50 ton
car load of coal in 12-15 minutes. So say out of
the 50 ton of coal there is 36 ton of carbon. Even
though there may not be 14 tons of ash, water,
sulfur and other things. That said, 36 ton of
carbon will need 96 ton of oxygen and make 132 ton
of CO2 in about 15 minutes.

There was a trail with 100 cars of coal that went
through Terre Haute every day headed to just that
one power plant in Indiana. About half the states
rely on coal based electricity.

I don't think there are too many people who can
wrap their head around just how much CO2 is
generated each day making electricity in this
country. You would have to learn how to use a
scientific calculator and the number would be too
large for most of us to comprehend.

Chemistry test tomorrow, take notes.

George

I liked that George, I loved chemistry but I'm a nerd. I never thought to up it to tons like that.

(quoted from post at 19:44:01 06/18/14) Funneled to political donors that then funnel it back into political campaigns, money laundering, before they go bankrupt and scoot off with the rest of the taxpayer funded loot. Lets start...A123 Systems, Solyndra, Bright Source, Solar Trust of America, LSP Energy, Energy Conversion Devices, Abound Solar, Sun Power, Beacon Power, UniSolar, Azure Dynamics, Ecotality, Evergreen Solar, Ener1, Fisker, and the list goes on and on.

I heard someone mention the other day that if RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) were extended to our nation's rotunda and oval office which are exempt currently, and they faced the opportunity of prison time like we are, well...we wouldn't be $17 TRILLION in the hole for starters. Now there's hope and change that I'm up for.

Mark

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You're not supposed to think about that stuff. You're supposed to just take the word of those in charge and not think at all! Just like everyone got all upset about Enron but wasn't supposed to notice the other companies that did the same thing but were run by politically correct types...Terry McAulife for instance.

(quoted from post at 16:34:27 06/18/14) ...not to mention rural electric service.

War on coal? I suppose you'd be okay with one of those old smoke-belching coal plants in your backyard?

The reason power companies are going to gas plants is because it's cheaper to build a new gas plant than it is to update an old coal plant to burn clean, or build a new clean-burning coal plant.

Why is it cheaper? Because the natural gas lobby got to the politicians before the coal lobby did, and got the subsidies.

It's all about manipulating the system to put the most money in your own pocket, and if you've got to step on a few necks to make it happen, so be it.

Click to expand...

IMO cutting coal off is another short sighted boondoggle that probably has some big money in play someplace. Clean coal technology exists. We should be working on the backup plan to solar, wind and gas. We should be working on new hydro, new solar farms without public backing, tidal generation and every other possibility out there...without public funding. Why am I so against the public funding of these projects? Because of the history of how things turn out with virtually unlimited public dollars backing them. If a technology cannot stand on it's own, then it's not a good enough technology. People talk about REA. Prior to REA there were lots of small electric companies and lots more people with home gensets. That's where Homelite got it's start. The REA was a public works project, with some pretty shady political moves in the background, during the Depression years. Mainline power would have eventually spread anyway, but the money poured into a lot of these public works projects often was wasted compared to how private industry would have done it. It all comes out of our pockets folks and I don't know about you, but my pockets are about empty.