At last : Some intelligent engineering to mitigate a climate problem

Reading this has brightened my day: **LINK**

https://theconversation.com/first-solar-canal-project-is-a-win-for-water-energy-air-and-climate-in-california-177433

MichaelG.

Looks good, in light of the current energy & food situation which has been flagged for the last 20 odd years exactly why are we covering over arable land with warehousing, housing & 'solar farms'?

Tony

An excellent idea, well spotted Michael.

Something we could exploit here in the UK is to install solar arrays on the roofs of industrial buildings rather than continue to cover productive land with solar farms. There must be square miles of those surfaces simply crying out for such use.

And for the Government to put some real money into developing the recently unveiled flexible solar sheeting to cover other surfaces. It may not be as efficient as rigid panels, but it should be cheap to produce and treat like a form of carpet once manufacture is geared up for it.

Brian

Edited By Brian Wood on 02/03/2022 10:33:43

4000miles of canal , equals say 200sq miles max of solar panel , equals say 15 x15 sq miles of desert

equivalent installation. Now compare installation costs and see why it hasn't been done.

Don't forget domestic house roofs. They are doing that here in Australia. Some new housing estates all have panels on the roof that feed into the grid, regardless of where the occupants choose to buy their power from. All run by a power company that co-ordinates it. These days in Australia, there are dwindling numbers of industrial buildings and growing numbers of houses. The roof of a house fully covered in solar panels will produce more power than one household typically uses. Gian batteries are used to iron out the day/night supply/load issues. It's to the stage already that power companies are planning to shut down coal fired powerstations 10 years before the planned end of their life because they are not going to be economical in the face of solar for much longer. Despite a federal government that has fought against it tooth and nail, the cost factor means the private sector is running with solar.

The big issue in California though is the water, and evaporation there of. Water is like gold there. Huge population, hot dry climate and no local water supply. So it comes in open canals across miles and miles of dry windy desert. The savings from reduced evaporation would have to be entered into the cost equation.

As far as multiple small installations vs huge solar "farms" goes though, Australia is full of 5 to 10kW house rooftop arrays and as said in above post, it's running the coal burners out of business. A real game changer. Of course it's a smaller market and sunnier climate than UK but shows what can be done rather easily to a level higher than anyone really expected if the economics are right. Cheap is cheap. Power distribution companies love it, all that cheap rooftop power being fed into the grid. HOme owners love it, all those lower or non-existent power bills. Win-win.

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Did you read the whole story ?

MichaelG.

Australia is full of 5 to 10kW house rooftop arrays

Must have bigger roofs in Australia than UK houses !

My* installation is around 3.5kW & it fills the south facing side of the roof. Seems that we are limited to around 3.8kW single phase without getting express approval from the supply authority.

* on my roof, but not owned by me - yet. I get to use all the electricity the panels generate, with any excess I can't / don't use going into the grid. The company that owns the panels gets the feed-in tariffs which, IIRC, were 42p per kWH generated at the time of installation - the system has it's own mobile phone connection & sends generation reports back automatically for them to claim the feed-in tariff. Last I heard our installation generates around 4250kWH a year.

The company installed the kit & maintains it. At the end of the 25 year agreement, they guarantee that the installation will be at least 80% of the original installed capacity, replacing any degraded panels to achieve that, then it becomes mine. Cost at the time to install was around £18K IIRC (more than I could have afforded then ) - installation costs have fallen substantially since, as have the FITs. The "rented roofs" model must only have worked out for them when the FITs were high, as they no longer install systems under the arrangement I have.

Germany is way ahead of the UK for putting solar PV on building roofs - must have paid out a lot in subsidies to get the kind of uptake they have. Probably why they have amongst the highest electricity tariffs in Europe.

Nigel B.

anyone thinking about getting solar panels fitted please make sure you get a firm that has a good reputation. i am a self employed slater and have seen some terrible bodges, brackets simply screwed through the slates without a sealing washer, on tiled roofs some brackets are screwed on to the rafter and the tile laid on top which leaves a gap for wind and rain to get in, then there is the rattling noise when windy and the mess of birds using the ideal place for there nests. i refuse all repair work where solar panels are fitted because the leaks are often under the panel and you cant use a roof ladder for access.

A bit alternative and completely crazy idea - or is it? As I flicked the button on my central heating to warm up a bit, I decided to look at my boiler information. It kicks out 10s of kW to keep all the rooms in the house warm and with other females in the house (not being sexist - just a fact), they tend to like it warmer than me.

Then I had a crazy thought. Why aren't we all walking round in temperature controlled suits that would be rated at about 100W rather than 10s of kW? The building would be controlled to say +10 degrees C at a fraction of the energy and we would be very comfortable walking round in our individually controlled 'space suits'.

I know some might just say well put a jumper or two on but you then have difficulty with the layer thicknesses and the on and off business as you overheat at certain times.

I'm skeptical of all such magical solutions. Magical as in, "Let's just put solar panels over the canal!". Financial and environmental costs are often naively understated. How will it change the environment? What happens to birds and other animals that use that water? Does having a shade over the canal produce some other unanticipated/undesired consequences? Will it rust easily by being over water?

I'd rather humans stop living in the DESERT and drastically reshaping it to suit them. All of that water used to empty out into Mexico's Sea of Cortez with environmental consequences of its own.

.

I suppose that’s why they are doing a ‘proof of concept’ installation first.

MichaelG.

Yes MG, I did read the article.

The 'PoC is, rightly ,just one mile of the 4000.

My guess , we'll have fusion before the other 3999 miles get covered.

I used to live there nearly 50 years ago (Calif) and they were compaining about water evap losses then.....

just how many millions of gallons of precious water has been lost.....Regardless of cost it needs to be done.....

theres a lot of unemployment there so plenty of labour....

no prob for wildlife just raise it off the wall a foot....

besides other than scorpions n snakes there aint much wild life and the Hippy's have grown old n left...hahaha....

Solar panels should be copulsory thoughout the western style world where houses should face south where poss.....

lastly.....

when I lived in sunny SW France the quote for materials only for a 200ltr hot water array was over €4000 almost 20 years ago....extra lab €1500 min subjected to a survey....

mine came complete from Israel for a grand.....

the same thing in Greece......is a little over €1200 for the same thing......90% of houses have them fitted.....

At that kinda money even in the UK with it's rubbish weather it wont take long to get ur money bake....Promise...

In the UK with only one desert the solar farms have grass grow beneath the panels, the answer to this is sheep.

This really is a no-brainer, but our government has no brain. They should amend the building regs so every industrial building has to have solar panels from new, then change the business rates regime so if you haven't got them on existing buildings you pay more. I do accept that some old buildings it won't be practical, but this could be allowed for

Yes I think that is the case. We don't do semi-detached or those row houses that are common in the UK. Everyone has to have their own "McMansion" which I think is what you call bungalow style. As kids don't play outside these days and dads don't work on cars in the backyard etc, the houses have grown to full the whole block to the point that their eaves almost touch the eaves of the house next door. So lots of large roofs and the most common base model solar array now is about 6kW.

Sounds like a good scheme that you have for where you live though.

Here is another piece of brilliant engineering in use to mitigate the results of global warming. A flood barrier in the coastal town of Maryborough, Queensland, made from hundreds of special aluminium trestles and long tarpaulins plus presumably sandbags. It is erected when a flood is imminent and taken down after the waters recede. Brilliant. Currrently in use holding back floodwaters about 3 feet deep from the local high street. (Which obvoiusly is not high enough!), following record summer rainfall and rivers bursting their banks linked to higher temperatures than normal.

**LINK**

Edited By Hopper on 03/03/2022 03:45:01

Edited By Hopper on 03/03/2022 03:46:42

That looks excellent, Hopper

Closely spaced to nicely distribute the load.

MichaelG.

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Smug edit: __ I thought the frames looked more like steel than aluminium

… Reading your link seems to corroborate that.

… but please correct me if you know for sure.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/03/2022 07:27:02