Again, this is missing the point. Alberta does not care at all to decarbonize and signing this could help them build off grid SMRs down the road in remote areas to power oil and gas machinery. PEI signed it because it may be a one and done solution for them to decarbonize. These are not concrete plans but they are also not signing it without some reason it could benefit them.
I do not understand what you mean.
Your article states the “For agrivoltaic systems installed at a high distance from the ground, which is necessary to let the agricultural machinery operate under the solar panels, the costs are even higher compared to conventional solar plants.”
This was my entire point regarding agrivoltaic systems. This additional cost needs to be compared to the benefit of installing the system. This could also depend on many other factors such as the price of land and water availability. I have not seen a cost comparison and I am doubtful it will actually benefit the systems widespread use at this time.
You say that for €800, 1m² - 6m² of may be saved. In Germany, where this is being done, the price of farmland in the most expensive region is €63/m² with other regions being much cheaper. If you are able to understand basic arithmetic, you can clearly see that even in the best case scenario, this is not a good value proposition for farmers at the moment. This could change and it could become more valuable if the cost of land and electricity increase, and if the agrivoltaic system costs decrease, but not now.
This is not a plan for any nuclear builds, this is just them signing on that maybe they will build some SMRs. Would you also suggest PEI is seriously planing a nuclear build?
Alberta has no nuclear and no plans for nuclear. If they cancelled any wind projects it only speaks to how deep their oil sand dreams are. Your mention of Alberta is completely irrelevant.
What kind of word spaghetti is “agrivoltaic pearl clutching”? You also quoted something that I didn’t even say. Are you ok my friend? As I have said, the idea of it is fine and can work at smaller scales. However, a typical farm requires the use tractors which need clearance. So if the plan is to build solar above, they must be raised high and spread apart to not interfere with the tractor. This can certainly be done but it requires engineering and has additional construction costs when compared to conventional solar farms. In this way it can certainly be debated if the benefit of using solar with farming is outweighed but the additional costs to the solar installation and operational costs of maneuvering the tractor around the supports.
Did you really tell me to learn to read when you clearly did not read that I am not sure what grid penetration is. Funny. The reason I do not know is because the term is used differently depending on the context so unless you explain what you mean, there is no way for me to know for sure, unlike capacity factor which is used more widely.
I’m sure there are agrivoltaic projects and I am sure they are great. My point is that they will have many challenges to be widely adopted because it will add significant costs to either the farming or the solar installation which is certainly a downside that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Canada isn’t delaying wind because of nuclear. The cancellation of wind projects in Ontario was long before there were any new-nuclear plans, many of which were announced very recently. It had more to do with the limited value and high cost of the wind projects at the time. I do believe that now it is much more suitable and Ontario should invest more into wind and solar projects because they offer tremendous value. However they are. Not the only solution to the ongoing energy crisis. Also, as an aside, other than decarbonization initiatives, Canada does control the energy market on a federal level but at a provincial level.
In a place like Saudi Arabia, solar is fantastic and should make up a sizable portion of installed capacity. However, it should still be backed by a mix to improve grid reliability and this is true for many other places also. The prospect of advanced nuclear reactors should not and as far as I know does not hold back the advancement of renewables.
Did you use chat gpt or something because almost all of what you said made no sense in the context of this discussion. I, like most people, don’t have a solar panel on my roof and nor is it practical to have one. If large cities are to have enough electricity for all of their energy needs, massive solar farms will be needed. I live in Ontario, Canada, a large area with a relatively small population. In a study looking at what is needed to meet future electricity demand, if we only used renewables, around 2-5% of the area would need to be covered by solar or wind. This sounds small but it is a huge amount of land and would be extremely resource intensive. Much of it would need to be far away from where the demand actually is leading to losses in transmission. Farming under solar panels is also laughable because it would render the farming itself impractical or the solar itself much more expensive because it would need to be on a massive raised platform. I am not sure what you are referring to with mines but Canada has one of the largest uranium reserves located in somewhat remote locations. This does not lead to transmission losses, only costs to transport the uranium ore.
Canadian CANDU reactor units can be online for more than a year thanks to their online refueling capabilities. Intermittent is still intermittent which is why solar needs a way to either store energy or it cannot be the only solution (it isn’t).
I am not sure what you mean by grid penetration but CANDU reactors have an average capacity factor of more than 80% which is significantly higher than the less than 25% for solar.
Also, Ontario is currently generating more than 50% of its electricity from nuclear so it can certainly meet more than 10% of the demand if it is suitable for the region.
Where are they delaying decarbonization for the sake of waiting for nuclear? As far as I know, many places are building wind and solar and nothing is stopping them. I am not trying to argue that solar is bad or worse than nuclear. I just think it should be realistically considered alongside of nuclear and any other carbon neutral energy source.
How is it that only one works? Nuclear seems more expensive based on this but does it take into account the cost of land, the fact that solar is intermittent, or that electricity from huge solar farms will need to be brought to where the demand is (cities) while nuclear can be much closer to limit losses. Both nuclear and solar have their place and are vital tools in the fight against climate change. The comparison is for the local utilities to decide and trying to compare directly and saying one is always better than the other is ignorant at best.
Firstly, there is no reason to say shut up. Being wrong doesn’t mean you should also be rude.
Just because you didn’t consider feeder lanes does not mean they were not or should not be considered. Highway 7 is not really ever visible from the 401. When it is close, it connects to the largest airport in the country, which is why there are so many interchnages there. An express transit system that could bring people to and from the airport from surrounding regions would be a significant improvement, but this is not the situation for the majority of the 401, which connects larger and smaller cities from Quebec to Windsor. An express train following a similar path could really benefit 6 the current system is not as bad as you claim. I live in the Durham region and if I want to, I can go to Burlington by train for like $10 and around 2 hours which is certainly reasonable. What did you print out and what printer did you use?
It depends on where you count from. If you count near the bottom, there are 11 lanes across in one direction, meaning a total of 22 lanes which matches the 26 in the other comment if you include and exit and enter lane on either sided. The 401 has 3 lanes in the collector’s and 3 lanes in the express meaning 12 lanes total for both directions you could add 4 lanes which go to/from the collector and express for 16 lanes total. Is this similar to the 14 lanes you claim? Sure. But the 401 and 400 highways do not get nearly as wide as the one in the image at its widest.
From my count it is more than 20 lanes, maybe you considered the collectors to be on/off ramps (they are not). I based the 26 lanes on this comment.
"After widening was completed in 2008, a portion of the highway west of Houston is now also believed to be the widest in the world, at 26 lanes when including feeders. - (Wikipedia)
WTF"
Even if you include feeders on the largest highways going through Toronto, it is not close to 26 lanes.
Better solutions move the problem elsewhere? I’m moving the goalpost and delaying the inevitable? I have no idea what you are talking about.
Not at all. The 401 at most has 14 lanes across and not the 26 in this photo (at least based on a comment). That being said, the toronto subway system would benefit from an overhaul instead of the proposed highway 413. Additionally, mandating a max price somehow on the 407 could help to significantly reduce traffic on other highways. As much as people like to complain about Toronto, I do find the bus system to be better than most.
This is true. Commuting in an urban or suburban environment should be significantly easier than it currently is. Public infrastructure needs to improve and become less car-centric. That being said, if you live in a rural area or a small town where there is very little traffic, or if you need to pick up groceries for your family of 4+, cars are needed. People in anti-car communities do not like to hear this, but I do not think cars should be criticized for merely existing. Current infrastructure should be criticized for only considering them. I think that while holding on to the idea that car=bad is fun, it also sours people who genuinely rely on cars to the movement and limits what actual progress could be made by these communities to make walkable cities a reality. Thank you for listening to my ted talk.
Bikes can have horns though. Honk Honk
Uranium and thorium mines are just as clean as the rare earth metal mines needed for PV cells. This is kind of a moot point. We need carbon free energy now and solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear are all part of the mix of solutions needed. There are many considerations currently being made to determine which technologies should be used in what locations.