BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[Dorset Boy]

I guess they've never heard of the word 'parasol'.

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Well what do you expect from the Guardian other than pretentious twaddle?

 

[PurplePenguin]

It does feel a bit like China is reinventing the world. Now they are building massive solar farms *over* reservoirs, as it helps reduce evaporation. The scale of the one here is mind boggling: it's like they come up with an idea and then just scale it up x1000.

https://bsky.app/profile/dcmfox.bsky.social/post/3mp5ajeukik23

It looks expensive though and there's no info beyond the tweet.

 

[briantrumpet]

It looks expensive though and there's no info beyond the tweet.

Fair points, though floating solar does seem to be most, erm, concrete, and is of a similar ambition. Doubly sweet that this one is over a former coal mine.

https://engineerine.com/chinas-floating-solar-farm/

The site of the Huainan floating solar farm once symbolized China’s dependence on fossil fuels. For decades, the region was a coal mining stronghold, contributing heavily to the country’s industrial rise—but also to its air pollution crisis.

Over time, the pit collapsed, creating an artificial lake. Rather than abandoning this degraded land, Chinese engineers saw an opportunity. By covering the lake’s surface with over 13,000 solar panels, the country turned an environmental liability into a climate solution.

 

[C R]

It looks expensive though and there's no info beyond the tweet.

Agree, it looks like one of Musk's off the cuff ideas, not sure about the practicality.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Fair points, though floating solar does seem to be most, erm, concrete, and is of a similar ambition. Doubly sweet that this one is over a former coal mine.

https://engineerine.com/chinas-floating-solar-farm/

Solar farms are really really big though. If you look at videos of fly overs in Australia, you will appreciate the size of the things and how you really need to minimise the cost of installing every panel. Of course, if there is a shortage of land, putting them wherever possible is going to help.

 

[briantrumpet]

Solar farms are really really big though. If you look at videos of fly overs in Australia, you will appreciate the size of the things and how you really need to minimise the cost of installing every panel. Of course, if there is a shortage of land, putting them wherever possible is going to help.

As much as anything, the point was that China is trying this stuff at extreme scale, and rapidly, which was more my point, rather than an individual scheme's viability (and appropriateness for, say, the UK).

 

[PurplePenguin]

As much as anything, the point was that China is trying this stuff at extreme scale, and rapidly, which was more my point, rather than an individual scheme's viability (and appropriateness for, say, the UK).

Many years ago when I was in China, my guidebook told me how China had hired all the best tunnelling experts from Switzerland with the purpose of building a train to Tibet. Apparently, the Swiss told the Chinese it was impossible.

It's now possible to travel from Beijing to Lhasa on a train. It's the highest in the world and goes over 5000m.

The Swisss clearly failed to appreciate just how important the line was, but having liberated the Tibetans and made Tibet an integral part of China, it had to be built.

 

[briantrumpet]

Many years ago when I was in China, my guidebook told me how China had hired all the best tunnelling experts from Switzerland with the purpose of building a train to Tibet. Apparently, the Swiss told the Chinese it was impossible.

It's now possible to travel from Beijing to Lhasa on a train. It's the highest in the world and goes over 5000m.

The Swisss clearly failed to appreciate just how important the line was, but having liberated the Tibetans and made Tibet an integral part of China, it had to be built.

I suspect that they do have a less cautious (and less risk-averse) culture, so failure will also be higher. (There was an example of a fairly new bridge collapsing recently, which had been built from a mountainside that was prone to landslides, and the land slid, toppling a good chunk of the bridge.)

EDIT: this is the one:

 

[icowden]

It looks expensive though and there's no info beyond the tweet.

If only there was some way of making it pay for itself - say by offering almost limitless amounts of energy harvested from sunlight for 20 years at almost no additional cost.

Found this:

• Anhui Fuyang Project: Built by the China Three Gorges Corporation, this 650-megawatt (MW) megaproject is the world's largest floating solar farm. It operates as an aquaculture-fishery hybrid, allowing fish farming to occur beneath the panels.
• 
  
• Dezhou Dingzhuang Project: This 320-MW facility in Shandong province is another massive installation producing renewable energy for the local grid

 

[briantrumpet]

If only there was some way of making it pay for itself - say by offering almost limitless amounts of energy harvested from sunlight for 20 years at almost no additional cost.

Found this:

• Anhui Fuyang Project: Built by the China Three Gorges Corporation, this 650-megawatt (MW) megaproject is the world's largest floating solar farm. It operates as an aquaculture-fishery hybrid, allowing fish farming to occur beneath the panels.
• 
  
• Dezhou Dingzhuang Project: This 320-MW facility in Shandong province is another massive installation producing renewable energy for the local grid

I imagine that floating versions have different engineering challenges from those on pylons, but by trying out the engineering and assessing relative costs will be an integral part of the project outcomes.

 

[Dorset Boy]

The moroccans started building their mega solar facility a decade ago:
The Ouarzazate Solar Power Station located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region of Morocco, is the world's largest Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) complex. Spanning an area the size of 3,500 football fields, it provides renewable electricity to over a million people...
At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant including a field of 2 million giant mirrors. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project was planned to produce 582 MW. The total project's estimated cost is around $9 billion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
Having 330 days of sunshine a year helps, along with a chunk of otherwise largely unusable land.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

And who reads Masefield now?

Or Cecil Day Lewis who was chosen ahead of Smith? I suspect a certain degree of bias may have been present amongst those advising back then!

 

[briantrumpet]

The moroccans started building their mega solar facility a decade ago:
The Ouarzazate Solar Power Station located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region of Morocco, is the world's largest Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) complex. Spanning an area the size of 3,500 football fields, it provides renewable electricity to over a million people...
At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant including a field of 2 million giant mirrors. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project was planned to produce 582 MW. The total project's estimated cost is around $9 billion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
Having 330 days of sunshine a year helps, along with a chunk of otherwise largely unusable land.

These kinds of things show that the problem of electrical power is physically solvable (along with individual home-based solutions), which gives hope, and current (boom boom) uncertainties in the carbon-based energy world seem to be making the political and economic arguments a much easier sell.

A not-unrelated aspect is that the scale of these things is just mind-boggling to tiny me.

 

[icowden]

I imagine that floating versions have different engineering challenges from those on pylons, but by trying out the engineering and assessing relative costs will be an integral part of the project outcomes.

That said - we are doing them over here. This is the reservoir next to me. In 2016 this was Europe's largest floating solar farm with a 6.3MW array of 23000 panels. I'm always surprised that they haven't expanded it.

 

[Beebo]

What's this, in god's name? Paris, banning the sale *and* consumption of alcohol on Friday?

Apparently the hospitals are overrun.

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Apparently bars and restaurants are exempt from any sales ban.
And how can they enforce people from drinking stuff they already have at home?