Wind and solar farms? effective alternatives or no? does it actually

>>55955744
I used to work at a solar farm in California. Those things are toxic as fuck. We literally had employees that sit in towers watching for smoke because they frequently smolder (from the heat) and spew highly toxic shit into the air if they catch fire. They have to be hosed down and shut off for the day once this happens and parts replaced. It's constant maintenance none stop. Also once ina while when birds fly over them they (no joke) burst into flames and its a fire hazard.

>>55956759
Reasons photovoltaic is better.

>>55956759
>Birds burst into flames
You must work at a solar mirror site that reflects the energy into a water tower and spins a turbine. I have never heard of solar panels doing that.
t. college student

>>55955744
Non Photovoltaic is a meme. Wind is pretty effective, just ask Iowa or Kansas. Ultimately nuclear is the best option. Sadly instead of the US building thorium reactors, the doe is going to help China do it. We still use uranium because it makes it easier to build bombs.

>>55956759
Remember about hearing those guys that were trapped on top of burning one? One of the guys jumped off and the other burned to death I guess.

>>55956950
>Non photovoltaic is a meme
Lmao are you serious? PV will never reach the output solar-thermal does, both need an excesive amount of land, wind is better.

>>55957028
Well you can look at it this way, the one that stayed and died at least doesn't have to burn in hell for committing suicide like the one that jumped.

>effective alternatives or no?
Depends where you are. North Africa, southwestern US, and other places with consistently high irradiance really should be jumping on solar if they aren't already. PV, CSP, doesn't matter, it's a good option. I think wind would be good for all those European countries with long coastlines; if they can cut down the material and engineering cost of offshore wind farms, that could be a fairly decent option.

My main beef with wind and solar is that people are obsessed with building them but little attention is being paid to their intermittency problem. There are some creative energy storage options (my favorite one is a bigass train with a ton of rocks as cargo - excess-energy produced pushes the train up a hill, and releases by going down the will when needed) but nothing on a national scale right now. And we will need to build more high voltage transmission lines and just deal with the losses.

>Does it cause more harm than good?
On the construction side, making solae modules is a very toxic process. Probably no more dangerous to long-term health than being a coal miner, but it isn't good. On the energy invested side, depends where you are. Putting solar in a low-irradiance area is pointless because the energy invested in designing, permitting, engineering, delivering, and producing a solar array may outweigh the energy returned from the lifetime of the array. Same applies to wind in a non-windy area.

>Is it a meme?
Kinda. Germany is treating it like one. Really poor solution given their irradiance, evidenced by the fact that they import a lot of their power (notably from France - a predominantly nuclear fission-powered country). Becoming a meme in the US with SolarCity and the Tesla Powerwall. Policy seems to be placing their bets on solar and wind, which sucks given the large land area of the country - again, what may work in Arizona may not work in Maine, and vice versa.

- R&D engineer at a New England solar technology company

>>55957725
> making a desperate attempt to live
> committing suicide

fuck your religion you cuckstick

>>55956759
How much education would be expected of me if i were to want to work at a place like this?

>>55957896
What's that like being a welfare queen just so you can have a job?

>>55957028
That was a wind turbine

File: helios_37.jpg (37KB, 300x273px) Image search: [Google]

37KB, 300x273px

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC WILL CONSUME ALL. WIND. GEOTHERMAL. COAL. EVEN NATURAL GAS WILL BE CONSUMED.

PRAISE THE SUN

>>55955744
Wind turbines kill millions of endangered birds every year and solar farms set birds on fire and reflect harmful solar radiation back into the ionosphere, affecting climate patterns.

Even chemical fracking is more environmentally friendly than solar and wind power.

>>55955744
Biodiversity under solar panels is low. And it's a real environmental issue and threat.

>>55957896
If you are a R&D engineer why haven't you looked into responsive load? A whole lot of work has gone into solving the intermittency problem.

>>55959551
First of all there is not that much life to begin with in deserts.

Secondly you can use plants that prefer shade. Ginseng has in fact to be protected from direct sun light and placing these behind large solar panels is simply a win win situation.

>>55959287
>Wind turbines kill millions of endangered birds every year
If you really want to save all the birds you should start by putting down all cats.

And harmful radiation into the atmosphere? You know, that just offsets global warming. Some seem worried that the solutions will kill off the problems that are the foundation for their income. Propose a technical solution and warmers sperg out like the basement dwellers in /k/.

>>55956759
how can a simple mirror catch on fire?
i think you wanted to make up a story but you got photovoltaic and CSP mixed up.

solar power together with nuclear power are the future. not convinced about wind power though

>>55957715
>410w per panel and growing
Btw microwave is currently the best method.

>>55957715
yeah but PV can be easily installed on rooftops, and in general are easier for private use.

>>55965056
Well yeah, for decentrilized production solar and micro wind turbines would suffice.

>>55957725
>>55958588
Yea fuck religion, anyways, I would rather jump off and die of impact than slowly burn and suffer.