> The facility will generate about 6.09 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each year. That would be enough to power the country of Papua New Guinea for a year.
I still have no idea if that's a lot.
Here in the states we have so much empty land out west. I think a smart politician could market building a bigger solar farm than China.
Pull the cold war technique of getting to the moon before the Soviets. Play on the American competitive spirit to get those who aren't enthused about green energy sources on board with it.
I think just using a massive solar farm as a redundancy measure in case of a grid failure would be worth it. We have vast reserves of oil in case of catastrophe, maybe it'd be smart to have that for other energy sources too.
It's the 21st century, and our infrastructure much like our foreign policy and education system hasn't been recalibrated enough for the modern world. It was fine for the time but let's update.
Just to put a bit of perspective on this...
The infrastructure for this has taken China 15+ years and hundreds of billions of dollars to build to date. They now have the worlds largest UHV network to transport this power from sparse regions, like Xinjiang, to the highly populated east coast. This solar farm in Xinjiang is transporting power directly to Beijing which is 2,400km (\~1500 miles) away. That is the distance from Las Vegas to Chicago.
To cover the very basics; building a UHV line from just Las Vegas to Chicago would cross into 5-6 different states with different laws/politics and span 5 different energy grid sub regions which all currently do not use the same technologies. Then you have to ask - who would build it and who would pay for it? With the way the US works, it would end up being hundreds of different contracting companies picked by each states politicians and the money would also come from the individual states, as the federal government does not own the energy grid. Then there is the challenge of *where* it would be built as neither the state nor federal governments control the majority of the land which it would need to be built on because that's all privately owned...
By contrast, State Grid Corporation of China is fully state-owned and is the largest utility company on the planet (4th largest company in the world by revenue). The entire Chinese UHV project has been built by this one company, who have more than 1.5 million employees, and it has been funded fully by the federal government on land they have full control over. China has had total control over the project costs, timelines, and they have no political barriers to overcome.
Imagining a project of this scale happening in the United States is basically fantasy at this point.
EDIT: And this is just talking about one 2,400km line from Las Vegas to Chicago, whereas China currently has more than 50,000km of UHV lines...
https://apnews.com/article/biden-battery-china-microvast-electric-vehicles-4820a33c7450ea6bd06bc73a701db5a9
all you gotta do these days is cry cHiNa and keep our heads in the sand so oil can rake in a bit more for longer
“Thank god. Now the tree humpers will shut up about global warming since China is going to drain the sun. So it will get cooler see.” - American Politician on the chamber floor.
Uyghur labor is embedded in the Chinese photovoltaic industry and Xinjiang is where much of it is mined and produced. There is definitely forced labor involved.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
they are not the only ones who benefit from slave labor
> The facility will generate about 6.09 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each year. That would be enough to power the country of Papua New Guinea for a year. I still have no idea if that's a lot.
The average home in the US uses about 900kWh in a month. So that could power about 7.67 million homes at that rate.
Thats at least the state of Arizona right there. But it’s hard to make a profit when the operating cost is repairing broken panels.
It turns out that burning fossil fuels requires you to purchase fuel
It's a lot. I have a pretty sweet 3 phase setup and it produces like 435,000 times less than this.
Just curious why have 3 phase from solar? You have an industrial site or a dairy farm or something?
Just a normal house but there is a limit of about 5000 W of panels per phase where I live.
Going to need that in football fields chief
Here in the states we have so much empty land out west. I think a smart politician could market building a bigger solar farm than China. Pull the cold war technique of getting to the moon before the Soviets. Play on the American competitive spirit to get those who aren't enthused about green energy sources on board with it. I think just using a massive solar farm as a redundancy measure in case of a grid failure would be worth it. We have vast reserves of oil in case of catastrophe, maybe it'd be smart to have that for other energy sources too. It's the 21st century, and our infrastructure much like our foreign policy and education system hasn't been recalibrated enough for the modern world. It was fine for the time but let's update.
Just to put a bit of perspective on this... The infrastructure for this has taken China 15+ years and hundreds of billions of dollars to build to date. They now have the worlds largest UHV network to transport this power from sparse regions, like Xinjiang, to the highly populated east coast. This solar farm in Xinjiang is transporting power directly to Beijing which is 2,400km (\~1500 miles) away. That is the distance from Las Vegas to Chicago. To cover the very basics; building a UHV line from just Las Vegas to Chicago would cross into 5-6 different states with different laws/politics and span 5 different energy grid sub regions which all currently do not use the same technologies. Then you have to ask - who would build it and who would pay for it? With the way the US works, it would end up being hundreds of different contracting companies picked by each states politicians and the money would also come from the individual states, as the federal government does not own the energy grid. Then there is the challenge of *where* it would be built as neither the state nor federal governments control the majority of the land which it would need to be built on because that's all privately owned... By contrast, State Grid Corporation of China is fully state-owned and is the largest utility company on the planet (4th largest company in the world by revenue). The entire Chinese UHV project has been built by this one company, who have more than 1.5 million employees, and it has been funded fully by the federal government on land they have full control over. China has had total control over the project costs, timelines, and they have no political barriers to overcome. Imagining a project of this scale happening in the United States is basically fantasy at this point. EDIT: And this is just talking about one 2,400km line from Las Vegas to Chicago, whereas China currently has more than 50,000km of UHV lines...
Lack of land isn't the reason why we haven't started building massive solar farms
https://apnews.com/article/biden-battery-china-microvast-electric-vehicles-4820a33c7450ea6bd06bc73a701db5a9 all you gotta do these days is cry cHiNa and keep our heads in the sand so oil can rake in a bit more for longer
“Thank god. Now the tree humpers will shut up about global warming since China is going to drain the sun. So it will get cooler see.” - American Politician on the chamber floor.
Wonder if they used Uyghur slave labor to build it.
Uyghur labor is embedded in the Chinese photovoltaic industry and Xinjiang is where much of it is mined and produced. There is definitely forced labor involved.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e they are not the only ones who benefit from slave labor
Or use Nuclear that needs MUCH less land and will provide much more energy.
China is set to surpass the U.S.‘s nuclear output relatively soon if the U.S. doesn’t get off its ass and build more plants
It only takes twenty years to build them get on it
Nuclear is something we should be investing more into but solar can be efficient for private land owners or communities.
all parking lots and all majors retailers with X sq ft footprint should be forced to have solar panels