Close up of the destruction from ABC 13 Houston, still from video. Full video link in caption.
Locals are very worried about water contamination.
Experts said that most of the time, large solar farm panels are made of compound cadmium telluride.
This is something Kaminski is worried about because he uses well water.
“That’s what we take a shower with, we drink with,” Kaminski explained. “It could be in our water now.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fort-bend-co-neighbors-want-to-know-whether-solar-panel-farms-hailstorm-damage-leaked-chemicals/ar-BB1knNRW
H/T Yooper, Frazier, karlomonte
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Mmm. Cadmium telluride sounds tasty. [s]Brawndo[/s] Cadmium telluride has what plants crave.
So, if the power source for my Zero-Emission Vehicle results in cadmium telluride being “emitted” into the local aquifer, does it really qualify as a ZEV?
Good One! I laughed out loud!
Imagine that! A hailstorm in Texas! Who woulda thunk?
When I first moved to Houston, I got caught in a hailstorm and my car looked like someone worked it over with a ballpeen hammer from stem to stern, including the windshield and back window.
Regards,
Bob
My garage saved my pickup but then I needed a new roof on garage and house.
Hail storms have been happening for millennia… long before any imaginary climate change from CO2 emissions was ever posited. Hail storm ranging from …
Pea Gravel sized
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=APjHg9fJ5_0
To Golf Ball sized
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JjkNmjh8DPM
Up to Softball sized
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aK6BoR15Ck
I would say that hail storms have been happening since the earth cooled down enough for liquid water to exist on the surface.
I bet if the solar farm had just put up some signs showing a picture of a hailstone with a red circle and slash through the hailstone, then the storm would NOT have moved over the facility!
Similarly in Brisbane Australia in 1985 a hail storm destroyed or seriously damaged thousands of cars and roofs.
If the same level of storm happened there again today with all the additional rooftop solar panels, the result would be a horrific financial loss.
Recently happened in the Gympie – area. All my well off neighbours had their solar panels pounded. Electricity prices being what they are, and electricity reliability being very poor, I don’t blame them for having solar panels. There seems to be a major hail storm here every few years, though. I have to fend off hordes of roof repair salesmen after the storms – which probably explains why home insurance is so high – but if it’s not leaking then why replace it? There is going to be another storm in a year or two.
The 2014 hailstorm in Brisbane demolished my wife’s new Mazda. It was absolutely pulverised as she sat inside trapped on the open freeway.
I know everything in Texas is bigger, but I think Montana hail storms may have a slight edge over Texas. And a colleague of mine had a similar looking car that went through a Montana hail storm.
I had a ’57 Ford convertible – punctured by hail in Iowa City; late 1960s.
Not to worry.
Vote for the Dems and Brandon. and all those ballpeen hammers will become Nerfpeen hammers.
The damage you imagine will remain but you won’t feel so … violated by the solutions to CACW.
And the left worries about and hates nuclear power plants.
I have never seen a concrete cooling tower exhibit structural failure due to a hail storm.
You guys beat me to it! Great minds……
The containment vessels that contain the reactor itself is what? 5 feet thick?
I’d hate to see the hail stone that can penetrate that.
Tunguska or bigger!??
Let the lawsuits fly!!!!!! Until greentards are held personally financially responsible for their stupidity the stupidity will continue to flow like vomit every time their mouths open.
Also this:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/infrasound-wind-turbines-could-be-huge-threat-entire-biodiversity-doctor
No problem. Here in Argentina the best wine grapes are protected from the numerous hail (granizos) storms, but a tented fabric mesh. It reduces the sunlight by 10 to 12% so you need to leave the grapes on the vine 2 or 3 additional days. Let’s see, solar at 18 or 19 % of rated capacity, minus 10 % more, gives16 or 17 % of rated capacity, so we need to set up five times more of the rascals, sorry birds! Go Nuclear!
Same in the Stanthorpe area of NSW, Australia
The loss of sunlight under the mesh can be mitigated by installing grow lights above the solar panels. The lights can be powered by the solar panels. I was thinking of appending a \sarc but decided it would be unnecessarily redundant.
Lisa would be proud of you.
https://youtu.be/tuxbMfKO9Pg
Cadmium telluride is insoluble.
So, which report is correct? 1000s of acres or 1000s of panels.
Either is a financial disaster differing only in magnitude.
Possibly both! It doesn’t take many panels lost to disable an acre of solar.
“Cadmium telluride is insoluble.”
It’s not that simple. Bung all these smashed panels into a landfill and leaching could be appreciable or not depending on local conditions. For example:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389417303084?via%3Dihub
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/2/398
Maybe we should do with old solar panels as we do with spent uranium, put them in tunnels way under mountains, away from people and water.
To save time, we could just go ahead and put them there when they’re fresh out of the factory!
But is it in insoluble in acid rain? You know, pure H2O from condensation falling through that most -alarming concentration of 400 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere does create some carbonic acid in rainfall.
Furthermore,
“Normal, clean rain has a pH value of between 5.0 and 5.5, which is slightly acidic. However, when rain combines with sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides—produced from power plants and automobiles—the rain becomes much more acidic. Typical acid rain has a pH value of 4.0.
“A decrease in pH values from 5.0 to 4.0 means that the acidity is 10 times greater.”
— https://www3.epa.gov/acidrain/education/site_students/phscale.html
Most of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were gotten out of power plant exhaust decades ago.
Yeah, but automobiles still produce nitrogen oxides.
Had a smog check done recently?
Present cars have “3-way catalysts that simultaneously reduce nitrous oxides and oxidize carbon monoxide. That’s why your car needs oxygen sensors, to keep the air fuel ratio precisely stochiometric. The exhaust contains negligible NOx, CO, and oxygen.
Not so.
Per current US EPA automobile emission standards (“Tier 3”), a automobile manufacturer must meet or better a fleet average of 0.03 grams/mile of combined NOx + NMOG (non-methane organic gases). And a manufacture can produce and sell a number of “Bin 160” vehicles producing up to 0.16 gm/mile for NOX+NMOG emissions (5 times as much), as long as their total fleet averages out to or below the specified fleet average.
(ref: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/smog-vehicle-emissions , and the attached table extracted from that website)
Previous fleet emission standards (e.g., “Tier 2”) had separate breakout limits for NOx and NMOG, indicating roughly a 50-50 split between the two (noted in same website referenced in preceding paragraph).
Therefore, based on there currently being about 300 million registered vehicles in the US, and assuming 80% of those are actually being utilized, and conservatively assuming an average yearly miles-driven-per-vehicle of 10,000 miles, and very conservatively assuming all those vehicles despite their age are meeting Tier 3 emission standards, we arrive at approximately (300e6 * 0.8 * 10,000 * 0.03 * 0.5) = 3.6e10 grams = 36,000 metric tons of NOx per year being released into the atmosphere.
And that takes into account “3-way catalysts that simultaneously reduce nitrous oxides and oxidize carbon monoxide.”
Facts—and math—matter.
It appears that some readers didn’t like my March 27, 2024 6:42 am post in rebuttal to your claim, so that forced me to look for independent verification of my calculations.
It appears indeed that I may have been too conservative:
“Road vehicles in the United States emitted 1.7 million tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in 2023.”
— source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234938/road-transportation-nitrogen-oxide-emissions-us/
(my bold emphasis added)
However, in defense of my previous calculation of “only” 36,000 metric tons of NOx emissions, the above cited 1.7 million tons is from all road vehicles, with recognition that heavy-duty trucks are the major source of NOx emissions.
That too was solved decades ago.
Easy to say . . . not so easy to document. See my comment above.
3300 acres, many thousands of panels. Baseball-sized hail
panels damaged… possibly well over a MILLION !
How many panels to an acre ?? well over 1000, I would guess.. maybe even 2000?
Salute!
Didn’t we have a hail storm in Nebraska a year or two ago that virtually
destroyed solar farm?
Videos show it is a huge area.. so “thousands of acres” is probably correct.
…. and panels probably counted in the MILLIONS. !!
https://twitter.com/Roughneck2real/status/1772339177264148491
Even God disapproves of this crap !!
The video looks to be 10s of 1000s of panels.
Where are the crews removing the damaged panels IMMEDIATLY?? The owner is just going to let the bad stuff leach into the soil??
Why didn’t the reporter mention the need to remove the panels, and harass the owner about getting them gone.
Why no discussion of where the panel will end up. (land fill)
Why no discussion of how they are NOT recyclable, as far as the actual solar cells themselves. Only the supports and frames, electrical conductors, etc. NOT the bad stuff.
Where is BigOilBob commenting on how bad oil wells are since no one is going to decommission them? Especially “abandoned” ones? This is an active site and NO ONE is doing anything to decommission it. Why BOB?
They’ll be waiting for tornado season to carry them off somewhere over the rainbow. Out of sight, out of mind..
No comment on how many homes they won’t serve anymore. 😉
Fossil fuels to the rescue!
Mr. Reid: A very good spotting of the dog not barking.
A touch! A distinct touch!
Why not just build a roof over the entire field? Problem solved.
Solar cells degrade when the junctions heat up. Best solution for that is to keep the panels in the shade.
On the other hand, active cooling works for EV batteries.
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW….
Cadmium is nasty stuff. I’ve heard it’s one of the five metals the NIH considers most toxic. The others include arsenic, lead and mercury. The neighbours might have to drink beer instead of water for a while, as our 18th-century ancestors used to.
It’s Texas, they probably already are.
Yes. Do not dump cadmium in a river, lake or any drinking-water supply.
Brush teeth, shower, and cook with bottled water. That’s what you have to do in some parts of the so-called “3rd world”.
So is chlorine, nasty stuff
yet its used everyday as Sodium Chloride, or common salt.
Cadmium telluride is the compound used not the metal cadmium on its own
You are making the same greenies error , picking on ‘toxic’ elements to spread false claims
“yet its used everyday as Sodium Chloride, or common salt.”
According to Number Watch’s John Brignell’s spoof on nonsense, Sodium Chloride is the fourth most deadly substance known to mankind.
His list is as follows:
Sugar is fifth.
Carbon dioxide is third.
Alcohol is second.
and
Tobacco is number one.
I’m glad that I’m enjoying the second most deadly substance known to mankind.
Here is some useful information on CdTe the compound that is at odds to your greenie style toxic scare
‘The compound CdTe has different qualities than the two elements, cadmium and tellurium, taken separately. CdTe has low acute inhalation, oral, and aquatic toxicity, and is negative in the Ames mutagenicity test. Based on notification of these results to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), CdTe is no longer classified as harmful if ingested nor harmful in contact with skin, and the toxicity classification to aquatic life has been reduced.” Wiki
SO “science” is funded to do studies REDUCING the hazard of stuff needed for the GREEN economy, but no funds for studies about all the negative of that energy, like killing birds, or whales, or that wind and solar are NOT “sustainable” since major portions cannot ne recycled.
Good job Duker, serve your masters, LOLOLOL
Im not in favour of solar farms replacing reliable energy generation
But you are a fool to think CdTe is toxic.
Look how bad NaCL is …we use it every day ! But DONT do the same for sodium or chlorine on their own LOL
You are as foolish as the greenies on sustances that are beneficial to mankind
Isn’t chlorine used to purify drinking water?
Schadenfreude.
Indeed, particularly since the hail hit them in the solar plexus.
Now, THAT’s Funny, right there.
A painful lesson hopefully now learned. If you do stupid things you can expect painful outcomes.
hopefully now learned.
Unlikely.
Can these panel withstand a sonic boom from a low flying aircraft?
If a window can, they probably can.
The glass covering and silicon layer . . . very likely.
The solder joints, if fatigued from repeated delta-CTE thermal cycles or otherwise near their total plastic strain limit . . . probably not.
Not the first time this has happened, and definitely not the last, both here in Texas, and anywhere else the “wise ones” insist on mixing solar and hail. Storm took out a few acre site just a few miles south of my place, and I had some 1/2 inch plus just the other night. Fortunately, it wasn’t heavy nor long enough to do much more than knock leaves from the trees. I’ve been thinking about one of the “portable” systems built on a trailer platform as a grid back up, but then this sort of news gives me pause.
By virtue of a standard test, PV modules are designed to withstand only 25mm ice balls, falling vertically without a wind velocity component. This translates to a top cover glass thickness of 3mm. To withstand real hail, the glass must be thicker which adds cost and weight.
Note the glass is tempered, which means the site is littered with tiny glass shards.
More good news. Wind and solar are not a substitute for fossil fuel and nuclear energy.
Bish bosh loadsa dosh
That’s where climate risk insurance comes in.
Its not climate risk, its old fashioned storm risk from weather.
What is new is the hailstorm can possibly destroy the entire solar farm, thus high cost for insurer . Where hailstorms previously just caused damage which was variable
Really stupid.
The insurer MAKES money, always.
The RATE PAYER and the government (taxpayers) will foot the bill. Not the developer, not the operator, not the insurance company. And the developer has collected his money and it is long gone.
So who is paying you to make such ignorant comments? The Chinese panel makers?
Insurers dont always make money. Its a risky business in itself. Some lines of business are more risky than others . Premiums are higher but risks can be miscalculated .
As for the Chinese nonsense , just makes you a bigger fool- no connection
“Insurers don[‘]t always make money. It[‘]s a risky business in itself.”
Indeed, and that’s why insurance companies need their own insurance. That is the re-insurance business. But what I want to know is, who insures the re-insurers?
Mr. kj: Who insures the re-insurers? If Joe Biden gets his way, it’ll be the Chinese. There will still be risk, but the US taxpayer will get that.
Mother Nature is laughing her ass off over the Net Zero zealots and their magical plans to control the weather with hair-brained energy infrastructure. Maybe the voters should pay attention, as our leaders of the day are clearly not living in reality.
And imagine how bad it would be if the hail hit a nuclear reactor, natural gas powered generator or hydro dam….. yeah – no impact whatsoever, except the dam would have more water to make more electricity.
I have brought this very thought up before. If storms take out power lines, you can get power back within days or maybe a couple of weeks. If storms take out the power generating devices, it will be many months or even years to get power restored.
Good point. You know what they will say …..more solar farms are the answer
Surely, within 24 hours of the storm ending the solar farm owner had a press release stating that repairing and replacing this vital resource is already underway and we’ll be back in service shortly. Most of the damaged equipment will be repaired or recycled (insert: in a foreign country with a vast uninhabited desert) therefore, landfill requirements will be minimal.
For this small area maybe, but now think hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms etc.
storms that cover vast areas.
Well . . . not to worry. Joe Biden will declare that solar PV farm a disaster area and US taxpayers will replace all the hail-damaged panels at no cost to the farm’s owner(s).
What? You think I’m kidding???
I wonder how a nuclear plant looks after a hailstorm?
Exactly the same as before the hailstorm. The reactor buildings are reinforce concrete and steel, sufficient to withstand the impact of a medium sized commercial aircraft.
Might need some new paint.
EXACTLY some of the risk analyses I called for in my testimony against Koshkonong Solar here in Wisconsin. What happens to our prime farmland soil, and wetlands, and wells when 1 million PV panels get damaged by storms? Crickets from our Public Service Commission. “Shut up, NIMBYs!!” Money and politics. We’re so screwed.
Just build the solar farms beneath the wind farms. The blades will knock the hail aside before it hits the panels.
Brilliant! I should run for Secretary of Energy.
You won’t get to first base with that batter.
Deja Vu
Solar farm pelted by giant hail as severe storm ripped through NebraskaJohn Engel
6.30.2023
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/solar-farm-pelted-by-giant-hail-as-severe-storm-ripped-through-nebraska/
Where is Luser to tell us the panels protected the ground from hail damage !