In addition, solar panels, which are about 10 percent efficient, will require devoting vast food crop producing areas of the southwest to solar begging the question how will we replace the lost food? Further, the systems to store the lost production of nigh time and cloudy days are extraordinarlly complex, see: http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/solar/scientific-american/a-solar-grand-plan/index.shtml.

Also, solar panels quickly loose efficiency when dust settles on the panel. Where will the water come from to constantly wash thousands of acres of solar panels?

Wind is no panacea either. Listen to the sound produced by those turning turbines, then multiply it by hundreds or thousands more and ask if you want to live within a few miles of that constant thummm sound. We do not know the environmental consequences of interfering with the natural flow of the air by installing hundreds of thousands of turbines.

Both Bingaman and Udall are rabid environmentalists. Neither can see past their ideology this truth: Fossil fuels are the least polluting, most efficient sources of energy next to nuclear.

“…the systems to store the lost production of nigh time and cloudy days are extraordinarlly complex, see: http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/solar/scientific-american/a-solar-grand-plan/index.shtml”

Well, “complex” is both a vague and subjective term. Yes, solar energy must be stored overnight and during extensive overcast periods. And this article mentions some storage techniques. But as usual, the authors of this paper from Scientific American are making the opposite case you do: this paper is PRO-solar energy, it advocates for government support to make it happen.

Don’t take my word for it kids, click on Phil’s link and see for yourselves.

here’s what this paper says that you left out, Phil:

“Studies by Oak Ridge National Laboratory indicate that long-distance HVDC lines lose far less energy than (exisiting alternating current) AC lines do over equivalent spans. . . . The AC system is also simply out of capacity. . .”

“In the past few years the cost to produce photovoltaic cells and modules has dropped significantly, opening the way for large-scale deployment.”

“The huge reduction in imported oil would lower trade balance payments by $300 billion a year. . .”

“The greatest obstacle to implementing a renewable U.S. energy system is not technology or money, however. It is the lack of public awareness that solar power is a practical alternative. . .”

As for your question “Where will the water come from to constantly wash thousands of acres of solar panels?”

Do you have any idea how much water is used by nuclear fission and coal-fired plants? Lots – look it up.

I have to get in one more zinger, Phil, old friend — you said “In addition, solar panels, . . . will require devoting vast food crop producing areas of the southwest to solar begging the question how will we replace the lost food?”

Howell, the paper on the web site that YOU cited above says this about that:

“Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., show that more than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers or difficult terrain. . . . 46,000 square miles of land would be needed for photovoltaic and concentrated solar power installations. That area is large, and yet it covers just 19 percent of the suitable Southwest land. Most of that land is barren; there is no competing use value.”

Oh well. Nice try — perhaps you should read the whole article next time. My final comment:

“Both Bingaman and Udall are rabid environmentalists.”

They have rabies? just kidding. Little hyperbolic there, old Phil. But hey, i least you spelled “Bingham”‘s name right this time!

You see readers, this land is already spoken for, a fact the people at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo do not know and LAWRENCE repeats their factually wrong statements.

4. According to the article the taxpayers of America– YOU– will have to give the developers a loan of $450/billion at no interest. You already have a debt of $12/trillion, so what is another $4/B? The taxes paid by the miners of coal, oil and natural gas to the state of N.M. fund education. Solar and wind are exempt from those taxes, and their costs per KWH are still higher than the coal-fired plants in the 4 corners. If we allowed more drilling on a fraction of the land of N.M. that is mineral rich, the state would have more tax money for education, the students at Socorro’s engineering program would have great jobs paying 6 figure salaries and blue collar people will have good paying jobs instead of unemployment checks.

5. LAWRENCE you did not address the issue of the toxic chemicals used to produce solar devices.

What makes sense to you readers? Give money to corporations and smother the land with panels, trample the desert landscape and not collect tax money from a product (oil or natural gas) sold to the people of New York? Or use the resources we have that are stored energy just waiting for us to use them to generate electricity, heat our homes, move our cars and busses? And provide jobs.

If we stop breathing the percent of carbon in the atmosphere will be reduced. As a ratio of quality energy produced for the carbon emissions of fossil fuels vs the burning of wood, dung and other materials to produce heat for cooking and light, we are better off burning fossil fuels.

My other question to you is do you support the proposals to harness wind and solar as energy sources, do you have any suggestions for ways to produce the energy we need to maintain the quality of life we have in this country?

That makes us even Howel — you did answer my question on how much water coal and nuclear plants use. I say that a typical coal or nuclear plant uses more water than a concentrated solar thermal plant. Am I right? See if you can prove me wrong.

But first things first:

“…Add to this the fact the land needed does not exist for such a scheme. For our readers benefit the simple explanations are these:
1. The solar advocates want to take 39.8 percent of the land mass of New Mexico for a solar farm, not 19 percent.”

Howell, the paper on the web site that YOU cited above says this about that:

“Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., show that more than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers or difficult terrain. . . . 46,000 square miles of land would be needed for photovoltaic and concentrated solar power installations. That area is large, and yet it covers just 19 percent of the suitable Southwest land.”

Howell — and anyone still reading — what is the second last word in the last sentence? SOUTHWEST. Southwest, not New Mexico as you claim.

So I went ot he orginal source that you keep citing:

“Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., show that more than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers or difficult terrain”
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/solar/scientific-american/a-solar-grand-plan/index.shtml

Since I’m a librarian, I know how to track reports down. Where did this data come from?

Renewable Energy Technology Resource Maps for the United States, which has a map for “Concentrating solar thermal plants” on the 3rd slide:

http://www.nrel.gov/gis/docs/resource_maps_200905.ppt

As anyone who can read a map can plainly see, there are SIX southwestern states with high solar power potential: CA, NV, UT, AZ, CO, NM

How big are they: Just checked the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. and found

AZ = 113,990 sq. mi.
CA = 163,694 sq. mi.
CO = 104,094 sq. mi.
NM = 121,590 sq. mi.
NV = 110,572 sq. mi.
UT = 84,897 sq. mi.

In fact, CA, NV and AZ had the darkest color gradients, therefore the most potential — so NM does not even have to be included.

So, it was a much larger area anyway than NM. But that is not issue; how is it that you claim the source says “New Mexico” when this article said “Southwest?”

I’ll address your other errors, Howel, after you explain this one.

The nature of a “concentrated solar thermal plant” demands that it be located on flat areas- plains- for simplicity of construction and maintenance. In NM we use most of those areas for agriculture. Some are set aside as protected areas to prevent exploration for oil and natural gas and we have significant restrictions regarding the use of the underground water located under those plains. All of those regulations and laws would have to be changed to allow for any “concentrated solar thermal plant[s]” to be constructed and new transmission lines would have to be erected. The left has opposed the use of the land that will be required for solar. Is your guess they will reverse themselves and show what hypocrites they are: opposing the drilling that will bring good jobs to NM, added tax revenue but allow the destruction of the land in a far more extensive way to build solar?

3. “Southwest, not New Mexico as you claim.” My use of NM was illustrative not absolute. My fault for failing to be clear. The report you cite has a vast amount of other information which was the point of my posting which I shall get to shortly. I’ll speak to the land mass issue in the report…. Their map includes California as a southwest state. It is a pacific coast state, regardless of what they say, and the CA land they include is already in use. Our military uses that land for training and it is hilly. It will require many $$millions to clear that land of unexploded ordinance. In southern AZ, the land mapped includes the city of Tucson, two reservations and old military land- same problem of CA. Northern AZ includes two reservations, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forrest, Painted Desert and winter weather.

Clinton locked up much of southern UT by declaring it off limits to coal mining. This issue was raised in #2

Southern NV has two thriving cities, Henderson and Las Vegas. North of Vegas is a vast military base which includes area 51 but is flat. Same problems as CA. Further north is Lake Tahoe, an area that has sufficient winter that is not likely to produce solar year round.

Southern Colorado is mountainous and very snowy, has numerous reservations.

Southern & eastern NM are the only areas available for solar as the lands west along the I40 corridor are largely reservation lands. North of Albuquerque until Las Vegas is mountainous then it is used for farming. On the east side are large tracts of farm land and cattle ranches. Then we have Clovis Air Force Base and Roswell. In the south, west of I25, is the Rio Grande corridor, the land rich with farm land procucing the great chili NM is known for. West of I25 is Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range with the ordnance problems and the contaminated area of Trinity Site where the first A bomb was exploded. East of HAFB is pecan growing and the Permian basin, home to oil wells and refineries.

El Paso County Texas is largely open flat land east of El Paso. The border area between I10 and I40 is hilly and sparsely populated ranch land.

Lawrence, now that I have provided the geography lesson, and remembering I am not a college grad, I will be brash and say those folks in CO who prepared this report are in error. They indicate there is plenty–46,000 square miles– of suitable land for the “concentrated solar thermal plant” that is readily available. Hogwash. Pollyana thinking.

Add to this is the issue I raised, the technology and equipment required for the operation of such a vast facility and the storage of the compressed air required to run the turbines during the periods when the plant cannot produce– midnight, rainy days, dust storms, etc. It is pie-in-the-sky dreaming to think this scheme can work. The report you cite also speaks to the half trillion $$$ of cost to build it and the power generated will be at a higher KWH cost than coal fired and natural gas fired plants. Do you believe for a nano second the cost will not be ONE trillion$$$ of tax payer money? Also NO mention of the cost to acquire the land is mentioned in that report. How many billions of $$$ for that acquisition? I already raised the objection the various Tribes will have in my previous posting.

Instead of your changing the focus from my initial point- the technology does not exist, the cost is out of sight- to justifying their unprovable idea by showing (properly so) my failure to be clear they were talking about the southwest, not just NM, why didn’t you, Mr Librarian, do what I just did: examine the land mass they claim for their project, and when it is clear there is not a continuity of land and improbability of obtaining the 46K square miles, show the fallacy of this idea?

LAWRENCE, why are you married to such a cockamaney scheme at such enormous cost?

Good grief, what a cop out. Is that the only way to find the answer to this question? If that’s what you think, than you are what we librarians call “information-illiterate.”

Right-wingers like you complain about government and environmental regulations and reporting requirements ad infinitum. Well, make use of them, man! Go to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Energy Information Administration’s web site [http://www.eia.doe.gov/] I bet you can find some data on water use by coal plants. (by the way, I also included nuclear plants – trust me, they use a tremendous amount of water). Or if the DOE is too socialist for you, try a private energy data source like the Edison Institute.

“. . . now that I have provided the geography lesson, and remembering I am not a college grad . . .”

I see. Not a college grad. That explains a lot.

“I will be brash and say those folks in CO who prepared this report are in error.”

Howel, these “folks” as you call them are SCIENTISTS. Folks with degrees and training in science and/or engineering.

In the first place you are meshing two sources together. The blog post you cited
[http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/solar/scientific-american/a-solar-grand-plan/index.shtml] in an attempt to prove solar energy is too complex to consider, was the re-posting of a paper from “Scientific American” — that’s a scientific journal, peer-reviewed, written by and for scientists (and lay people who understand science).

Those authors were basing the land use part of their case on studies and data done at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. That is a U.S. Department of Energy facility. You think the scientists and engineers at NREL are wrong? Please explain how you, who did not finish college (did you attend at all?), know more than they do.

Perhaps you can list some of the scientific papers that you have published — oh, that’s right, you’re not a college grad.

Howel, take it from me: I used to work at Sandia Labs as a contractor. (I ran a library for a nuclear research reactor lab group). I worked with lots of scientists and engineers. They are pretty smart. Believe me, folks with such a background and experience could not write up a proposal and have it published by Scientific American if they did not know what they were talking about.

By the way, if you’re not a college grad, than what is your connection to UNM? To the Daily Lobo? Just curious.

Well, I think your ultimate error was revealed when you said:

“. . . examine the land mass they claim for their project, and when it is clear there is not a continuity of land and improbability of obtaining the 46K square miles, show the fallacy of this idea?”

Howel, you are committing the fallacy. Re-read everything again at that site, slowly. Take your time.

They were not talking about thousands of contiguous* square miles of land for ONE solar plant. They mentioned plans for a series of plants, that’s PLANTS, with an ‘S’ – plural. Is that what you really thought? Oh my God.

Kind of confirms what was reported in the results of a poll just released by Quinnipac University: Tea Party followers on average are less educated than Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. Sad.

3. A degree does make a person immune from error. “SCIENTISTS” gave us the lies of global warming supported by facts they created, kind of like a crooked bookkeeper. MD’s are scientifically trained yet make errors. “SCIENTISTS” are not infallible despite the ultra high esteem you appear to have for them. DOE was established in 1977 by President Carter to make the nation energy secure and independent. Since than hundreds of billions of tax dollars have been expended to pay the salaries of “SCIENTISTS” and fund projects. How are we better off, energy wise, today than when Carter was president?

4. I know people who work at the labs and am familiar with some of the work they do. Remember the battery project?

5. I said this: “They indicate there is plenty–46,000 square miles– of suitable land for the “concentrated solar thermal plant” that is readily available. Hogwash. Pollyanna thinking.” That is a fact. I also said this: “Instead of your changing the focus from my initial point the technology does not exist, the cost is out of sight to justifying their unprovable idea by showing (properly so) my failure to be clear they were talking about the southwest, not just NM, why didn’t you, Mr Librarian, do what I just did: examine the land mass they claim for their project, and when it is clear there is not a continuity of land and improbability of obtaining the 46K square miles, show the fallacy of this idea?”

Please speak to this statement of mine: “Add to this is the issue I raised, the technology and equipment required for the operation of such a vast facility and the storage of the compressed air required to run the turbines during the periods when the plant cannot produce– midnight, rainy days, dust storms, etc. It is pie-in-the-sky dreaming to think this scheme can work. The report you site also speaks to the half trillion $$$ of cost to build it and the power generated will be at a higher KWH cost than coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants. Do you believe for a nano second the cost will not be ONE trillion$$$ of tax payer money? Also NO mention of the cost to acquire the land is mentioned in that report. How many billions of $$$ for that acquisition? I already raised the objection the various Tribes will have in my previous posting.”

You changed the direction of the discussion from is it technically feasible to how brilliant the scientists who publish in Scientific Americana happen to be.

PS: Your: “Perhaps you can list some of the scientific papers that you have published — oh, that’s right, you’re not a college grad.” This LAWRENCE is one of many examples of your petulant mean-spirited nature, the barbs you hurl at many with who you disagree and then become frustrated because they are right. What was your point?

Okay, I concede to being a smart-aleck. As I always tell my wife, it’s better than being a “dumb-aleck.”

But really, Phil, I think you are awfully sensitive if that sort of statement offends you. Especially when compared to the quite horrid and crude vituperations one sees on these discussion boards. Like the kind directed at me – and others -by right-wingers like Damian and Andres Saenz.
They regularly call people names, like “idiot’ – and much worse. Have I ever called you a name Phil, ever? Please correct me if I have.

Just today, your friend Damian posted “dont let this scumbag Lawrence scare you away.” As for something worse than name-calling, what would think if I posted a statement like this:

“You seem like a real jerk-off anyways with a stick up your ass. “

That gem was posted in a message to me this week by your like-minded ally Damian. Then there was “interested student” over in the Middle East discussion who questioned my manhood because I work as a librarian.

Phil, if you think I have been mean to you, what do you say about the postings of people like Damian? I would take your protest about my alledged “mean-spiritedness” more seriously if I ever saw you admonish Damian and Saenz for their nasty insults.

>> and then become frustrated because they are right.

No, I think it’s the other way around. You usually maintain your composure – although you have typed some angry retorts. But your ally Damian, when confronted with the facts by the likes of me – and others – more often than not lately just hurls insults.

>> What was your point?

That you lacked an understanding of the work of those scientists in this particular study; also, I really think with you or anyone who lacks a scientific education are usuallly not qualified to critique the works of scientists. Sorry, but I think that is just a fact of life.

Where does one draw the line at being as smart as anyone on any topic? Graduate school? Medical school? Do you know as much about medicine as your doctor? I bet you want a knowledgable person reading your x-rays or lab results. Do you want the engineers and tradesmen who built your house to smart at what they do? how about the mechanic who works on your car’s brakes?

heck, why bother having colleges and universities, if anyone can be a self-educated expert?

Besides, in this age of “Google” and infotainment pseudo-news, I am increasingly appalled by the ease with which one can start a blog or web site and distribute all the disinformation one desires.

Funny you should mention am I as smart as my MD. I have a screwed up knee, a combo of child hood injury and torn meniscus. The MD who read the MRI did not see the tear. I felt something was wrong so I went to another orthopedic guy who looked at the CD of the MRI (always get a copy disc) and seen the tear. I did not know what I was looking at. I was just concerned enough that I asked another person smarter than me to evaluate.

Which goes to the guys from CO. They acknowledge the technology to build what they advocate does not exist. They also point out the cost per KW/HR is higher. Right there why persue this? They claim the land exists. I disagree. Someone is right, or more right than totally wrong. I have driven around the southwest so I know something about the land and how it is being used. Maybe the old saw of knowing enough to be dangerous.