Fighting 'Solar Farm' Installation

[LouNY]

When the turbine's complete life is over, why would someone want to take the concrete foundation out? That's silly. You can plow and plant right up to the base that's sticking up out of the ground. You'd have about a 20 foot diameter circle that couldn't be farmed. That's a little over 300 square feet. There's over 43,500 square feet in an acre.

So in the big picture, it would take 145 wind turbine bases to remove 1 acre of crop land once the towers are removed.

20 feet in diameter??????
Where did you come up with that number???
Possibly 20 meters.

 

[MossRoad]

"Turbines, as a vessel for up to 1,400 liters of oil, hydraulic fluid and lubricants have many opportunities to leak."
"Clean energy"...yea, right

You ever see a coal mine pond dam burst?

 

[MossRoad]

20 feet in diameter??????
Where did you come up with that number???
Possibly 20 meters.

Typical base of the turbine tower where the concrete stick up out of the ground is about 5 meters in diameter. I fudged and made it larger than it actually is.

The rest of the base is buried underground, and you can put a driveway or a crop right up against that.

 

[walhondingMF]

We're finding some common ground here lol

I know it always seems like a strange idea, but I don't think any of them should get subsidies or they should all get equal subsidies

My state gets 3% of its’ energy from renewables and agriculture is our states #1 industry.
So I guess windmills and farming aren’t such a great fit.

Why does every stupid idea have to be dumped on the farmer. It’s always the farmer making the sacrifice, having to adapt, having to change.

Why don’t cities and suburbs make the sacrifice for solar & windmills? That’s the only people who want them. They can put up with the large mirror reflections or the whooshing sounds

Hay Dude,
We continue to see more eye - to - eye each post. To be frank, I think wind is at the bottom of the renewable options. I do not disagree with the eye sore opinion nor the fact that they break up farm land. I spent many hours of my childhood filling in ground hog holes and pulling rocks out of fields. I actually believe wind just works better on a smaller scale, powering the specific location it is in.

And I could not agree with you anymore about what is put on farmers. Farming basically stopped in our family when I decided to go to college. My father was a small beef farmer on the side and my grandfather was a life-long, small herd dairy farmer. Farming was pretty much my life for the first 21 years of it. I've watched countless small farms in our area be gathered up by the slightly bigger farms in the area (if they were lucky) or the worse option, be sold for housing properties. Our local grain farmer leases our land. He is having a hard time keeping his leasing grounds because farmland is selling for $20,000 and acre and he just can't keep up with that. My sister and I are struggling to keep our cousins from wanting to sell out also. As much as we do not want to, my we have been shopping for options and would put wind turbines or solar panels on it to keep it. The average, small farmer has been pushed out of the market by factory farming, growing beef in Brazil, etc. Some of these other options are all we have.

It breaks my heart to see all the people in the county just south of me losing all of their small farm land to the strip mining that's happening. Not for American energy, but for a company in a dying industry to squeeze out just a little more profit.

 

[MossRoad]

This is one of 150ish wind turbines located near Elwood, IN.

18.3' in diameter.

(click to enlarge)

 

[MossRoad]

Here's one from the wind farm near Brookston, IN. They have 350+ turbines there. About 18' in diameter.

(click to enlarge)

 

[LouNY]

Yea, and the chunk of land out of production is much larger and all that for unreliable inconsistent power, whoopee

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

All the wind farm contracts I have seen include a demolition bond, the removal of at least 4' of concrete is prepaid before construction ever begins. there's no need to remove more than 4' of concrete. The farmland lost to an active wind turbine is less than an acre, most of that is for the access road. The concrete base is about 30' in diameter.

Right, which all that screws up the farmland.

 

[MossRoad]

Yea, and the chunk of land out of production is much larger and all that for unreliable inconsistent power, whoopee

Lou, to be clear, I'm not a fan (no pun intended) of wind farms at all. But facts are facts. When the tower is gone, all that's left is a 20' circle. And as someone else pointed out, it's in a contract to remove the top 4' of concrete if it comes to that. So the land could be farmed right over that 20' circle if it comes to that.

Of course, holding someone to that contract, just like any other industry, is yet to be seen.

 

[Grumpycat]

Since it would be ground mounted I was wondering how hard it would be to do it myself and then hire an electrician to run the wires to my house?

In most places if to be grid-tie the utility company has requirements it be "designed" by a graduate of NABCEP industry propaganda lobbyists.

And then the electrician probably rightly so to protect his reputation will insist on going over every wire and electrical connection you have made before signing off on it and making the final connection.

Where I am building the utility engineer told me that any generation buy-back was between me and TVA. That they had an exclusive to purchase power only from TVA. But, I could feed my excess to their grid if I wanted. However they would require a $4,000 remote disconnect supposedly to protect linemen from the possibility of my system exciting the lines during an outage and harming workers.

TVA requires "design" by an NABCEP graduate. They use the granted monopoly to command a premium price.

 

[MossRoad]

Right, which all that screws up the farmland.

How does that screw up the farmland? It's no different than when they remove a highway and it goes back to a farm field. They've done this in Indiana in several places.

 

[MossRoad]

Here's an interesting link that shows a small study that was done in Scotland regarding the reliability of wind VS nuclear.

Taken over a 12 year period, wind provided a more reliable source of energy over each year than the nuclear plant (bummer, because I'm pro nuclear). Wind never had a 'bad year' and in the worst case, the nuclear plant dropped below 60% of expected output over the long term average.

Of course there are periods of no wind, less wind, more wind, and that's where things like natural gas power generation would level it out. I'd prefer nuclear over all of it, but that's just my opinion.

How reliable is wind energy? - Fifteen Eighty Four | Cambridge University Press

Using wind energy to generate electricity has been a big topic in the climate change discussion for many years. But can we rely on renewables like wind to take up the slack as we begin to phase out fossil fuels? With the promises and ambitions of COP26, this point is increasingly important. One...

www.cambridgeblog.org

Is Nuclear Energy Renewable Or Sustainable? Pros & Cons | Perch Energy

Nuclear energy is technically not renewable because uranium is a finite source. But that doesn’t mean nuclear isn’t a cleaner and more carbon-efficient energy source.

www.perchenergy.com

 

[kenmbz]

Here's an interesting link that shows a small study that was done in Scotland regarding the reliability of wind VS nuclear.

Taken over a 12 year period, wind provided a more reliable source of energy over each year than the nuclear plant (bummer, because I'm pro nuclear). Wind never had a 'bad year' and in the worst case, the nuclear plant dropped below 60% of expected output over the long term average.

Of course there are periods of no wind, less wind, more wind, and that's where things like natural gas power generation would level it out. I'd prefer nuclear over all of it, but that's just my opinion.

How reliable is wind energy? - Fifteen Eighty Four | Cambridge University Press

Using wind energy to generate electricity has been a big topic in the climate change discussion for many years. But can we rely on renewables like wind to take up the slack as we begin to phase out fossil fuels? With the promises and ambitions of COP26, this point is increasingly important. One...

www.cambridgeblog.org

View attachment 795964

Is Nuclear Energy Renewable Or Sustainable? Pros & Cons | Perch Energy

Nuclear energy is technically not renewable because uranium is a finite source. But that doesn’t mean nuclear isn’t a cleaner and more carbon-efficient energy source.

www.perchenergy.com

Nuclear waste is till a problem, and will be unless they spend more on recycling it rather than dumping it in pits.

 

[bigtiller]

Lou, to be clear, I'm not a fan (no pun intended) of wind farms at all. But facts are facts. When the tower is gone, all that's left is a 20' circle. And as someone else pointed out, it's in a contract to remove the top 4' of concrete if it comes to that. So the land could be farmed right over that 20' circle if it comes to that.

Of course, holding someone to that contract, just like any other industry, is yet to be seen.

At the end of life for my 250' cell tower, the top 3' of concrete is to be removed and I get to keep the rest. During negotiations I asked for 4' to be removed and they countered with zero feet, so 3' was a win I thought. But I doubt that will happen. Someone will always want a spot high in the sky to hand stuff.

 

[JJT]

The concrete base of a wind turbine looks like an upside down mushroom, just the stem sticks out of the ground. 450 tons of concrete for a 1.5mw turbine, if I recall correctly. I've been out of the wind business for 6 years. Demo bonds are required, they are also required for solar farms. Nobody gets stuck with the removal costs, they are prepaid before construction ever begins.

 

[Hay Dude]

All the wind farm contracts I have seen include a demolition bond, the removal of at least 4' of concrete is prepaid before construction ever begins. there's no need to remove more than 4' of concrete. The farmland lost to an active wind turbine is less than an acre, most of that is for the access road. The concrete base is about 30' in diameter.

Don’t help much when the wind turbine is there, does it?
Far as what I have read, it takes a heck of a lot of wind turbines, and wind blowing, to equal the output of an NG plant. And the NG plants have already been built. So have the pipelines, railroads, employees and infrastructure.

 

[Hay Dude]

Typical base of the turbine tower where the concrete stick up out of the ground is about 5 meters in diameter. I fudged and made it larger than it actually is.

The rest of the base is buried underground, and you can put a driveway or a crop right up against that.

Better bring some serious facts if you want most people to take you seriously.
20’ is way small. I deal with farming around concrete power grid towers all farming season.

You know darn well you can’t farm to the edge of the concrete.
You also know we are more concerned with farming around them when they are active windmills.

 

[Hay Dude]

How does that screw up the farmland? It's no different than when they remove a highway and it goes back to a farm field. They've done this in Indiana in several places.

Because it doesn’t just revert magically back to farmland. There’s costs and waiting time involved. You telling me those things spinning and wooshing have no affect on property value? Scaring ranch herds? Visual degradation of property for many miles?

It’s NOT all upside. There’s a tremendous downside to windmills. I‘d bet everything I had you’d be screaming bloody murder if one got within 1,000’ of your house.

Maybe you and a couple of your buddies here like looking at that, but I sure as heck don’t

 

[Hay Dude]

Yea, and the chunk of land out of production is much larger and all that for unreliable inconsistent power, whoopee

Exactly.
Like who plants corn, soybeans or hay right up to the 18.3’ concrete circle? Then the power company sends trucks out to the towers and runs over everything, leaves ruts, etc.
I know I waste a LOT of time trying to fertilize, seed, rake, ted or bale around concrete electrical towers versus mostly straight lines.

 

[MossRoad]

Because it doesn’t just revert magically back to farmland. There’s costs and waiting time involved. You telling me those things spinning and wooshing have no affect on property value? Scaring ranch herds? Visual degradation of property for many miles?

It’s NOT all upside. There’s a tremendous downside to windmills. I‘d bet everything I had you’d be screaming bloody murder if one got within 1,000’ of your house.

Maybe you and a couple of your buddies here like looking at that, but I sure as heck don’t

If you'd read what I've written over the years, let alone today, you'd know I'm not a fan of wind farms and that I, like you, would rather see a push towards nuclear power.

That I dislike wind power doesn't change the physical facts that the base is about 20' in diameter, and I've posted aerial shots as corroboration to that statement, with measurements. And others have mentioned about the removal of the concrete down to a farmable depth. No, it's not magic, but it happens pretty fast.

There are no ranch herds on wind farms in Indiana. Probably weren't before then either. It's corn. Corn. CORN. Maybe some beans and winter wheat.

I posted a study by university of Wisconsin that found wind farms are beneficial to crops. Wisconsin! You don't get more farmy than Wisconsin. And Wisconsin is, last I checked, 3rd in wind farms in the country.

As far as one getting within 1000' of my house.... I live next to an airport and two rail lines. I sincerely doubt I'd even notice them, or see them through the trees. I'm more concerned about Doctors in Bonanzas.