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They built a racetrack in DC. I watched the first and only event there. A huge waste of money -- they even gave local residents like $200 each or something to leave for the day cause they knew the noise was going to be bad. (but like, dont live in a shitty District)
If you look at google maps, you can still see some remaining bits of the track:
Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
Posts: 5,677
Total Cats: 800
Speaking of race tracks in the city. Detroit is moving Indy car from Belle Isle to downtown... An interesting move IMO, the roads are horrible downtown. But the "pinwheel" layout of our streets will make for a fun course.
M1 concourse is in a residential neighborhood. Doesn't seem to be a problem. Even Waterford hills is in residential.
Nothing beats taking someone's lake for a nice summer weekend to race boats...That is a huge struggle. Trying to get non race fans to agree to letting us use their lake for racing activities isn't easy.
I count twelve churches / church-affiliated organizations just in that little section of map alone. And there don't appear to be any tall, multi-family dwellings, so the population density can't be all that great.
Just for kicks, I clicked on a recent promotional email from Com Edison (local electrical company) and did their solar-assessment calculator thing.
Now, for background, I'm pretty stingy when it comes to energy use. Air conditioning doesn't run during the day, nor after I go to bed. Minimal other energy usage other than a refrigerator and one ordinary desktop PC, both of which are on all the time. All LED lighting in the house, TV usage is maybe 3-4 hours a week, and... that's about it.
ComEd says I'm within the 20% most-efficient households in the neighborhood:
Also, these houses all have smart meters with hourly reporting, so ComEd's solar calculator can actually be pretty darned accurate in terms of matching demand to availability.
So here's the result of the solar assessment:
13 years until break-even. I don't plan to still be living in this house in 13 years.
And, here's the real kicker- that's based on a system which can only offset 56% of my comparatively quite minimal electricity needs:
Yeah... This is why ill-informed people yapping about how nuclear energy is bad and we should all just put up solar panels makes me such a sad panda.
Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
Posts: 5,677
Total Cats: 800
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
I count twelve churches / church-affiliated organizations just in that little section of map alone. And there don't appear to be any tall, multi-family dwellings, so the population density can't be all that great.
So.. like one church for every 50 people?
Is this commonplace in this neck of the woods?
Ever driven through the hood Joe? The lesser fortunate(those who don't oppose a racetrack in their back yard) usually has a strong and passionate belief in their faith of choice.
Ever driven through the hood Joe? The lesser fortunate(those who don't oppose a racetrack in their back yard) usually has a strong and passionate belief in their faith of choice.
Driven? No.
But before I moved to Chicago, I lived in NYC. And I spent a fair bit of time walking around Harlem, for a variety of reasons.
One was that this is where the best fried chicken is to be found.
And also the good meat-market.
My other hobbies at the time included not obeying the rules,
... mingling with people of diverse cultural backgrounds,
... and exploring the interiors of various public housing projects.
(Honestly, it's surprising now nice and clean The Projects are, at least in terms of the publicly-accessible spaces.)
During this time, I did of course encounter the occasional church.
And went inside to really experience the vibe.
But I can tell you this: even in West Harlem, where the population density is probably 1,000x greater than the northern Detroit area, there were by no means nearly as many places of worship per square kilometer,
This week I had the chance to run my Miata at the historic Circuit Mont Tremblant, a 2.6 mile race track in the picturesque Laurentian Mountains. It's a track that's usually reserved for the more moneyed than I, but thanks to a friend from high school I got to play backmarker to a series of Porsches, BMW, Corvette, Mercedes, and an oddly fast Mk3 GTI VR6 that was trailered in, as well as a stock NC whose owner usually tracks faster cars - and that was just what was running in the beginner group.
I didn't break anything, the Miata took everything I threw at it in stride, and by the last session of the day I was spending much of the lap with my foot planted to the floor. Despite the lack of pace, my friend/instructor, who drives a track-prepped 944 Turbo, remarked, "This thing is like a go-kart," upon riding along and seeing how late into the corners I could brake. My top speed was just shy of an indicated 100 MPH, but the flowing, high speed track felt almost a bit like a drive in the country; I ran the whole thing in third and fourth gear. I was surprised by how fresh I felt at the end of each 30 minute session as well as by how much my confidence grew from the beginning of the first session to the last, by which time I was allowed to go out solo.
In the late 80s, my friend Jon and I did a lot of, what for teenagers in western Florida in the early 90s, passed for urban exploration.
Which basically meant that we spent a fair bit of time in the dumpster behind Storer Cable, managed to talk our way straight into the telephone company CO (Harbor Blvd & US-41), amassed a coveted assortment of the keys used to open utility boxes, that sort of thing... White collar crime, Florida-youth style.
One stands out in my memory, though. I'll never forget the night we snuck into the cat factory.
"Feline Assembly Plant #12" according to the small sign above the loading dock entrance door which had carelessly been left ajar.
Inside, it was dark. And I recall that we spent some time rummaging around in the R&D and prototyping departments. The sound was difficult to describe; hundreds, perhaps thousands of soft mews, seemingly all in chorus.
But what I recall most was the warehouse area, where raw materials were kept. On one side of the floor was at least a hundred shrink-wrapped pallets, stacked 4-5 high, each with a thermo-printed label saying "WARM, SOFT LOVILIENESS" and a barcode. And on the other side, a small metal table with a measuring scale, a scoop, and a bin. On the bin was a hand-written label (think sharpie-on-gaffer-tape kind of thing) which read "razor death-blades of horror.
This was way before Hurricane Charlie, of course. Used to be located out on the far-east end of Jones Loop Road. I have no idea whether they rebuilt locally afterwards, or just moved inland.
Yeah... This is why ill-informed people yapping about how nuclear energy is bad and we should all just put up solar panels makes me such a sad panda.
Its a late reply but these numbers seemingly lined up so well that I can't look away....
That's probably a 6kw system?
So say 6kw x 5ish hours of sunlight (crude yearly average across the US) x 0.75 (crude accepted solar fudge factor) = ~24kw in a day or ........ 1kwh!
I think today's nuclear power plants are 1gwh target? Let's assume it runs nonstop (which it more or less does because nuclear power is like that)
Add some more fudge factor and say if 1,000,000 households had that same 6kw system, you'd have one nuclear power plant.
Google says there are 1 million houses in Chicago!
Say 20k per system on 1 million houses = 20 billion
In my 30 seconds of searching I can find a 7billion cost to build a nuke plant in 2010 or so.
Say 10 billion to build one today?
Government cost measurements say ~22k per hour to operate that gigW plant. Or 200 million a year.
Toss in the 20 year lifespan of the panels and the solar system costs you 20 billion and the nuclear plant costs you 14 billion. With all of the assumptions, these are remarkably close (assuming the 10% chance I haven't missed an order of magnitude somewhere)
Honestly... if we don't consider the impacts of solar panel waste or nuclear waste, one of these options requires a sturdy roof (or 1 million sturdy roofs) and no hail storms and the other requires a stable government/security/blah blah blah and a lot of donuts for homer simpson.
I'm pro nuclear power seeing as it has a pretty good track record for running non-stop and solar power seems to not work for some period of the day.
But, it is an interesting thought experiment.
Wow. You don't need fudge factors, there are calculators for that. The calculator for my 10kw system was 2% conservative over around 5 years, so they are pretty good. Yes, solar does not generate when the sun don't shine (who knew?!), but wind does. Yes, some places the wind is not blowing, but on a continental scale there is always wind blowing, especially at sea where (AIUI) the wind is more reliable. We have been slow to get into offshore wind farms, first is in planning now, but that is generally seen as being a major contributor into the future. There are some big solar farms being planned in the north, looking to export power to Singapore by cable, and a lot of interest in using surplus solar to manufacture hydrogen or ammonia. However a lot of this is early stages only, and whether it eventuates, or more likely in what form it eventuates, remains to be seen.
My system generates 12-15Mwh/yr, mostly around 15mwh the low figure was an inverter going off-line for one quarter, that cost $160 for the sparky to fix. Maintenance is $0 generally, I don't even clean the panels, nature does that for me. Replacement cost for my system is around $AUD12-15k including inverters (cost me a bloody sight more 12 years ago) . Currently earning 20c/Kwh for gross input to the grid (ie all my solar is put into the grid, then my usage is charged at full rate), estimated to result in free electricity and a net $1k payment to me over a year.
I think your nuc build cost is out by 100% or so, but that is just a WAG. What you did not factor in is operating costs of the nuc, this is where renewables is killing nuc/coal/gas generators, even allowing for storage. Put up a wind or solar farm and all you are up for is a bit of maintenance and the costs of servicing capital. Our coal plants are old, really old, and are high-maintenance, high cost and inefficient. But who is going to invest in a costly coal/gas/nuc plant when the operating costs are factored in, and in the case of gas/coal emissions. Gas is seen here as a useful gap filler, with short response time, but only on a transition basis while storage needs are identified and met on a renewable basis.
07-13-2022, 08:27 AM
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