Category: Solar Farm

Solar Panels and Wind Turbines Are Killing French Cows

Published on by sunshinehours113 Comments

BioElectrocution

In recent years, cattle farmers in France’s Brittany region have lost hundreds of cows to deaths that veterinarians simply cannot explain. After running various tests on their land, some now claim that the solar panels and wind turbines in the area are releasing too much electricity into the ground, which is slowly killing their animals.

Although mysterious cattle deaths have been reported in various parts of Brittany, the situation is particularly dire in Cote-d’Amour, where several farmers have sustained hundreds of losses in mysterious conditions. According to local farmer Patrick Le Nechet, his cattle just started losing weight a few years back and many of them ultimately died. The strange thing was that the animals didn’t seem to be suffering from any diseases and the veterinarians couldn’t explain the cause of death. After conducting his own investigation, Le Nechet concluded that the mysterious deaths started occurring around the time that a photovoltaic installation appeared in the area.

Photo: Couleur/Pixabay

“The cows started losing weight, and we’ve lost 120 of them in the last five years,” Le Nechet told Europe1. “It can not be explained, not even veterinarians know what to do.”

After beginning to suspect that the solar panels near his farm may be to blame for the mysterious deaths of his cattle, Patrick Le Nechet conducted tests on his land and found that there were electrical currents of over one volt both in the ground and in the water, three times the accepted threshold for animals.

“There is a direct electrical current going into the earth,” the desperate farmer said. “Watching all the animals die, it’s unbearable.”

Stéphane Le Brechec, another cattle farmer from Allineuc, 30 kilometers Cote-d’Amour, has lost even more cows in mysterious conditions. He started suspecting something was wrong after 37 of his cows died in six months. Today, the death count is over 200 and he is extremely worried.

Photo: distel2610/Pixabay

“I’m panicking. So far, I’ve invested 500,000 euros, I can not pay my bills, the situation is dramatic,” Le Brechec complained, adding that he has identified at least 17 probable culprits for the unexplained deaths, including wind turbines, antennas and transformers.

At this point, French cattle farmers are merely speculating, because there is no irrefutable proof that the electrical current from sustainable energy installations is killing the cows. However, the negative effect electricity has on cattle is well documented. Two years ago, another French farmer from Val de Saône, in Rhône, reported problems related to the electrical current from a nearby industrial area. He claimed that the electrical current sent into the ground by large transformers influenced the health and behavior of his cows.

“When there are power spikes, some cows gather in one corner, others start to limp, calves that felt good the day before, die,” the farmer told Le Progres, adding that many of his cows were also losing weight and producing considerably less milk.

Thibaut Bouchut, Building Advisor of the Sanitary Defense Group, confirmed that electricity can indeed cause problems for cattle farmers.

“The human body has an electrical resistance of 1,500 Ohms, while the cows, only 500 Ohms, not to mention that they are not separated from the ground by rubber soles,” Bouchut said. “Breeders are not always aware of electrical disturbances, and sometime the seemingly-unexplained problems they face discourage them, even if they are competent. Farms close down because of that.”

Unwashed Solar Panels Can Drop to 32.4% of Capacity

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Just a followup on the 200,000 liters of water to clean solar panels post.

NREL actually tested panels in Qatar with different cleaning schedules.

A 35,000 m2 Solar Test Facility was established at Qatar Foundation, Doha, in 2012 in order to identify solar energy technologies suitable for the local climate, and study the effects of dust and heat. Of particular concern is soiling of PV panels, causing them to lose performance. This study aims to understand long-term soiling behavior in the absence of cleaning or rain.

METHODOLOGY

Four PV arrays were set up at the Solar Test Facility. Each comprised eight polycrystalline  PV modules, connected to identical grid-tied inverters, and operated at maximum power point conditions.

The only difference between the arrays was the cleaning interval:

(i) one week (“high”), (ii) two months (“medium”), (iii) six months (“low”), and (iv) not  cleaned (“never”).

Of course, all arrays were subject to rain. The test period was two years commenced February 2013.

Energy losses of each array due to soiling are shown in Figure 1. The results are expressed as the arrays‟ PR relative to the long-term average PR of the weekly-washed array, ie. the weekly-washed array is treated as the “100%” benchmark. It is seen that:

• The soiling rates generally appear to be higher in winter than in summer, ie. The lines are steepest in the months around January-February, and relatively flat around June-July.

• The greatest power loss occurred on the never-washed array, which after 234 days
produced only 32.4% of the DC power of the weekly-washed array

• The soiling rate tends to decrease the longer the time since last cleaning, as seen by
comparing the slopes of the medium, low and never-washed arrays approaching
November 2014
• However dust continued to accumulate on the never-washed array even after 234 days, ie. The line was still going down when it rained in November 2014.

Japan Will Need To Dispose of 110,000 Solar Panels per Day!

Published on by sunshinehours17 Comments

A mess of panels.

TOKYO —  Solar panels have sprung up across Japan in the past few years, after the government introduced a “feed-in tariff” in July 2012 that guarantees prices for electricity generated from renewable energy. When these panels reach the end of their working lives in 20-30 years, they will create a mountain of waste.

 

By 2020, Japan’s Environment Ministry forecasts the country’s solar-panel waste will exceed 10,000 tons.

After that, the pile really starts growing: reaching 100,000 tons in 2031 and topping 300,000 tons in 2033, the 20th anniversary of the feed-in tariff.

Between 2034 and 2040 the amount of waste produced is expected to hover around 700,000-800,000 tons annually.

The projected peak of 810,000 tons is equivalent to 40.5 million panels.

To dispose of that amount in a year would mean getting rid of 110,000 panels per day.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-tries-to-chip-away-at-mountain-of-disused-solar-panels

 

10 Hours of Sun in Germany for December 2017

Published on by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

At NoTricksZone the insanity of Germany’s “plan” for saving the worlds from cheap electrcity is on display.

80GW of demand (the reddish line)

40 GW of installed solar producing almost nothing (the yellow)/

10 hours of sunshine in Germany for the whole month of December.

 

 

As Jo Nova says:

“Imagine what kind of havoc this kind of energy flux can do. Not one piece of baseload capital equipment can be retired, despite the fact that half of it is randomly unprofitable depending on cloud cover. Solar PV eats away the low cost competitive advantage. Capital sits there unused, spinning on standby, while wages, interest, and other costs keep accruing. So hapless baseload suppliers charge more for the hours that they do run, making electricity more expensive.

They just need batteries with three months supply.”

 

Solar Array UHI = PVHI = 3C to 4C

Published on by sunshinehours12 Comments

Do you have a lot of solar cells in your neighborhood or city or state? Then welcome to the PVHI.

“Because there are still large uncertainties surrounding the potential for a PHVI effect, we examined the PVHI empirically with experiments that spanned three biomes. We found temperatures over a PV plant were regularly 3–4 °C warmer than wildlands at night, which is in direct contrast to other studies based on models that suggested that PV systems should decrease ambient temperatures.”

And then your region can buy more air conditioners to try and cool off the evening, which will then pump more warm moist air into the area, which will increase the night time temperatures even more and then ….

 

 

Streamers

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

The wisps of smoke are birds/insects being immolated by the Ivanpah solar farm.

la-me-solar-bird-deaths-pictures-009

A macabre fireworks show unfolds each day along I-15 west of Las Vegas, as birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight and are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert sky.

Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Plant have a name for the spectacle: “Streamers.”

Federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die from collisions or immolation annually while chasing flying insects around the facility’s three 40-story towers, which catch sunlight from five square miles of garage-door-size mirrors to drive the plant’s power-producing turbines.

Coyotes are getting fat on Roadrunners.

In addition, coyotes eat dozens of road runners trapped  along the outside of a perimeter fence that was designed to prevent federally threatened desert tortoises from wandering onto the property.

The World’s Largest Solar Plant Just Torched Itself

Published on by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Ouch.

Misaligned mirrors are being blamed for a fire that broke out yesterday at the world’s largest solar power plant, leaving the high-tech facility crippled for the time being. It sounds like the plant’s workers suffered through a real hellscape, too.

zr1ss21dikjfa3p4kibp
Damaged steam ducts and water pipes. (Image: San Bernardino County Fire Department via AP)

A small fire was reported yesterday morning at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in California, forcing a temporary shutdown of the facility. It’s now running at a third of its capacity (a second tower is down due to scheduled maintenance), and it’s not immediately clear when the damaged tower will restart. It’s also unclear how the incident will impact California’s electricity supply.

Putting out the blaze was not easy task, either. Firefighters were forced to climb 300 feet up a boiler tower to get to the scene. Officials said the fire was located about two-thirds up the tower. Workers at the plant actually managed to subdue the flames by the time firefighters reached the spot, and it was officially extinguished about 20 minutes after it started.