Guest essay By Vijay Jayaraj
The push for solar energy is carving a path of destruction through the Thar Desert in India’s Rajasthan, where native species maintain a delicate balance of life now being sacrificed to an absurd and futile climate agenda.
This is an act of ecological vandalism that pretends moral superiority while destroying the natural world it supposedly reveres. If nature is the god of the climate obsessed, then their version of saving the planet is blasphemy.
Situated in the northwest of the subcontinent, Rajasthan is India’s largest state, covering more than 10% of the country’s land area. It hosts a habitat that has evolved over millennia to support a unique web of life and is considered a national treasure.
Yet, the government allows its despoilment by solar installations at a staggering scale. The solar blight already afflicts more than 200 square miles. More than 2.6 million trees have been cleared across four districts to make way for the sprawl. To meet India’s distant “green” energy targets, an additional 14,000 square miles of habitat – nearly the size of Switzerland – could be cleared.
The consequences have been devastating. Ponds that once attracted migrating pelicans are now covered with solar panels. Eyewitness accounts report that pelicans often are injured when mistaking the gleaming panels for a body of water at night. Other birds affected include the great Indian bustard, sand grouse, pintail, wigeon, pochard, teal, swan, imperial sand grouse, rain quail, florican, robin, starling and more.
Wildlife expert Mridul Vaibhav says, “Numerous species such as wild pigs, langurs, black deer, desert cats, desert foxes, Indian gazelle, and the great Indian deer are struggling to survive.”
Activists say authorities are handing over ecologically sensitive zones – catchment areas, foothills and surrounding landscapes – to developers in a reckless rush to install solar infrastructure. Bulldozers and other heavy machinery flatten terrain, damage riverbeds and reshape entire watersheds without a second thought.
To clean and cool solar panels, operators use about 10.5 million gallons of water every week — just in four districts. That’s enough to meet the weekly drinking needs of 300,000 people. In a place where water scarcity has at times threatened survival, this redirection of water to a non-agricultural, non-residential activity is both absurd and unethical.
There’s another human cost to this so-called energy transition. Farmers in places like Nursar village were sold the dream of solar prosperity. They gave up their land — 90% of it in some cases — to solar companies promising easy money.
One farm named Ganpat found himself with his solar payout exhausted within five years and the fields his cattle once grazed taken over by solar panels. Fodder must be purchased, and family members without jobs have migrated to cities in search of work.
These people are not climate warriors but the collateral damage of virtue-signaling elites and grifters profiting from government subsidies.
Although solar demands much from the ecosystems and people, its offers little in return because solar panels have extremely low energy density compared to coal, natural gas or nuclear fuel.
To match the output of a nuclear plant a solar facility needs to have more than triple the installed capacity. Why? Because solar plants produce electricity less than a quarter of the time of a nuclear plant. Clouds, sunset, dust storms and snowfall shut down the panels, while a nuclear plant runs almost continuously.
Further, the land needed for a solar facility can range from 45 to 75 square miles. For perspective, the entire island of Manhattan is just 34 square miles. A nuclear site needs less than two square miles. The comparison isn’t even close. Yet green bureaucrats want solar to dominate India’s grid as a response to a fabricated climate emergency.
Is this progress? Is it truly “green” to destroy a desert ecosystem for no benefit? Is it just to impoverish farmers to produce relatively paltry amounts of electricity?
You don’t need to oppose solar altogether to ask these questions. But you do need honesty, courage and common sense, which are in short supply among the environmental elite.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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Wind and solar make purported greens ignore real environmental effects.
They would have to recognize the difference between real and fake environmental effects first. I don’t think they are capable of that.
“The solar blight already afflicts more than 200 square miles. More than 2.6 million trees have been cleared across four districts to make way for the sprawl.”
Here is an image of the Gevra coal mine in Chhattisgarh. It occupies about 32 sq miles. Just one mine. Every tree gone, every pond. And not in a desert, but in heavily populated land.
How much energy per day comes out of that 32 sq miles Nick? How about we put up energy produced vs energy produced per square mile? You want to drag the thread off topic Nick how about we go down that rabbit hole? While we’re at it, let’s put a value on the energy produced being available when it is needed vs being produced when it is not needed so we get an apples to apples Nick?
When the mine had been mined out, it can be redeveloped. Cheap reliable energy is what drags the 3rd world out of poverty. That the coal mine that does this happens to be near a populated area is no surprise, if there wasn’t a build up of habitation around it that would be totally strange. The habitation is there because a) there’s jobs there and b) there’s clean water and sewage systems powered by cheap reliable electricity there.
Your argument is petty and specious and I think it is time that the mods banned you.
No, you’re reading Nick wrong. You’re reading the old Nick, the paranoid deluded greenie. He’s turned over a new leaf. Can’t you tell? It’s just oozing out of his every pore.
Coal mines do not generate electricity, you must dig the coal from the scarred earth, transport it many miles, and burn it to produce billowing clouds of greenhouse gases and other pollutants to generate electricity. When the seams are depleted, the mine must be moved to a new location to rake and scar the earth again. A solar farm, once installed, produces clean electricity for decades on the same footprint, with no fuel extraction, transport, or ongoing habitat destruction.
Solar panels do not work for decades. Maybe one decade before degradation sets in. There is plenty of “fuel extraction” and “billowing clouds” in producing them and their frequent replacements and usually the electricity produced has to be transported for great distances to where it is needed. Nick says the mine in the picture is 32 miles^2. The article says the solar installation is already 200 miles^2 and growing. Alan, why don’t you look up the output of the solar installation and all of the backup systems it needs with that of the coal fired power plants that use the coal from the mine Nick has shown us that backup themselves? Let us all know how they compare.
Solar panels typically last 25 to 35 years before efficiency degrades to around 80%, with some modern panels retaining >90% efficiency at 25 years.
Lifecycle emissions for solar are orders of magnitude lower than for coal.
Yes, and the mine is growing, and will need to continue growing and be moved as seams are depleted. Meanwhile the solar installation will continue to provide cheap, clean energy with much less disruption to the land. And, of course, the location of solar installations can be decided as a matter of public policy, while coal must be mined where it is located, regardless of the ecological impact.
How do you refine silica to make glass and silicon solar cells without coal?
In Alan’s world, if he wants something to be true, it is. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
Typical.\
Ecological impact.
Right. Destroy it up front (200 mile^2) and then there is no additional ecological impact.
Missing is for how long the mine produces coal economically?
Look to Oklahoma and Iowa and Florida and tell us the last 25 to 35 years.
I’m done wasting my time on this person who denies reality.
You might be able to get 25 years in a laboratory environment. In the real world, especially desert type environments, the life expectancy is a lot less.
Excluding CO2, which is a benefit for the planet, and the life cycle emissions go against wind and solar.
As the mine moves, the depleted areas are reclaimed, so the given size of the mine at any given time changes very little.
Solar is never cheap, not when you include all of the costs, which LCOE refuses to do.
You can put a solar field wherever you want, but if you want to be efficient the available places are limited.
Putting one in places with lots of clouds, bad idea.
Putting one in places that are frequently shaded, bad idea.
Putting one in a place with frequent bad weather, bad idea.
Putting one far away from where people live, bad idea.
Using one in the first place bad idea.
“Solar panels typically last 25 to 35 years before efficiency degrades to around 80%, ”
“modern panels retaining >90% efficiency at 25 years. ”
Show us a solar plant from 1995 with those specs.
How is a modern panel from 2000?
You know that ‘expectations’ aren’t actual history, and mostly marketing bs?
Degradation sets in starting from day one.
Are you really that desperate Alan?
The power comes from the product produced.
If you want to go down that route, how about we include all the mines needed to produce the material to make those solar panels, and the child labor for many of them as well.
As to the rest of your nonsense, CO2 is good for the environment, the other pollutants were cleaned up decades ago.
When the seam is exhausted, the land is reclaimed and you can’t tell that a mine was ever there.
In the same footprint? Really, The solar farms are hundreds of times bigger than that mine, and until someone wises up and tears the down, they go on forever. If you believe that solar doesn’t cause environmental destruction, then either you haven’t read the article, or lack the wit to understand it.
The mine isn’t the power plant. Coal electricity requires the mine, the transport network, the power station, and the ash dumps, all of which add to the real footprint. Solar’s footprint is the power station, and it sits there producing electricity for 25–35 years without new land being disturbed for fuel.
If you want to count all the upstream mining for solar materials, do the same for coal, from the mine to the plant to the waste sites. Life-cycle studies that account for all of it still show solar producing electricity with orders of magnitude lower emissions and without the ongoing habitat loss from constant refueling.
CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas that is driving long-term, significant, adverse climate change.
When a coal seam is exhausted, reclamation can smooth the land and add vegetation, but the original ecosystem, soil, and hydrology are rarely restored, and hidden damage like contamination or compaction can persist for decades. By contrast, decommissioning a solar farm involves removing equipment from intact soil, allowing the land to return to agriculture or habitat within months, with little to no lasting environmental harm.
It really is amazing how Alan keeps bringing up the same disproven points, over and over again. It’s almost as if he’s a purely written bot, not capable of remembering anything that wasn’t programmed into him and just reacting to the post it is responding to.
The amount of energy needed to transport coal is miniscule. Especially when compared to the amount of energy in coal. The transport network itself already exists. It’s called the rail ways. Did you think that there is a separate rail network just for coal?
Ash dumps haven’t existed for generations, it’s all input for other industrial products. One of the big ones is cinder blocks. If you haven’t heard of those, ask your mother.
Funny how coals “footprint” is everything poor Alan can think of, but solar’s footprint is only the plant itself. Not the mines needed to make the panels, not the road network needed to bring workers to the site. Not the water supplies needed on a regular basis. Only the panels themselves. As usual Alan reveals himself as either an idiot, or a hypocrite.
The real world has spoken, and no actual solar plants have been able to survive for 25 to 35 years. But since he read it on a brochure somewhere, it must be true, so he’ll keep repeating it.
CO2 is a weak green house gas, it’s almost played out. About 95% of what CO2 is capable of absorbing, has been absorbed before concentrations get to 300ppm. It plays no role in anything, as the real world data over the history of the planet clearly demonstrate.
When the land is restored after the mine is closed, then that restores the eco-system. Remember that the site is at most a few miles across. Do you think they have to import birds and rabbits? They already exist in the surrounding areas and move back in as soon as the people leave.
There are 700 coal ash dumps in the US as we speak. Leaking toxins into groundwater and contaminating the soil. What a foolish thing to say. I guess they do use a tiny fraction of that to make cinder blocks, so not a complete miss from you here.
There are PV arrays from the 1980s still producing power today.
Ah, deploying tired old arguments disproven nearly a century ago. Really up to date and prescient stuff.
The point, of course, is that coal is dirtier than solar fields and has far more adverse impact on the environment. So you can all spare us the melodramatic hand wringing and pretense of you actually caring about any of that. You’re just pro-coal, not pro-environment.
You do know that ash (including coal ash) is used to buffer soil pH, and whether it’s beneficial or a pollutant is the concentration? Similar to how high levels of cementation make either a soil or a city structure impermeable to water and harmful to the environment?
Basic science was disproven decades ago? In the climate science world, that just might be true.
As for 45 year old solar cells still producing power. So what.
Was it outside exposed to the weather for those 45 years? What is the efficiency of the cell? Putting out 1% of original specs would satisfy, “still producing power”.
Your PREMISE is WRONG!
“CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas that is driving long-term, significant, adverse climate change.”
Well; Right there, your PREMISE is WRONG.
Coal mines let you generate electricity closer to where the demand is. Ditto natural gas. Ditto nuclear (the reactor isn’t at the minesite). Solar and wind mean you collect the electricity where the panel/bird blender are and then you suffer line losses (ie heat generation and wasted electricity) by transporting the electricity to where the demand is. If warming is such a risk, why have so many electric heaters (aka line losses from long distance high voltage wires) across the countryside?
A counter argument might be that the coal / gas / uranium has to be transported. But the transport in those systems isn’t always a maximum 24/7/365 like… oh, wait, solar and wind don’t operate 24/7/365 do they? Hmm… I guess that argument isn’t as strong as I thought (/sarc).
You’ve countered your own point. Coal, gas, and uranium aren’t close to demand, their fuel has to be hauled over long distances, and they waste 30-40% of their energy as heat on site (so vastly less efficient than moving electricity). And long distance transport isn’t unique to renewables; the US grid already moves coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power over hundreds of miles.
And, yes, renewables don’t operate 24/7/365, but that is addressed through storage and grid balancing – it’s a logistics problem in the same way that FF transport is.
With the other forms the energy used is not subtracted from the energy generated. Coal needs diesel to get it to the generator. All coal is then used to generate power of which 95% or more is available to the user. Solar needs to over-generate (meaning over-design of the electrical grid and more capital to over-capacity the grid) to meet the required power output at the end user.
Can an electrical engineer please estimate the percentage line losses for a 500 mile / 800km line? If there’s a 40% line loss then the area to be covered by solar panels isn’t 14,000 square miles, it’s 23,333.
Well, not really. A coal plant operates at about 33% efficiency. So 67% of the energy generated is lost as heat on-site. You have to transport all of that fuel and most of it goes to waste.
Line loss is around 5%. But line loss affects all forms of energy generation and do not uniquely penalize solar, so the point is somewhat moot.
It really is sad the way Alan thinks that repeating his made up claims, over and over again, will make someone believe them.
I clearly stated the generated power from the coal, not the potential power within the coal so there’s no nit to pick there.
Line loss is a function of distance. That’s why I asked for an electrical specialist to opine. The power loss calculations I have done (for estimation purposes only, I wouldn’t risk my professional license by going out of specialty and stating something definitive) for lower voltages at minesites would equate to a greater than 50% loss over 500 miles. Have you ever had to calculate line losses for anything, Alan?
Your PREMISE is WRONG!
Trains are very, very efficient. Way more efficient than the power lines that bring electricity from remote wind and solar facilities.
Oranges are way, way more citrusy than apples.
Poor little Alan, he knows he’s been caught in a whopper, but is ego won’t permit him to admit it.
Diesel-electric locomotives on steel rails are hands-down, far and away the #1 most energy-efficient form of transportation.
On land. Bulk transport by ship is approximately 4% the cost (per tonne going 1 mile) the cost of rail.
Trains are very, very efficient. The percent of energy spent moving coal from mine to power plant, is less than the percent of energy lost moving electrons from panel to house.
That’s not the point. The point of the original piece was that a fragile and important environment is being damaged by these particular solar projects, and that these particular ones should be stopped.
What do you think about the projects in the Thar Desert? That’s the issue. It has nothing to do with coal or coal mines someplace. Its about the Thar Desert and cutting trees to put solar panels in it.
You and Nick both need to address the question and stop trying to divert the discussion into all kinds of irrelevancies.
The point of the article is to clutch pearls and stage faux outrage over hypothetical solar damage, meanwhile you all defend coal tooth-and-nail from any real scrutiny. Considering environmental impact in solar siting is worthwhile, and the fact we can actually do that at all is a massive advantage over conventional sources, which go wherever the geology demands, damage be damned.
You need to learn how to think. You don’t know how to reason connectedly, and you seem to think that using expressions like ‘faux outrage’ and the usual irrelevant ad hominems, like ‘you all defend coal tooth-and-nail’ is making valid logical points.
I don’t defend coal, I don’t need to, because coal is not an issue in the Thar Desert. Just like I don’t need to defend nuclear, or wind, or artificial fertilizer, or the Arial type font or the shingles vaccine. They are all equally irrelevant to this subject.
I can’t make out what you think about the subject of the piece, the Thar Desert.
But that is probably because you don’t know yourself. Or don’t care. Your idea seems to be that if anyone criticizes any particular renewable installation on environmental grounds, and suggests it would be better sited elsewhere, don’t think, don’t reason, don’t look at the specifics, don’t address the point. Go immediately into full on climate hysteria mode with a wave of irrelevant rhetoric on irrelevant subjects.
Do you think there is evidence the Thar Desert environment is threatened by the solar installations, as the piece claims, and if so, do you still support going ahead with them? And why?
No point in asking really. All we are hearing is the voice of the wind and solar lobbies. Cannot produce usable power at an acceptable cost, and environmentally damaging with it, So when argument fails, try shrieking. All there is left.
On the contrary, you need to learn that not every discussion needs to center specifically around the thing you want to talk about. Nick’s comment was quite germane, and points out a fundamental hypocrisy. The pearl clutching in these comments is indeed a display of faux outrage – none of the people criticizing solar installations gives two hoots about the environmental damage they might inflict on the Thar Desert, or else they’d be equally as concerned with the vastly more severe environmental impacts of coal in India. Instead they’re all pretending like coal is some kind of miracle clean fuel without a single disadvantage or adverse effect.
“On the contrary, you need to learn that not every discussion needs to center specifically around the thing you want to talk about.”
What?????????????????
Did you read the article? A solar farm kills everything underneath it, plus birds and other critters that rely on the land and its inhabitants for food. Plus you have to build transmission lines and maintenance roads.
Then you have to waste water keeping the panels clean, and when they fail, find a way to dispose of the toxic waste.
A solar farm “kills everything underneath it”? Please. Many keep ground cover or double as grazing land. Every energy source needs roads and transmissions lines. Cleaning water use is trivial next to what coal plants guzzle every day, and panels are mostly recyclable glass and aluminum and not millions of tons of arsenic-laced coal ash.
Many keep ground cover or double as grazing land.
I’ve seen an article about one farmer who was trying something like that. Never seen it in person, and I’ve seen plenty of solar installations. Also I don’t see much growing under them (or around them, inside the fence) at all. Certainly not any of the trees they cut down to build it.
Try reading the literature for once Alan, for large arrays, very little light makes it past the panels. Try thinking about it for a second. Every photon that is not captured by a panel, is a photon lost and money lost to the operators of the installation. Very little grows under these panels, and while nut jubs such as yourself often claim that grazing can occur, I’ve never seen any examples of it actually happening.
Just how much water do coal plants guzzle? Every plant that I am familiar with has cooling ponds, The water is used to cool, then it goes into the pond, then it gets used again.
As to the water being used by the solar installation, that has been documented, unlike most of your fantasies.
BTW, if it’s so easy to recycle solar panels, why are none being recycled.
Uh, ok….
https://www.agritecture.com/blog/2022/2/3/largest-farm-to-grow-crops-under-solar-panels-proves-to-be-a-bumper-crop-for-agrivoltaic-land-use
You forgot to explicitly mention Ben Dover coal ash waste management. Yes, some is reused, but enough of the poisonous metals dissolve into our water to constitute a serious risk to – disproportionately disadvantaged – locals. If it’s a problem in the US, then it’s much worse just about everywhere else.
Thank you, Nick, for pointing out how much less land theft is required by fossil fuels as compared to solar farms. I bet the fossil fuel mine also keeps working at night and on cloudy days, and hail storms don’t do much damage.
You’ve done a real service here, pointing out the superiority of fossil fuels, especially coal. You’ve come a long way from your schizoid green days. Congratulations!
The mine isn’t theft, it’s just borrowing. The land is reclaimed once the coal is gone.
The coal mines in the Hunter valley are rapidly rehabilitated, I can tell the difference between the rehabilitated mine sight and natural hills because the trees grow much taller on the rehabilitated sight.
Site.
Do they? I’d like to read about that.
More adaptive species of eucalyptus trees.
Like the carbon credits farmers use?
OK, but that species is mostly on the left coast. How about in the Appalachians? No doubt if the restoration work is done right, the trees will grow as well as before if not better.
Here’s one example of how mine planning integrates closure and public consultation: https://www.teck.com/media/Responsible-Mine-Closure-and-Reclamation.pdf
Most first world mining companies will have similar glossies noting how they do their planning and reclamation. Our targetted backfilling of completed pits ensures wildlife corrodors, and best practices are constantly evolving. We now target spoil shapes and edge landforms to achieve habitats factoring things like wind scour and snow accumulation.
The Gevra coal mine in Chhattisgarh does indeed look like an environmental horror story. Open cast coal mining generally is. But I am not seeing what bearing that has on the Thar desert solar panels story. Its irrelevant. What exactly is the argument?
It seems like simple whataboutery.
The case against the Thar desert solar is that it is destroying a delicate habitat. That’s all. The case against it would say, don’t do this. If you want to put up solar panels, find someplace else.
You may want to argue that in general solar panels are an alternative to coal mining. I don’t think they are, but even if they are, that doesn’t affect the point: find somewhere else less damaging to put them.
[David Hoffer – “I think it is time that the mods banned you.” No, this is what distinguishes Watts from Tamino, Real Climate, Ars Technica etc who routinely ban all commenters who dissent from orthodox climate hysteria. It is far more effective for the bad arguments to be set out in the sun where everyone can see them and refute them. And focus on the logic. You’ve allowed yourself to be diverted into arguing about Gevra, which is irrelevant to the point being made in the head post. ]
“What exactly is the argument?”
It is just pointing out the selective environmental sensitivity. Vijay is a coal booster. A coal mine is far more destructive to the environment than solar panels. It obliterates it.
Whether or not it is far more destructive is irrelevant to the point which he is making. Which is that the Thar Desert installations, on their scale, assuming he is right, have unacceptable environmental consequences. They should be stopped.
Never mind if he has selective sensitivity – that too is irrelevant. Just as comparing the Gevra mine with it is irrelevant, whether the damage from that or any other project anywhere else is greater or lesser is irrelevant.
If he’s right about the damage, the installations should be stopped, his case stands or falls on that.
I suspect however that among greens there is the mirror image of what you accuse him of: selective insensitivity to damage caused by wind and solar.
I don’t know anything about either the Thar Desert or the Gevra coal mine, but I know whataboutery when I see it.
“I know whataboutery when I see it”
It isn’t whataboutery. Coal and solar are alternatives. With more solar you need less coal, and vice versa. So it makes perfect sense to compare their relative effects on the environment.
NO! “. With more solar you need less coal, and vice versa.” This is the constant lie. The truth is that when solar fails you still need the same amount of electrical ENERGY provided by which ever alternative source is chosen.
The truth is that both solar and wind stop producing at significant and random times. When this happens the alternative sources MUST be available to replace them.
No amount of overbuild can be achieved that solves this solar/wind problem, AND THE COSTS FOR SOLVING THIS WEAKNESS is what is driving a significant portion of the energy price increases.
As to the environmental impacts, it is the overbuild need that is environmentally destructive and while simultaneously being UNECONOMIC.
Coal mines cannot be licensed in the first world without a reclamation plan including targetted ecosystem types. Do solar farms need reclamation bonds like us mines do (in event of a mining company going under the bond that they have been maintaining will pay for reclamation / restoration to a natural state)? Do cities have reclamation plans, or will they stay paved and heat islands forever?
Bonds must be in place to pay for this reclamation, even if the mining company goes out of business.
No such bonds have ever been required for wind and solar fields.
Its whataboutery because you are refusing to address the simple question: The great damage apparently done to the Thar Desert in installing solar panels there: is it justified, yes or no? And why?
I don’t think coal and solar in general are alternatives, but its irrelevant. Just as the coal mine you referred to is irrelevant. What you are doing is pick some mine in some irrelevant place and talk about the damage that has done. Maybe it has. The issue of the piece however is not about that, its about what is apparently being done to the Thar Desert. The piece is arguing it is wrong and should stop.
You cannot justify the building of some particular building out of straw by pointing to another building someplace else made out of brick that fell down for some reason. The question is whether this particular straw building, where it is being built, how its designed, makes sense.
But that is the thing both you and AlanJ are both doing your best to avoid talking about.
There is a Chinese project, in the UK, to install 900 ft turbines off the north coast of Scotland. The Telegraph reports:
It will also be among the most controversial – the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has warned that it will threaten UK populations of puffins, northern gannets, black-legged kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills.
Details of the scheme, which was originally planned with smaller machines, emerged with the latest financial results from Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas, which is building the giant new turbines.
This is wrong. You and Alan will probably want to avoid talking about it, and instead talk about the relative merits of wind and coal or gas, or other ways in which other bird populations are threatened. Or anything rather than the environmental wrongness of a particular wind or solar project.
All of which is totally irrelevant. The question is, do you approve of the environmental damage this particular project will cause? And why?
No, with more solar you need MORE coal, because solar supply is intermittent, but demand isn’t. And you can’t fire up a coal plant just-in-time, so it has to be running all the time anyway.
Solar farms can be highly destructive too. See my video I made when such a “farm” was built behind my ‘hood in north central Wokeachusetts.
Open-cast coal mines can be remediated once spent. Not a quick job, but possible if the willingness to do it is there. Whether the Indians have the willingness I’ve no idea. But the story is about solar. The author doesn’t talk about coal, but then he doesn’t talk about nuclear, or gas, or windfarms either. Come to think of it, maybe a disused open-cast coal mine could be repurposed as a dumping ground for old wind turbine towers and blades.
Can you demonstrate that a coal mine is more environmentally destructive, or are you just resorting to emotional arguments again?
You also have to take into account the size and longevity of both, which you have refused to do.
The solar plant is hundreds of times greater and will last forever. The coal mine, when the coal is exhausted, will be reclaimed and be indistinguishable from what was there before.
Well India does not seem to think that coal is that bad.
According to the latest Energy Institute ‘Statistical Review of World Energy’ India’s coal demand increased 4% in 2024. That does seem like much but it means that India now uses as much coal as;-
The CIS (9 former members of the Soviet Union, including Russia), South and Central America, North America and Europe combined.
Meanwhile according to the IEA Australia is responsible for almost half (46) of the 95 coal mining for export projects underway in the world.
So like India, Australia seems to think that coal is a good thing.
As usual, not only is Nick utterly ignorant, he’s impervious to any fact that doesn’t ift into what he wants to believe.
Both forms of energy “obliterate” the environment.
Once the mine is depleted, it is remediated. Once remediation is done, you can’t tell that there was ever a mine there.
The solar panels will be in place until the global warming scam is over. Even then, it is unlikely they will ever be taken down, they will just be abandoned.
Oh look, Picnic is comparing apples to kumquats. Again.
That mine is 1/3rd the size of a single solar plant, and the energy produced per day is many times greater, and reliable. Beyond that, when the mine is exhausted, it is covered over and replanted. When finished nobody can tell it was ever there. Solar farms on the other hand are blight’s forever.
Nick, I don’t know what they are paying you to embarrass yourself, but it isn’t enough.
After 20 or so years, the solar panels wear out, so I have read. What ever will they do with worn out panels and what will be the cost for new replacement panels?
Why not build a coal-fired power plant if there enough coal for next 30 or so years?
Coal plants typically last 50 to 60 years.
We’re constantly updating and upgrading. A 0.5% improvement in plant yield is millions of dollars worth of product each year.
Wind and solar start degrading the day they are installed, and the only way to upgrade them, is complete replacement.
Doesn’t matter where you put that crap on the planet, done math properly the outcome is always negative…in other words you have no return on investment (ROI)
The only place where solar power makes sense is space, period…similarities aside (no ROI nor crecycling lol)
I’ve had pocket calculators that ran on light.
But they wouldn’t power the grid. 😎
As long as they don’t despoil the Thar Hills, where they sometimes find gold.
oh, THEM Thar Hills.
So … when they finally do the right thing and replace all the solar panels with a nuclear power plant, will someone go out into the desert and dismantle and remove all the solar panels?
Won’t have to if any copper is involved.
The whole shebang will be plundered week by week until nothing is left working.
There is a valid point. How much will security cost for a 200 mi^2 solar farm and it goes beyond copper.
“A nuclear site needs less than two square miles.”
I’m surprised it needs ever that much. It probably doesn’t. Maybe much of that is just for security? I have no idea- just guessing. The structures on the site can’t need 2 square miles.
He’s probably counting the area inside the security fence.
Security, yes. Cooling ponds, yes. Administrative and Supply buildings, yes.
Radiation lockers, perhaps, for new or in-processing or out-processing fuel, yes.
I doubt the maintenance shed is next to the reactor core.
But, 2 square miles is 1,280 acres. All of those structures could probably be put on a few dozen acres. So, most of the 2 square miles must be for security.
From what I remember of the pictures of 3-mile Island, you could barely see the plant from the security fence.
The moral of the story? Beware anyone promising you easy money – there’s bound to be a catch.
Wow, in the Thar? Their maintenance costs must be ASTRONOMICAL. I know, build one in Registan Desert! How about northern Niger or southern Algeria? Come on, man! Let’s put our heads together and find the absolute worst places to put solar panels. 😉
“To match the output of a nuclear plant a solar facility needs to have more than triple the installed capacity.” It needs more than that. It needs some way to store 2/3 of the output of the solar panels. Without storage, solar cannot provide power like a conventional thermal plant can continuously. Storage is both very expensive and itself intermittent, usually only lasting a few hours. Therefore, backup generation is also needed to fill in the constant blanks.
Here’s what i coaxed out of Copilot AI.
Solar’s Dirty Secret: Land-Hungry, Low-Density, and Destined for Abandonment
The Thar Desert’s solar sprawl is a masterclass in energy illiteracy. Sold as “clean,” utility-scale solar bulldozes ecosystems, drains aquifers, and displaces wildlife—all to harvest intermittent power from a low-density source.
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/1f50d.svg Land Use: Solar vs. Nuclear
A 1 GW nuclear plant delivers continuous power on 1 square mile. To match that output with solar:
• Solar CF ≈ 20%, Nuclear CF ≈ 90%
• Required solar land:
75 \text{ sq mi} \times \left(\frac{0.9}{0.2}\right) = 337.5 \text{ sq mi}
That’s over 300× more land per unit of actual electricity. Solar isn’t scalable—it’s sprawling
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/1f5d1.svg Solar’s Endgame: Landfills, Not Recycling
EPRI and IEA PVPS confirm: solar panel recycling is economically unviable.
• Scrap value < dismantling cost
• Silver/silicon recovery is inefficient
• Most panels are landfilled
• No federal mandates in the U.S.
Cara Libby (EPRI): “Recycling is expensive today, so many end users are choosing to landfill modules.”
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/1faa6.svg The Coming Solar Graveyards
By 2030, IRENA projects 80 million panels/year will need disposal. Without regulation, most will be dumped. Unlike nuclear waste—compact, contained, and regulated—solar waste is diffuse, unregulated, and growing exponentially.
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/269b.svg Nuclear: The Quiet Workhorse
Nuclear remains the largest single source of low-carbon electricity in the U.S. and EU. It runs 24/7, requires minimal land, and delivers power at a fraction of solar’s spatial and material cost.
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/1f9e0.svg Strategic Framing
Thirty years from now, no one will be building solar farms. They’ll be dismantling them—if they can afford to. More likely, they’ll be left to rot. These aren’t monuments to progress. They’re industrial fossils—a legacy of narrative inflation and ecological negligence.
First they say this:
Then they say this:
Nuclear plants consume 15 to 25 square miles? Not that I’ve ever noticed?
Nuclear plants take up at most a few hundred acres. Including the undeveloped area inside the security fence.
Solar plants take a lot of room because sunshine is a diffuse source. The fact that they produce useable power less than 1/3rd the time, is on top of that.
Even, repeat even, were there a benefit, the question is always, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
As a famous (at the time) TV commercial for Chiffon margarine in the 1970’s prompted:
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
I do believe that “Mother Nature” will eventually impose retribution for the crimes against her that India’s state of Rajasthan has performed, as documented in the above article.
You know, something like a couple of severe, weeks-long sandstorms that cover up those solar farms in the Thar Desert . . . or, failing that, perhaps just frosting over the glass coverings of the solar cells, likewise rendering them useless.
Yeah, that would be karma.
“You know, something like a couple of severe, weeks-long sandstorms that cover up those solar farms in the Thar Desert . . .”
But wouldn’t a sand storm help keep them clean?
I mean, everybody know that the best way to clean glass is by sandblasting! 😎
Just imagine: Every square foot of habitable space covered with solar panels, with people living underneath them. 100% of the solar energy that falls on land being utilized to power civilization. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world to live in?
I fear some would actually answer yes to that.
I’m imagining that 100% of the solar energy falling on those solar panels that cover 100% of habitable land will be converted to electricity to power 100% of the artificial lighting that will be needed for those living under those very same solar panels. OUCH!
It is an open discussion here at WUWT. That is great. One can compare assertions of advocates – with the actual data. For example, Mr. Stokes and Mr AlanJ can freely assert their position. Assertions require no data to refute, but simply the opposite assertions.
However, in reply, data is produced by knowledgeable commenters.That is typical for this ‘discussion’. Fairy castles and fantasy are asserted from religious belief by renewable energy advocates, not facts or real data. They ignore that wind and PV systems do not spring from the sand, but ore for metals, etc. must be mined, refined, processed and manufactured, then recycled within 15-20 years. Each step has serious environmental effects. Tropical forests are destroyed for their balsa wood for wind turbine rotors replaced every 6-7 years to the destruction of entire Eco-systems. Study after study shows PV lasts 15 years by which time degradation requires replacement. That does not include the frequent destruction of PV by hail and wind. Wind facilities last 12-15 years before ‘repowering = replacement’ or decommissioning. The output of wind/PV power is erratic, resulting in grid collapse ever more frequently, as witnessed by the Iberian peninsula in April, 2025. That was no isolated incident, as witnessed by Chile (with its huge, but neglected hydro potential), Texas (of all places), Australia (again – of all places), and comically, the COP 26 meeting which was powered by diesel generators during ‘dunkelflaute’. The data, the studies, and now the subsidy collapse, all attest to the utter imbecility of the failed energy transition justified by the utter imbecility of naming CO2 a pollutant.
“This is something that’s more closely aligned with cultural values,” he told AAP.
“You’re not digging up the land. It’s renewable, it’s a great alignment.”
Indigenous communities plug in to power their future
Rubbish! You’re covering the land with coal fired solar panels inverters and batteries from China to run similar whitegoods. Not to mention jaunts to the Sunshine Coast almost universally on the taxpayer dime to whine for more. Cultural values are very selective and always come at a hefty price.
Wind and solar can not sustain the grid, wind and Olaf can not sustain a modern society, remove all wind and solar from the grid. You know the rest.
my newly found friend ChatGPD has given lots of good data on solar panels used in the sandy Thar desert.
Frequent dust storms up to 90 mph, peaking in May/June.
No substantial ground water. Most water obtained via canals from Pakistan (they have to be very nice to the Pakistanis).
30 microns of sand layer reduces efficiency by 80%. 0.3 mm thickness makes zero output.
Typically dusting output is 25% reduction in three days. Panel tilt for sand shedding will probably not used, since the location is close to the equator.
Heat aging of modern panels can be 7 to 12% per year (irreversible)
Field report of temperate installation recorded 0.5 to 0.6 % efficiency loss per year.
To consider:
wind/dust erosion of panel surfaces.
end of life disposal or recycling will probably be non-existent in this poor area. Not a pretty picture.
For the rest of impacts use your imagination. Such as making good, constant use of the solar panel generation you need to have battery back-up of at least twice as much energy, for which there is no plans given.
I pity the poor local folks and the waste of resources.