Crops under solar panels can be a win-win

Ah crap I screwed up the gag.

3DO seemed like a technologically advanced system for the time that suffered from the usual market-segment problems: too expensive, and management seemed to think people would pay a premium for games just because they were 3D and came on CD without respect to their other qualities, like being good or fun.

They didn't.

ls-can-be-a-win-win/

r for the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving th eir electrical production. True win-win.

ything is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

s to run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation in places like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of u sing the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn' t do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but th e crummy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to greatly reduced panel density.

t so important. I suppose some will say this is a solar farm with reduced density. Others will see it as a crop farm that also produces electricity.

thing looks like 25% land use for the solar max. That is a major reduction in output. And what the heck makes you think vegetable farms use inordinate amounts of energy? They don't.

lthough there are a few around here that have put solar collectors on barns and such.

than look at the whole picture. Consider it a farm that produces electric ity. Now the ground coverage by the solar cells is not so important is it?

ook at crop yield per land area which may or may not be different from othe r farms.

growing of the crops and the crops improve the operation of the solar colle ctors. This is not a commercial crop/solar farm. Like many here if it isn 't packaged and sealed and ready for delivery you seem to think it can't po ssibly be practical. So I suppose nuclear energy is not practical either s ince we have no idea how to maintain waste products for 10,000 years.

s whether this works out to be better than either one alone. You have cont ributed nothing to that part of the conversation, just waving your arms in the air yelling, "reduced panel density!"

problem with solar consuming prime agricultural land. Much of it is being located in areas where agriculture is impractical if not impossible. The ma rket is a corrective influence in that the cost of prime land is sky high c ompared to the unusable land, so the solar installations go onto agricultur ally unusable land. BUT on the political side, many localities are banning solar in areas zoned for agriculture, even though agriculture may be failin g there or the land is fallow. The bans are mainly due to sentimentality an d not science or economics based. So this solar/agriculture "synergy" nonse nse is a way to attempt to circumvent the bans.

dn't say "there is no synergy". Go back and read and then we'll talk.

e BS. A 500 MW installation, one of the largest in the US is being built 1

0 miles from here on land that is in use for lumber harvesting. There is n o shortage of land here, other than for homes which is the main complaint w ith the facility, it's right next to a neighborhood.

You're talking about this:

And that would be largest east of the Rocky Mountains, not U.S.

It's an approximately 6000 acre tract that was clear cut by the timber comp any for the last time and put up for sale. They were finished with it. Tim ber land is forestry and not agriculture. Here's a rundown on the kind of l and it is from the Virginia Dept of Forestry, who know a thing or two about the subject:

History of Forestry Spotsylvania County etc

"Poor farming practices used during the peak of agriculture production also took its toll on the soils in Spotsylvania, and further deprived this regi on of much of its precious topsoil. Once bountiful regions had now been red uced to marginal productivity, at best. Although marginal for agriculture, the soils were good for pine plantations, predominately Loblolly pine (Pinu s taeda). After the turn of the 20th century, and most of the 1900s, forest ry and forest products were an important part of the economy of Spotsylvani a County. Numerous portable sawmills, permanent sawmills and timber harvest ers operated in the area, providing a livelihood for many families. This tr end continued into the 1960s and 1970s, until the nature of the county begi n to change."

In other words, the yahoos trashed the land beyond use, except for growing genetically modified pine.

The so-called neighborhood is a factition, Fawn Lake. They're getting a 300 foot buffer, they won't be able to see, hear or smell the solar. The solar will be quieter, and safer, than using the place as a hunting preserve, an d the roadways are a lot safer without a gazillion logging trucks barreling through. The people there are too ignorant to know the difference between a forest and timber farm. Then a straight forward calculation yields the 85

0,000 metric done annual sequestration of CO2 due to the solar energy produ ction is equivalent to that of 60,000 acres of mature oak stand. The timber land there was not mature oak, it was pulp pine that comes in really low o n the carbon sequestration scale, less than one ton per acre annual sequest ration, and sPower is consuming only 3500 acres.

The rest of your blather isn't worth addressing because you don't know what you're talking about.

crops can improve each other. Oh, but you didn't read the report, I forgo t.

ways. They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem :

llion-plastic-problem

nsustainable.

s, you seem to be overly focused on this one part of the problem. Why is t his any worse than any other plastic disposal problem? Why is this harder to solve? Seems to me like they have a handle on it mostly because it is b ig business and at least the collection issue is greatly reduced.

mparison with even worse problems is not constructive. The agricultural tur nover is seasonal, it is non-stop, and there are no alternatives on the hor izon.

think farm based plastics are the important issue at the moment. We can't address every problem at once... and "huge" is a relative term so, no, it's not such a big problem relatively speaking. I'm not sure how it is even r elevant to the issue at hand. Maybe you'd like to open an new thread to di scuss that?

You're really shy on details and facts, and thankfully you don't make polic y in this country, so your opinion doesn't matter.

All models together, worldwide, I understand that there were about

700,000 3DO consoles sold.

I wasn't working on any one specific game for it - I was part of the team developing the Portfolio operating system that all of the games used. I wrote the CD-ROM driver and the filesystem code, and the software to drive the game controllers and light gun and so forth. Also co-designed the audio DSP and developed the 3D-audio algorithm for it.

It was a sobering thing to think "OK, every mistake I make in the first version of the code is going to be mastered onto about 100k CD-ROMs... and can't be fixed once it's shipped."

Don't you wish you worked on hardware where things are simple and easy to get right?

--

  Rick C. 

  +- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  +- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

(sound of a horse, laughing, in the distance)

:-)

Yeah, that situation gave me an appreciation for what the hardware guys go through every time they tape out.

man that is super cool you worked on that. thanks for sharing. 3DO was the "most advanced" system of its time (never got to play on one though)

n-be-a-win-win/

the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving their e lectrical production. True win-win.

g is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation in p laces like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of using the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn't do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but the cru mmy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to gr eatly reduced panel density.

They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem:

-plastic-problem

ainable.

Driving electric cars would be fine. Aircraft are more of a problem. There really aren't enough private planes to create a problem, but international tourism probably has to go.

George Monbiot pointed this out back in 2006, and it still seems to be true .

A new generation of more bulbous aircraft with enough room for liquid hydro gen fuel - rather lower energy density than liquid hydrocarbons - might sav e the tourist industry, but it would take a while and a great deal of expen sive development.

Extra-destructive hurricanes in the Caribbean ...

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

It's not just the lower energy density. There's probably no way to encase useful amounts of hydrogen in a viable aircraft.

Clifford Heath.

an-be-a-win-win/

r the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving their electrical production. True win-win.

ing is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

to run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation i n places like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of usi ng the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn't do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but the crummy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to greatly reduced panel density.

ys. They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem:

ion-plastic-problem

ustainable.

ere really aren't enough private planes to create a problem, but internatio nal tourism probably has to go.

true.

ydrogen fuel - rather lower energy density than liquid hydrocarbons - might save the tourist industry, but it would take a while and a great deal of e xpensive development.

I thought the Germans nailed that problem a century ago. No?

--

  Rick C. 

  ++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  ++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

an-be-a-win-win/

r the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving their electrical production. True win-win.

ing is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

to run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation i n places like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of usi ng the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn't do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but the crummy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to greatly reduced panel density.

ys. They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem:

ion-plastic-problem

ustainable.

ere really aren't enough private planes to create a problem, but internatio nal tourism probably has to go.

true.

ydrogen fuel - rather lower energy density than liquid hydrocarbons - might save the tourist industry, but it would take a while and a great deal of e xpensive development.

What makes you think that? Liquid hydrogen has been used as a rocket fuel. You can make the tanks well-enough insulated that the boil-off rate is tole rable.

An intercontinental flight takes longer than fueling a rocket and waiting f or take-off, but "bulbous" does envisage thicker insulation than you'd choo se for a rocket.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Rick C wrote in news:a21a6ecb-c54b- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Then why is your memory so bad that you cannot remember how that turned out?

Encasing large amounts in liquid (or even gas) form is dangerous too. And heavy.

Cryogenics are costly and troublesome. Hydrogen at useful density and ambient temperatures the same in different ways. Both are inordinately more difficult and costly than liquid fuels.

Also, all those rockets were single-use.

ote:

e:

-can-be-a-win-win/

for the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving thei r electrical production. True win-win.

thing is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

s to run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation in places like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of u sing the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn' t do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but th e crummy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to greatly reduced panel density.

ways. They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem :

llion-plastic-problem

nsustainable.

There really aren't enough private planes to create a problem, but internat ional tourism probably has to go.

e true.

hydrogen fuel - rather lower energy density than liquid hydrocarbons - mig ht save the tourist industry, but it would take a while and a great deal of expensive development.

el.

That was just an expedient as Musk is showing us. They designed to do a jo b the cheapest and simplest way possible. A job that didn't require reuse. Musk is now looking at new ways to make the task more routine as well as cheap.

--

  Rick C. 

  --- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging 
  --- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

ote:

e:

-can-be-a-win-win/

for the amount of food produced the solar panels stay cooler improving thei r electrical production. True win-win.

thing is an improvement. It is not a general recommendation.

s to run irrigation pumps, and they really want to be using drip irrigation in places like this, and drip is low power.It probably drove the idea of u sing the panels for shading in the first place, although a lot stuff doesn' t do well in shade. Notice they didn't mention any of the economics, but th e crummy vegetable crop isn't going to make up for the loss of revenue due to greatly reduced panel density.

ways. They have HUGE problems. Here is a story about their plastics problem :

llion-plastic-problem

nsustainable.

There really aren't enough private planes to create a problem, but internat ional tourism probably has to go.

e true.

hydrogen fuel - rather lower energy density than liquid hydrocarbons - mig ht save the tourist industry, but it would take a while and a great deal of expensive development.

el.

So what? Hydrogen embrittlement is a known problem with known solutions.

You seem to be in full nervous Nellie mode.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Rubbish. His rockets are liquid-fuelled. Show me a similar re-usable hydrogen-fuelled rocket and we have something to talk about.

Clifford Heath.

In what sense is liquid hydrogen not a liquid fuel?

Musk uses kerosene and liquid oxygen. The other private rocket development uses liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Liquid hydrogen is trickier than liquid oxygen, or liquid methane, but cryogenic liquids are clearly perfectly practical.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Is evaporation of liquid hydrogen really a problem ? As far as I understand, the hydrogen needs to be in gaseous form in order to burn it in an engine. In rockets, the liquid hydrogen runs around the nozzle to evaporate it before being burnt.

With a suitable tank insulation thickness the evaporation rate could be adjusted in such a way that the gaseous hydrogen can be immediately burned in the engine. When flying at 10 km, the air temperature is about -50 C, reducing insulation needs.

Of course, if the departure is delayed for some reason, too much may evaporate on the ground.