Spanish City Sets Up Solar Cemetery

A Spanish city has found an unusual place to generate renewable energy — solar panels in the cemetery. Santa Coloma de Gramanet has installed 462 solar panels over its multi-story mausoleums. The plan was met with some derision at first, but thanks to a successful marketing campaign, the solar cemetery has public support. It has been such a success that there are already plans to install more panels in an effort to triple the amount of power generated. The installation cost 720,000 euros (£608,000) but will keep about 62 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year, said Esteve Serret, a director of Conste-Live Energy, the company that runs the cemetery and also works in renewable energy. I'm sure a solar powered zombie movie is already in the works.

Aw, c'mon

I'm sure a solar powered zombie movie is already in the works.

Yeah, but I'm sure they'll figure out a way to incorporate the solar panels into weapons. Zombie BBQ!

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It's called "Zom-Be-Que". In place of sunlight, you can also use pyrotechnic flares, through the sparks don't last long.

I also heard that another cemetery (burial site) is incorporating dynamos for generating clean energy. Not sure how they power the generators, though.

Doubly green

will keep about 62 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year

And the residents also cut their CO2 footprint by about 2 tons per year, simply by not breathing.

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I must had been not keeping up with the times. Last time I checked, power is not yet measured in tonnes of CO2 per year.

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Last time I checked, CO2 footprints have nothing to do with power.

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It is probably done this way to justify the fact that it costs more then any energy it can produce if on the open market and put up against traditional sources.

This sort of really gets to me, it seems like people can't even do math any more. I have a neighbor who was convinced into buying solar panels because he wouldn't have to pay the utility company again. It turns out that not paying the utility company for electricity again is going to cost him roughly 30% more then if he paid them. And that estimate i

Re:Doubly green

This sort of really gets to me, it seems like people can't even do math any more. I have a neighbor who was convinced into buying solar panels because he wouldn't have to pay the utility company again. It turns out that not paying the utility company for electricity again is going to cost him roughly 30% more then if he paid them.

You assume that "not paying the utility company" has zero value to your neighbor. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe he gains personal gratification by being "off the grid" that more than makes up for the 30% premium. After all people buy expensive cars that get them where they are going just as well as a cheap car would - they do it because they get other less tangible benefits from their cars, benefits that they feel are worth paying a premium for. There are probably an infinite number of such examples, it is part of the reason we have markets with a variety of choices rather than single suppliers.

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No, I didn't assume anything, I talk to the neighbor and he didn't realize how much it would cost until after he started paying for it. He did it because he thought it would be cheaper and found that it wouldn't be when he had to pay for it.

Other people might think the way your described, I have even been known to go further across town and buy something that costs a couple dollars more just to avoid giving money to a store I didn't like for whatever reason. I have even driven 10 miles to get gas at a stati

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It turns out that not paying the utility company for electricity again is going to cost him roughly 30% more then if he paid them at current rates.

Fixed.

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...especially in Spain, where up to a third of the electricity is currently produced by wind.

Some might prefer it.

I know for a fact that my grandfather who passed away recently would have paid extra to be buried in a cemetery that generates clean energy.

Does it scale?

Can you ramp this up to produce a solar-powered crematorium?

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Hey. With enough rockets to get there the Sun is already the ultimate crematorium. It might be a little tricky to recover the ashes though.

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1 - Throw coffin with 6 tiny rockets (N,S,W,E,U,D).
2 - Activate algorithm "every hour activate rocket away from sun for five seconds".
3 - Wait.

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Not only that, the energetic (think delta-v) requirements are outrageous as well.

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Have you ever noticed Earth "sucking" a near-Earth asteroid in any of the recent "near misses"? Perhaps it has something to do with that thing called "conservation of energy"?

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A prototype Scheffler reflector is being constructed in India for use in a solar crematorium. This 50 square meter reflector will generate temperatures of 700 deg C (1,292 deg F) and displace 200-300 kg of firewood used per cremation.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace#Modern_uses [wikipedia.org])

As compared to "normal" cremation where the corpse is held at 760 deg to 1150 deg C (1400 deg to 2100 deg F) for about 2 hours. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crematorium#Burning_and_ashes_collection [wikipedia.org])

How much CO2 was produced making these?

I wonder how much pollution/CO2 was 'pumped in to the atmosphere' when making these panels. Presumably from what I've read on solar panels, it was probably around 620 Tonnes, as the general figure is it takes 10 years to recoup the enegery expended in making these things. How long are these panels expected to last?

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most panels last about 30 years at least. then they start to work less and less effectively. but the raw materials can be recycled to save energy.

also new solar panels based on LCD technology can recoup the energy used to make them in 8 months, even in the not always so sunny Germany.
they aren't as efficient as silicon solar panels but they are MUCH MUCH cheaper.

Sounds like

a good use of otherwise dead space.

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If physics worked that way, you would be jailed for being a weapon of mass destruction the next time you would catch flu. BTW, this would make a nice plot for a dystopian SF movie. "Soylent Power es gente!"

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We could also just liquefy the dead and then feed them intravenously to the living. It would give our society a boost of machine-level efficiency.

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Probably 75% of the cost of the installation is due to the panels being installed on top of a museum, which would require special care.

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I think you are missing the point. The key benefit of solar energy is that it can be micro-generation.

You don't need a centralized massive power plant if everyone had a solar panel on their roof.

This also helps with the issue of central point of failures and power line distribution. If energy can be gathered locally, then you aren't wasting efficiency on power lines.

So yes, overall its just a drop in the bucket, but if over time if you have a couple million drops then it adds up.

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Don't look now, but the US is well on it's way to becoming a "3rd world shithole". Just research a little about what actually killed Ecuador's economy and you will find it was the government "printing" so much money that it became, borderline, worthless. We are doing it at $700 blillion increments. Judging from your post, you won't know what the word research is nor would you ever grasp anything relating to monetary devaluation. /trollbait