Solar Electricity Car Ports in Milpitas California
By Glen Kizer
I was listening to this old man in a restaurant the other day. He was complaining about President Obama and his plans for encouraging the development of renewable energy in the US. He was talking to his two granddaughters (I may be older than he is and maybe those are his daughters, but he sounded old so I call him the “old man”) and his daughters/granddaughters seemed to pay no attention to him so he started to include other people in the restaurant in his oration. He did not seem to like President Obama and he clearly hated the thought of renewable energy, especially solar energy. He loves nuclear energy and hopes we build a bunch of new nuclear power plants “like they have in France.” Of course, at another point in the conversation he said he hated the French, but I let it go because I am not sure he understood that the French people he hates actually live in France, home of all of those nuclear plants that he loves.
The thing that prompted this blog posting is this one thing he kept repeating over and over again about how it would require 11,000 acres of solar panels to equal the amount of electricity we currently get from nuclear plants. (Factoid: 1,000 megawatts of solar electricity = entire production from all of the nuclear plants in the US). He never said how much space our current list of nuclear power plants takes up, but he implied it was not very much. He made it seem like it is 11,000 acres of solar = zero land space for nuclear. I have been to several nuclear power plants and they seem to take up more space than he was letting on, but he was too old to argue with on more than one point and they don’t take up huge amounts of space so I let it go. Instead I told him simply that I disagreed with him about the need for the 11,000 acres. He grew very angry. “How can you argue with that? It is a fact.” He kept saying that over and over “It is a fact.” Later I did find that fact on a web site promoting nuclear energy, but what the old man and the web site fail to take into consideration is the land being utilized by our nuclear power plants is not available for any other use. The land is fenced off. Most solar panels are installed in such a way that they take up almost zero land area. There are lots of solar panels on elementary and middle and high school buildings and parking lots and playgrounds. This brings me to Milpitas High School in Milpitas, California.
We did a solar school project at Milpitas High School as part of the PG&E Solar Schools Program. But why I bring up Milpitas High School is they also have a 1 MW PV system that takes up essentially zero land space. The 1 MW is all in a carport. So when the old man looks at the pictures in this blog story he will see that of the 1 MW in solar panels none of them are sitting on the ground. The solar panels are overhead providing protection from the sun for the cars in the parking lot. Not only do they take up no ground space they provide a benefit of shade in areas where shade is needed. These pix really hurt his argument and I gave him the blog site so I am hoping he is reading this. It won’t make a difference to his belief that nuclear energy is the greatest thing in the world and solar energy and wind energy, in his mind, are not that great, but it may keep him from ranting about the 11,000 acres of land that he argues would be permanently taken up by solar panels.
He might even counter with the argument “But how many high schools are there in the US that could do what Milpitas did?” The answer is there are more than 21,000 high schools in the US, and I am sure we can find another 999 to add a 1 MW installation. And what about the junior high schools and elementary schools and colleges adding their own 1 MW of solar electricity? And what about government buildings? And what about the private sector? It is going to blow the old man’s mind, but it is possible to supply all of the electricity we use in the US every year from solar panels that would be installed on building rooftops in a way in which you, or me, or the old man would never see them. I am not recommending we do this, but it is possible and much more likely than covering 11,000 acres of the US with solar panels.
The pix of the car ports may seem odd to you right now, but there are so many of these huge car port/solar electricity installations going in on schools right now that a year from now it will seem very natural. It will not surprise you to see them at the schools in your area. They are the new “hot solar installation” going on in the US on schools.
A huge advantage to the solar electricity carport is the shade and/or protection from the rain and snow and hail that it provides to cars in the parking lot. For schools in California, shade is valuable. For schools in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, shade is a good thing, but protection from snow is even more important. But regardless of the secondary use of the car ports, the primary use is to generate electricity from renewable resources WITHOUT TAKING UP ANY LAND SPACE. And it works. Milpitas High School proves that it works.
I went over this with the old man, but I didn’t have any pix with me. When he reads this blog he will see a lot of pix and he should be convinced. He may not be. After all, when I left him at McDonalds that day he was complaining about the fact that the French Fries are not listed as Freedom Fries. At first I thought he was caught in the 1950s, but it may just be 2002. He was so upset about my story about Milpitas High School that I thought he might pull out a gun and start shooting so I told him it was in France and he quieted down. I did not want him looking up the school’s phone number and calling the school to complain about how liberal they are. He will never call France. He hates the French even though he loves their nuclear power plants and their deep fried potatoes. He is a simple man…really simple.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Eh great, a simpleton calling someone else a “simple man”…if you think solar is so wonderful just go price it for yourself- without forcing your neighbors to subsidize 50% of the cost it will take you 30-40 years just to get your money back….and yes another problem with solar is still energy density- just read the article by Scientific American on solar and they would need to cover a huge swath of the American southwest to have an impact- were not talking about 11,000 acres, thats NOTHING, A DROP IN THE BUCKET…THEY ARE TALKING MILLIONS OF ACRES…and nobody has any idea what effect that would have on the environment- a million acres of black solar panels might serve as a heat sink and do more harm than good to say nothing of the wildlife habitat destroyed…and the idea that every parking lot will be outfitted solar panels is laughable- as soon as the 50% subsidy goes away that activity stops yesterday..solar is already 5 times the cost of nuclear- some loser with solar on their roof is 7-8 x cost nuc.