Anyone live near a windfarm?

[KennyG]

The issue is that those "acres" are for short-term storage, and the waste that's in short-term storage isn't in a form that's safe for very long. Typically it looks like a swimming pool, and the water helps cool the waste. You don't want that water to disappear (earthquake? terrorism?) and you don't want someone to grab some (suicide, yes, but we've seen that before, and this is a great way to get a dirty bomb going).

Long-term you need deep storage, such as Yucca Mountain, deep salt mines, etc... but you also need that storage to be in a form that still shouldn't leak - you can't just chuck it into steel or poly barrels and hope for the best.

My recollection - and I haven't read about this in at least a decade or two - is that vitrification, where the waste is essentially mixed with molten glass and the waste is part of the resultant matrix, is the most likely to avoid leaching; someone would have to chip off a chunk of glass to move the waste around and it would be the safest for adding to the storage facility because there's no worries about bringing in another load and finding you need a sump pump for that sludge that's suddenly on the floor

Spent fuel needs to stay in wet storage for about 5 years. After that it can be moved to dry storage because it has decayed enough that wet storage is not required for heat removal. Because the Federal Government has failed on it's commitment to provide long term centralized storage, most plants have on site dry storage. These storage containers are designed for earthquake, flood, aircraft strikes, etc. with a minimum design life of over 100 years.

 

[gsganzer]

Well, I backed out of the OK property that prompted me to start this thread. From everything I could learn (which was an exhausting effort), the wind farm has been shelved for solar farms instead. It doesn't mean it wouldn't re-surface at some later date, but the political climate around wind farms is starting to sour, making it increasingly doubtful.

The solar farms that they replaced it with are pretty extensive though. The first 3 phases will cover over 1500 acres of the nearby properties. The 4th phase is in the planning stage and I never could learn its boundaries/location. There's a fifth one (different company) that's also ready to break ground, also couldn't find its boundaries.

Long story, short. I'm not willing to take the risk and go through the mental gymnastics every time they announce a modification, expansion or additional infrastructure needs. It would detract from enjoyment of the place and take away from my planned retirement bliss.

 

[jyoutz]

This is the real future of energy production. Some day.

Pacific Fusion chooses Albuquerque for $1 billion nuclear fusion site

Pacific Fusion, a California-based commercial nuclear fusion energy company, will build its $1 billion research and manufacturing campus at Albuquerque’s Mesa del Sol, officials announced Friday.

www.abqjournal.com

 

[dstig1]

Yeah - some day. Hopefully. This is one of those things that has always been 20 years away for the past 70 years. People used to ask me when I was going to start building my house. I told them I was on a rolling 5 yr plan - every year it was 5 years away. And then all the cards came together and I started in 2013. Maybe the same thing will happen with fusion. Some day...

 

[Hay Dude]

Windmills and solar panels don’t last forever. People just ignore the maintenance & replacement costs.

Building windmills off the coast in salt water is a special kind of stupid.
I bet in 5-10 years, the salt air will ruin the damn things after they’ve killed thousands of migratory birds and driven whales to beach themselves and die.

Can’t fix stupid

 

[jkeys]

Hawkins,
Being from farming background I really struggle with the thought that taking fertile farm land out of production for wind mill or solar is a good thing vs counter productive. We only have so much farmable land and when it is gone someone is going to get hungry. I suspect but have no actual data to support the thought on a lot of the fields are on property not owned by actual family farmers but by some investment group looking for quick payout vs what will land be growing 20 years from now. Local farmers just rent the property.

Some of the restrictions imposed were farmers couldn’t drive on access roads to the towers but power company could at will drive on your crops to repair the tower. There was some reimbursement that I am not certain how it worked. This was a real problem for the farms that raised food for their animals.

The huge, huge unknown is what happens when the tower wears out or farm is decommissioned.

The alternative is taking up far more farm land for a large power plant. At least crops can still be grown under the windmill.

 

[jkeys]

Windmills and solar panels don’t last forever. People just ignore the maintenance & replacement costs.

Building windmills off the coast in salt water is a special kind of stupid.
I bet in 5-10 years, the salt air will ruin the damn things after they’ve killed thousands of migratory birds and driven whales to beach themselves and die.

Can’t fix stupid

Nothing lasts forever. There is a massive coal power plant near me that shut down. It is several hundred acres. The whole place is an EPA nightmare. They had sludge ponds that over ran their banks as well as heavy metals detected in the soil everywhere. The ground water is all contaminated. The company is bankrupt and now the public is on the hook for any remediation efforts via state taxes.

 

[D&D]

The alternative is taking up far more farm land for a large power plant. At least crops can still be grown under the windmill.

Yes, you're right. If only the nasty coal sites could be repurposed. They create quite the landscape ornament. (These are 2 different sites; Chalk Point and Morgantown) Oh well, electric available 24/7 has been overrated

 

[lman]

Nothing lasts forever. There is a massive coal power plant near me that shut down. It is several hundred acres. The whole place is an EPA nightmare. They had sludge ponds that over ran their banks as well as heavy metals detected in the soil everywhere. The ground water is all contaminated. The company is bankrupt and now the public is on the hook for any remediation efforts via state taxes.

I don't see your location in your profile. Where is that at?

 

[DarkBlack]

Nothing lasts forever. There is a massive coal power plant near me that shut down. It is several hundred acres. The whole place is an EPA nightmare. They had sludge ponds that over ran their banks as well as heavy metals detected in the soil everywhere. The ground water is all contaminated. The company is bankrupt and now the public is on the hook for any remediation efforts via state taxes.

Which power plant?