Egypt's Massive 1.8-Gigawatt Benban Solar Park Nears Completion (ieee.org) 122
Wave723 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: Amid the sand dunes of the western Sahara, workers are putting the finishing touches on one of the world's largest solar installations. There, as many as 7.2 million photovoltaic panels will make up Benban Solar Park -- a renewable energy project so massive, it will be visible from space. The 1.8-gigawatt installation is the first utility-scale PV plant in Egypt, a nation blessed with some of the best solar resources on the planet. The ambitious project is part of Egypt's efforts to increase its generation capacity and incorporate more renewable sources into the mix.
Once operational, Benban Solar Park will avoid two million tons of CO2 emissions per year [PDF] compared with what's belched into the air by a thermal power station generating the same amount of electricity. That difference is roughly equivalent to half the annual emissions produced by one coal-fired power plant. To create the park, Egypt's government selected a remote desert site with high solar radiation and divided it into 41 plots of varying sizes. It assigned those plots to roughly 30 developers that expressed interest in the project, and the government promised to pay a competitive price (through financial incentives called feed-in tariffs [PDF]) for all power produced at Benban for 25 years.
Once operational, Benban Solar Park will avoid two million tons of CO2 emissions per year [PDF] compared with what's belched into the air by a thermal power station generating the same amount of electricity. That difference is roughly equivalent to half the annual emissions produced by one coal-fired power plant. To create the park, Egypt's government selected a remote desert site with high solar radiation and divided it into 41 plots of varying sizes. It assigned those plots to roughly 30 developers that expressed interest in the project, and the government promised to pay a competitive price (through financial incentives called feed-in tariffs [PDF]) for all power produced at Benban for 25 years.
Visible from space (Score:4, Insightful)
remember when they could read the number plates on cars in Red Square by satellite?
With the naked eye, I presume. (Score:1)
Not a telescope.
Otherwise, that statement would be useless, I agree.
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Yeah, I think it was all 9's.
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FWIW, The Great Wall of China, often cited as the only human-made structure visible from space, is not visible from low Earth orbit without magnification, and even then can be seen only under perfect conditions.
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That is a /. myth. You easy see it without magnification as it and obstructing structure, and depending on time of day has a nice shadow, too.The laws of wavelength and eye size and minimum to discover something work quite nice for the thickness of the wall, nevertheless the fact that it is very long makes it easy to pick it up.
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That is a /. myth. You easy see it without magnification as it and obstructing structure, and depending on time of day has a nice shadow, too.The laws of wavelength and eye size and minimum to discover something work quite nice for the thickness of the wall, nevertheless the fact that it is very long makes it easy to pick it up.
Is it a myth? This article [universetoday.com] says you can't and quotes Chris Hadfield, an astronaut that has spend significant time on this ISS:
Do you have a citation that refutes Hadfield's statement?
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For some reason they do not conclusive say if you can see it or not: https://www.nasa.gov/vision/sp... [nasa.gov]
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I think that was always just nonsense. Those in the know speculate that the best available imaging can resolve down to maybe 10cm, not enough to read car license plates. Besides which those plates are normally vertical, so difficult to see from above.
In those case I assume they mean visible from space with the naked eye.
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Those in the know speculate that the best available imaging can resolve down to maybe 10cm, not enough to read car license plates.
This number is based on the laws of physics, and the known mirror diameter of current satellites. So it is not mere speculation.
The recent Trump tweet confirmed that spy satellites have reached close to this physical limit, but it has been common knowledge for decades.
Western Sahara? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, is this plant in Egypt (which would put it on the EASTERN side of the Sahara) or in Western Sahara, which is a disputed region clear across the continent from Egypt? Or is there a region inside Egypt named Western Sahara? Or did someone just screw up and get their East and West mixed up while reporting this?
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By the way, Cadaffi ended up in a ditch because he said no to the French on this project and this is what the Arab spring was actually about - a shift in the energy interests across the region with external financing.
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By the way, Cadaffi ended up in a ditch because he said no to the French on this project and this is what the Arab spring was actually about - a shift in the energy interests across the region with external financing. Absolutely f*cking nothing democratic about it.
So you're saying he was removed because of a solar plant?
Damn bro, you should start a YouTube channel with that "content".
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No, they are saying that Libya had it's own central bank, and Gadaffi didn't want his country to be overrun by foreign interests. Projects such as the Great Man Made River [wikipedia.org] were funded not through the IMF, but internally, before NATO bombed it to ruin.
Gadaffi wanting a gold-backed African currency for trading oil was just the last nail in the coffin.
Re:Western Sahara? (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, is this plant in Egypt (which would put it on the EASTERN side of the Sahara) or in Western Sahara
TFA is using confusing terms.
From the time of the pharohs, the area to the east of the Nile was called "The Eastern Desert", and the area to the west of the Nile was "The Western Desert".
So "The Western Desert" in Egyptian terms is west of the Nile, but in the eastern Sahara. So saying this solar installation is in "The Western Sahara" is wrong.
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Re:Western Sahara? (Score:4, Informative)
What's kind of cool is to see how far you have to zoom in to see individual buildings and vehicles. This thing is huge! But then zoom out, and out some more, and see how many of these huge solar parks they could plonk down in that vast desert.
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Each of what looks like a single panel is actually a mile long. Yeah, that's pretty dope.
Massive overkill (Score:4, Funny)
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
To replace one coal fired plant by PV, it takes 75 square km of space in a desert (other locations will need much more).
I found a number that in 2010 the world produced 41300 TWh of coal based electricity.
Divide this by Benban's 3.8 TWh and multiply by 37.5 sq km.
That's almost 408000 sq km. That's somewhere between the size of Germany and France.
Benban is supposed to cost 4B US$. That's 43 Trillion US$ to replace all coal with PV.
Interesting numbers I think.
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I think your numbers are off. Benban is rated at 1.8 Gw, so assuming it produces power 12 hours a day, that comes out to 7.8 Twh/year. Generated total power, world wide, was around 20,000 Twh in 2013, 40% of that is from coal, so 8000 Twh produced from coal, or 1025 Benban sized plants needed to replace, coming out to 38000 sq km or an area 200 km on a side and about $4T to replace the coal plants. That doesn't include storage which would also be needed, that might double the price.
Re: So... (Score:3)
His numbers were off, but your "12 hours a day" is also a wee bit optimistic. The most productive solar plants I've been able to find have an annual output somewhere around 20% of rated power. Now this location seems pretty ideal, so I could believe they'll do better than any existing facilities .... but 30% would be much more likely than the 50% you're proposing. And at 30% that's only 7.2 hours per day.
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Sunset == no electricity? (Score:3)
Looking at story it says 9-11 hours of sun a day so that using of 12 hours a day is meh at best. Next thing in question about the output of the plant is if that is max possible output? If that is max output that also puts the # calculated a bit off as those panels are only working their best when the panel is aim at the sun like looking straight up at 12pm. If the panels are looking straight up and gets to 2-3pm well sign isn't aimed directly at them anymore and they start to drop the amount of output. As always sun doesn't always shine so what would really be put out is never easy to figure out as never can tell how many clouds there will be.
Still, while the sun is shining you are not burning any natural gas or coal from your backup plants which means that you are drastically reducing your CO2 emissions. Furthermore sunlight does not have any extraction costs, it's available for free which in turn and liberates you from the price fluctuations in the fossil fuel market whenever the US/Saudi and Iran decide to have themselves a military pissing contest in the Persian gulf. On top of that Egypt has plenty of dessert valleys they can dam and pump w
Re: Sunset == no electricity? (Score:2)
So any worries that the electricity will stop flowing when the sun goes down are a bit misplaced like a lot of talking points originating with the current POTUS.
And like many of the talking points attributed to him, this is a complete strawman. Nobody other than you is worrying that the electricity will stop when the sun goes down. We are discussing actual power production and total costs, while you're just patting yourself on the back for being smarter than Trump.
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Wrong. You already had all your CO2 emissions when the panels were produced and the plant build. PVs can only recover 85-90% of the energy put into them. If it was clean nuclear - good, but if it was dirty coal - bad
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No longer true. PV payback is estimated at 4 years or less with 25 year useful lifespan.
https://www.popsci.com/science... [popsci.com]
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On top of that Egypt has plenty of dessert valleys
Are they filled with ice cream or cheesecake?
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The best insolation is usually in the range of 5 to 6 hours which brackets Egypt. 20% is 4.8 hours. 6 hours would be 25%. Anything higher is unreal meaning it does not exist.
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Re: So... (Score:2)
He's a dumbass; I've had this discussion with him before (in exhaustive detail, with lots of easy to follow math) and he completely refuses to understand. Claims to be some kind of electrical expert but doesn't grasp the most basic concepts. Don't waste your breath.
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The who is not grasping basic concepts is you, otherwise you would not come up with CFs in situations where they are completely pointless.
No one is constructing or running a power plant by its CF.
He's a dumbass; I've had this discussion with him before (in exhaustive detail, with lots of easy to follow math) ... there is nothing particular interesting in the math about a solar plant ...
I guess you mix me up
The estimated CF is 26%, so they are not tracking I would say. And how do they know that? They simply
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Yes, that is true, and how many percents are absorbed? 1% or 2% ?
I'm surprised you can feel that difference, most people can't.
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So now you talk about season, aka dew in the air, or dust?
No, in clean air the difference is so close to zero it makes no sense to talk about.
As the topic is a solar plant in the desert, the daytime is completely irrelevant.
I suggest to sit in the sun in a winter morning with bare chest and -30C when there is no wind ... wow, feels exactly the same as during mid day.
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It does not matter if it is 1% or more.
The point is the retarded usage of CF when they are completely irrelevant.
UV index is not really relevant as the PV panels don't run on UV, but on visual light.
https://www.weather.gov.hk/m/u... [weather.gov.hk]
The UV index measures the likelyhood of a sunburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and not the absolute intensitiy of the sun. And furthermore: is measured per square meter and takes many other things into account.
No idea what you want to prove. A solar park aimed 20degrees sout
Re: So... (Score:2)
Yeah that sounds about right. I was being generous.
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My numbers come from Wikipedia. The plant is expected to produce 3.8 TWh per year. Whether that is gonna be the case is anyone's guess.
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I may have misread the energy production of coal though, I'll grant that.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I may have misread the energy production of coal though, I'll grant that.
The current US installed power generation capacity is about 1100 GW. To replace that with solar panels with an efficiency of 24% and a a ratio of generated power to capacity of 21% we would need 1100/0,24*0,21 ~ 21800 km2 which is a square of 147 km a side which is an area about the size of Vermont. However, this capacity would be distributed over the entire country. Realistically going all solar would never be an option, you would want to go for some kind of a mix but it does illustrate that when the right-wing nuts talk about renewables meaning that absurd portions of the earth's land area having to be covered by solar panels is a steaming load of bullshit.
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The only reason the light stay on is because we have those fossil (and nuclear) plants, so more solar still means as much gas station as before - only now, bercuase they're sitting idle most of the day and only pressed into service when the solar generation isn't sufficient, they will cost a lot more.
In the UK, we built a lot of wind farms in Scotland, but the demand in is places like London and the cables to transfer power have a limited capacity. So when its a really windy day, they shut the gas plants of
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Out of curiosity, how much are those plants getting paid on windy days? Is it less than what a shit ton of batteries would cost?
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This has the details, including costs
https://www.nationalgrideso.co... [nationalgrideso.com]
page 36.
So July 2019 it was £29m paid to gas plants, £95m year to date.
the reason they get paid rather than the renewables is that renewables are cheaper unit cost, after all once you've built a solar farm, there's little to no cost to produce energy, so it always undercuts the fossil fuels.
You won't get much battery for £95m (not on the scale of the UK total demand), but I think it would be a good idea
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But we aren't limited to big batteries or high/low reservoir tricks to store captured solar energy
There are several ambitious concentrated solar projects that are using molten salt as the storage medium of choice. You concentrate the sunlight at a central collection point where you have a heat transfer to the solid salt. The solid salt melts at high temperatur
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Molten salt concentrated-thermal is a very interesting technology indeed, and in arid locales it's capable of 24/7 baseload. You're right to note its efficiency. However, it has some costs to bring down compared to photovoltaics - which matters for peak loads, but maybe not so much for simply balancing out the loads on the grid.
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He will invent it, right after he figures how to construct a human habitat on mercury, right?
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How much space is needed to store energy for the evening? Batteries won't do it (at this scale, you cannot build them fast enough to even replace them as they die, let alone create the initial storage network). You need lakes and gravity - dams. That's a lot more land to get flooded...
You must have missed the part where I said: Realistically going all solar would never be an option, you would want to go for some kind of a mix. I just cited these numbers to refute the idea that powering a significant part of the US power consumption would require half the continent to be covered with solar panes.
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How much space is needed to store energy for the evening? Batteries won't do it (at this scale, you cannot build them fast enough to even replace them as they die, let alone create the initial storage network).
That very much depends on the battery chemistry. Build your grid scale storage out of nickel-iron batteries and with proper management they have an active working life of ~100 years. Original Edison cells are still usable today. Their energy density and charge and discharge rates are abysmal for traction use but perfectly fine for large scale fixed installations. And there are no particularly toxic metals in them.
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This would be 0.3% of US land, as a comparison, 3% of US land is currently developed. That doesn't seem like 'steaming bullshit' to me
And a lot of that developed land is covered in buildings which means you can put panels on top of them. Parking lots/decks? Cover them with a canopy of solar panels.
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This would be 0.3% of US land, as a comparison, 3% of US land is currently developed. That doesn't seem like 'steaming bullshit' to me
But some of the wing-nuts take about much higher numbers than 0,3% orders of magnitude more. That aside, how much of that 0,3% of developed land is rooftops? ... parking lots? there is all kinds of dead space in cities that you can cover with solar panels. In Europe farmers are modifying or building their bars and other farm structures from scratch to be optimally sited for the roof to be covered by solar panels. Disappointing as it may be, space restrictions are not going to be the great white hope of the
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference with solar is that it's modular. You can trivially cover 75km^2 in a city for example with solar panels on rooftops. The same is true of residential areas etc.
Effectively we can simply use what is otherwise dead space for solar, the same isn't true with coal.
Also, $43tn is peanuts compared to the healthcare costs of burning coal which amounts to tens of trillions worldwide every year. Coal only looks cheap because we've gotten so used to ignoring the externalities of it.
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The difference with solar is that it's modular. You can trivially cover 75km^2 in a city for example with solar panels on rooftops. The same is true of residential areas etc.
Effectively we can simply use what is otherwise dead space for solar, the same isn't true with coal ...
... or nuclear, or natural gas, or oil burners, or biomass.
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You can trivially cover 75km^2 in a city for example with solar panels on rooftops.
Yeah, but the assumptions made in Kokuyo's post don't apply to rooftop solar. The price of rooftop solar would be far more expensive than a single large industrial installation. And the efficiency of rooftop solar would be less than a desert installation. So the numbers would be completely different.
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You can trivially cover 75km^2 in a city
Trivially? Sounds like you never dealt with municipalities and permits before...
Also, $43tn is peanuts
$43tn is peanuts? I smell a socialist...
...compared to the healthcare costs of burning coal which amounts to tens of trillions worldwide every year.
Bullshit. Citation needed. Sounds like you are ascribing all healthcare costs in the world to coal. Switching to solar will magically make everyone super healthy?
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The difference with solar is that it's modular. You can trivially cover 75km^2 in a city for example with solar panels on rooftops. The same is true of residential areas etc.
Effectively we can simply use what is otherwise dead space for solar, the same isn't true with coal.
The other thing is that (at least around here in Dallas, TX) the residential rooftop panels are stood-off from the roofs by a few inches, allowing air circulation beneath. That means for every 1m^2 of panel on the roof, that's ~1kW less of solar energy hitting the house in the hottest part of summer, which also helps reduce peak demand. So for running an air conditioner, rooftop solar is probably about 120% efficient...
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Wikipedia says the entire site is 37.2km2, and not all of it is PV but most is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Expected to produce 3.8TWh/year. Latest figures for Egypt are from 2012 at 138TWh/year. So about 2.75% of Egypt's electricity demand.
Thing is, they have the space. They are getting other benefits like driving down the cost of solar PV. The cost compares favourably with coal. For them it's a decent solution.
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Oh I think so too. Just wanted to get a bit of perspective because at the end of the day, the numbers themselves are hard to put in context by themselves.
Another number that I heard: 400km2. (Score:1)
In the Sahara & co.
That was said to be enough, to supply the world's power needs, a couple of years ago.
The system would also include HVDC lines. And pumped-storage hydroelectricity in cold countries (e.g. Scandinavia) for the night/winter times.
Also, it was not meant to be super-efficient. As we have plenty of sun and desert. So losses due to long lines would not matter much.
Also, solar power towers (heating water to steam) were said to work better than traditional solar panels, due to requiring no exp
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Long distance lines have no high losses anyway.
The losses are in the distribution grid and not in the transport grid.
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You forgot to include the cost of continuing to use coal to generate that power: Based on your numbers I'd estimate that's $6T/year for 41300 TWh. As big as $43T sounds, it makes financial sense to spend it.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
To replace one coal fired plant by PV, it takes 75 square km of space in a desert (other locations will need much more).
I found a number that in 2010 the world produced 41300 TWh of coal based electricity.
Divide this by Benban's 3.8 TWh and multiply by 37.5 sq km.
That's almost 408000 sq km. That's somewhere between the size of Germany and France.
Benban is supposed to cost 4B US$. That's 43 Trillion US$ to replace all coal with PV.
Interesting numbers I think.
Here's also some interesting numbers. From Wikipedia.
Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station
Construction cost US$5.2 billion
Nameplate capacity 2354 MW
Capacity factor 96.92% (2017)
89.55% (lifetime)
Annual net output 19,985 GWh (2017)
Byron Nuclear Generating Station
Construction cost $4.5 billion (2007 USD)
Nameplate capacity 2300 MW
Capacity factor 95.06% (2017)
88.45% (lifetime)
Annual net output 19,153 GWh (2017)
Clinton Power Station
Construction cost $4.25 billion
Nameplate capacity 1062 MW
Capacity factor 89.84% (2017)
78.50% (lifetime)
Annual net output 8358 GWh (2017)
Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant
Construction cost $3.352 billion (2007 USD)
Nameplate capacity 2213 MW
Capacity factor 90.75% (2017)
69.90% (lifetime)
Annual net output 17,592 GWh (2017)
Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station
Construction cost $6.110 billion (2007 USD)
Nameplate capacity 1122 MW
Capacity factor 88.50% (2017)
76.3% (lifetime, excluding Unit 1)
Annual net output 8698 GWh (2017)
Perry Nuclear Generating Station
Construction cost $6.024 billion (2007 USD)
Nameplate capacity 1256 MW
Capacity factor 89.18% (2017)
80.80% (lifetime)
Annual net output 10718 GWh (2018)
Point Beach Nuclear Plant
Construction cost $589.1 million (2007 USD)
Nameplate capacity 1182 MW
Capacity factor 93.24% (2017)
82.80% (lifetime)
Annual net output 9654 GWh (2017)
Quad Cities Nuclear Generating Station
Construction cost $250 million
Nameplate capacity 1819 MW
Capacity factor 96.66% (2017)
76.60% (lifetime)
Annual net output 15,402 GWh (2017)
Am I supposed to be impressed by the annual energy output and/or power generation capacity of this solar power park from the resources they invested?
We could also go into the amount of land used. How big is any one of these nuclear power plants? If we include a fairly typical fenced off area around these facilities each one takes probably a square kilometer or three.
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Am I supposed to be impressed by the annual energy output and/or power generation capacity of this solar power park from the resources they invested?
Yes you are supposed to be impressed.
Are you an idiot? I really wonder all the time. Or perhaps your mind just wanders into different directions than mine does.
What do you need to build a nuclear plant? What do you need to make it run, fuel it e.g.? How many people with what education do you need (and where would a country like Egypt get them from?)?
What do yo
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What do you need to build a nuclear plant?
Considering that the USA had operational nuclear submarines and civilian nuclear power plants in 1958 then I'd say that a nation would need the level of technology the USA had in the late 1950s.
What do you need to make it run, fuel it e.g.?
The USA was enriching uranium during World War II so that would require the technology that the USA had in the 1940s.
How many people with what education do you need (and where would a country like Egypt get them from?)?
The US Navy has enlisted sailors operating their nuclear power plants on ships after obtaining a high school education, enlistment in the Navy, and about 2 years of training. The officers are college
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Am I supposed to be impressed by the annual energy output and/or power generation capacity of this solar power park from the resources they invested?
Yes. Because you can't fund the solution with nuclear power. Give up man. It's too expensive.
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Guess how many nuclear power plants were planned and constructed after March 28, 1979?
You can have your dinosaurs for now , but they will eventually be extinct.
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another important difference is that if its a cloudy, rainy or snowy day (or all night) the power generated is next to nothing and then either the lights go out, or you use the power produced by your backup nuclear or gas power plants....
This applies especially to those parts of humanity that live in colder and wetter areas that do not get as much sun as a desert somewhat near the equator.
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You need to compare like-for-like for a start.
Your nuclear numbers are all just the build costs, not lifetime costs including fuel and waste management and decomissioning. It's actually basically impossible to calculate the true cost of nuclear because stuff like the free insurance the government offers is priceless.
I am comparing like for like, build cost to build cost. The operational costs and decommissioning costs are unknown for this solar power park as well. One thing we can be quite confident about is that this solar park will not last much more than 25 years but the nuclear power plants built 40 and 50 years ago are still operating at original design capacity.
In any case, Egypt doesn't have any nuclear power, so they would have the additional cost of developing a nuclear industry and regulator on top. Lots of security concerns, they need a place to put the waste, and their neighbours probably wouldn't be too happy about them going down that path either.
Egypt does have a nuclear regulatory agency. They've had plans to build nuclear power plants since the 1950s. They currently have research reactors an
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That's almost 408000 sq km. That's somewhere between the size of Germany and France.
Benban is supposed to cost 4B US$. That's 43 Trillion US$ to replace all coal with PV.
Interesting numbers I think.
The Sahara desert is 9.2 million sq km. So replacing all coal based electricity would require covering 4% of an unused desert. Remark that built up areas were estimated to cover over 850 000 sq km in 2010. So we already built twice as much as what would be needed.
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" Remark that built up areas were estimated to cover"
I had a feeling you were French from that little mistake. In English we say "note", not "remark".
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That's almost 408000 sq km. That's somewhere between the size of Germany and France. Benban is supposed to cost 4B US$. That's 43 Trillion US$ to replace all coal with PV. Interesting numbers I think.
360,000,000 sq km of the earth is just ocean. An additional 100,000,000 is uninhabited land.
Every year we subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $5tn
Far more interesting numbers I think.
Perspective is important.
Some good news for a change. (Score:1)
Let's see how Slashdot will ruin it...
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Don't worry, some troll will show up to tell us that only nuclear can solve our power needs in 3, 2, 1...
Technically this is all powered by one giant nuclear fusion reactor that we happen to be tapping into... Though if you follow that line of reasoning I'm not sure there is any method of power production that didn't eventually get it's power from some from that same source of nuclear energy apart from fission where the raw materials probably came from an earlier star.
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Yes, and technically your comment counts as a reply, even though it's just a bunch of malarkey. If you follow that logic to its conclusion, nuclear power is just an artifact of the big bang, which could possibly have involved different universal constants, and not permitted fission at all. So there's really no purposes to the statement that everything is really nuclear powered but mental masturbation and/or conversational derailment. People bring that up in conversations about nuclear power as if it were re
Visible from space? (Score:2)
From the Von Karman line with a Hubble space telescope facing downwards?
Definitely a preferable measure than VW beetles or football fields.
Map Link (Score:3, Informative)
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Shoot, it could have been 5 times bigger.
Thanks for the link.
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Five times bigger, It could have been at least 20 bigger at that spot, and if you zoom out you will see squads more desert in Egypt. They also have significant wind resources on the Red Sea coast, and historically at least a large amount of hydro from the Asswan dams.
Egypt is one of those countries that could easily go all renewable.
sand + wind = (Score:2, Interesting)
you know there are sand storms and in a few years those solar panels will probably be blasted opaque by sand & wind
Re:sand + wind = (Score:5, Interesting)
> those solar panels will probably be blasted opaque by sand & wind
It's too bad no one actually tested this and you spend 5 seconds of your life googling it.
Oh, wait, someone DID test it?
1% per year.
https://www.engineering.com/3DPrinting/3DPrintingArticles/ArticleID/7475/What-Is-the-Lifespan-of-a-Solar-Panel.aspx
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> those solar panels will probably be blasted opaque by sand & wind
It's too bad no one actually tested this and you spend 5 seconds of your life googling it.
Oh, wait, someone DID test it?
1% per year.
https://www.engineering.com/3DPrinting/3DPrintingArticles/ArticleID/7475/What-Is-the-Lifespan-of-a-Solar-Panel.aspx
From the article you linked:
At the other extreme, panels in desert climates exhibited large decreases in production over time - close to 1% per year - mainly due to high levels of UV exposure.
I think they tested desert climates like the ones you'd find in the US. Those do not have the sandstorms that are common in the Sahara.
Taking those into account, your degradation rate is probably much higher. Additionally, your panels might just get buried every time a sand storm goes by and won't produce any electricity during the storm itself, which is kinda important.
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do sandblasted solar panels work good?
you know there are sand storms and in a few years those solar panels will probably be blasted opaque by sand & wind
I don't know if they work good. But they might work well.
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This is also why the Middle East and Australia can't have glass skyscrapers, and have to continue to live in earthen buildings.
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And advance toward what? (Score:2)
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I can see huge numbers of enormous battery-ships travelling the sea lanes with vast amounts of stored solar energy, either part of a new business or just a pivot by current-day oil shippers.
Perhaps as likely as oil tankers rafted together and turned into affordable housing by some startup in San Fransisco bay.
The price (Score:2)
Just for clarification, the FIT price offered on larger projects is 14.34 $.Cent/kWh. EGP is currently trading at about 0.0061. So that's 0.87 cents USD per kWh.
Holy crap. The last record I saw was 2.1 cents, about 6 months ago. Of course, this IS Egypt, which has a bit of sun available, but stil...
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Wait, I think that's USD cents. In which case it's a truly horrid price. Need to dig.
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As I remember from my year in Hawaii many years ago, Hawaii has some of the highest electricity prices in the US.
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Yep. Because almost all of the electricity comes from importing oil and burning it.
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As I remember from my year in Hawaii many years ago, Hawaii has some of the highest electricity prices in the US.
One thing that struck me about Hawaii when I last visited 2 years ago was that even the crappy, project looking apartment complexes (at least in HNL) had solar panels on the roof.
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even the crappy, project looking apartment complexes (at least in HNL) had solar panels on the roof.
They were probably also worth high 6 figures, low seven figures per unit. Hawaiiconomics.
Backup for this new unreliable energy system? (Score:2, Insightful)
What replaces this new capacity at night?
It's a lot of money for something you still have to have an equal generation capacity to cover for it when it is unusable.
Benban? (Score:2)
Why didn't they call it Ra?
k.
They built it in the desert... (Score:2)
Temperature (Score:2)
from TFA;
“These electrical devices are really sensitive to temperature,”
They've already had an inverter fail due to its cable connection overheating. They apparently chose to install gear that is sensitive to heat... in the Sahara Desert.
I'm guessing that gear was less expensive than higher-temp gear, and the developers hoped to be long gone by the time people realized how many parts will need to be replaced.
Of course, the developers could just reappear (new corporate name/logo) in a few years a
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I think they'll be ok with the maintenance, I want to see the special tractors equipped with huge feather dusters to wipe the panels clear of dust and sand!
But... a few inverters all fail at the same time on a really hot day and the whole thing could go offline, and that'll be a big deal, but good luck to them.