The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News ran an article a few days ago about the proposed Newcastle Waters solar power farm in the Northern Territory, Australia.  If the solar farm goes ahead, it will be world's largest with a power capacity of 10-gigawatts, and will cover an astounding 12,000 hectares.  Are renewable projects like this going to save us from our energy and climate-change problems?

The Newcastle Waters solar power farm will produce a vast amount of electrical energy with almost no ongoing production of greenhouse gasses once construction is complete, at least until the solar panels start to need replacing in a few decades if we haven’t worked out how to replace them without creating greenhouse gasses by then.

While the huge reduction in the ongoing production of greenhouse gas with this electrical energy is a very good thing, there are still downsides to producing electricity this way.  Lots of resources will still be required to build this solar farm, although probably less than would be required to build the same generating capacity in a coal-fired or nuclear power station.  

Also, a vast area of land (12,000 hectares in this case) must be cleared.  It’s hard to get your head around the figure of 12,000 hectares – that’s a square of land 11 kilometres on each side or, for comparison, more than twice the surface area of Sydney Harbour.  

The news article includes a computer-generated aerial view of the farm which disconcertingly shows the solar panel array extending from the near foreground to over the horizon.  That’s a huge area of Earth’s surface to cover in solar panels, and that’s just to partially power one large city.  It’s frightening to consider what will be required to supply the electrical energy for all of humanity’s growing economic activity across Earth.

For the Newcastle Waters solar power farm, the land is currently a cattle station (ranch, farm) so the land is already somewhat degraded, although it still has environmental value.  (It’s worth noting that the Adani/Carmichael mine in Queensland, if it goes ahead, will severely degrade 20,000 hectares.)  This is a lot of land clearing in a time when too much land clearing is already happening in Australia and around the world.  (Of course, the amount of land used for both this project and for the Adani/Carmichael mine is insignificant compared to the amount of land that we take over for agriculture – while land used for agriculture is more visually appealing than land used for mining or solar farms, it’s still a biodiversity disaster.)

While there are real climate and other pollution advantages to generating electricity with renewables such as solar power, the overall effect on the environment is still not good.  So, is renewable energy like this the total answer to our energy and greenhouse gas problems?  

The main intended market for the electrical energy produced is Singapore, through 5000 kilometres of transmission cable. 

In 2018 Singapore had an average electricity consumption rate of 6 gigawatts, and a peak electricity consumption rate of 7.4 gigawatts, which are less that the 10 gigawatt capacity of the solar farm.  However, another article on the ABC News says the solar farm will only be able to provide 20% of Singapore’s electricity.  No reason is given for this, but it’s probably due to practical issues like demand for electricity occurring at times when the solar farm isn’t generating, such as at night.  While the Northern territory is nearly two hours ahead of Singapore, which helps a bit to extend the availability into the evening, there will still be plenty of demand after the sun has gone down on the solar farm.

It’s likely that, to provide all of Singapore’s electrical energy, they will need five of these farms, probably spreading eastward to keep collecting sunlight into Singapore’s night.  That’s a total of 600 square kilometres, or 11 Sydney Harbours.

Singapore’s economy represents 0.4% (1/250th) of global GPD, so to power the entire global economy this way may require an array 250 times as large again – 150,000 square kilometres, more than twice the area of Tasmania.  I guess that you would have to say that, on the global scale of things, an area twice the size of Tasmania isn’t too much of the surface of Earth to take over to generate our electricity, but it still a huge amount of land, especially when added to all the rest of humanity’s land use.  

But, if the global economy gets back to growing at 3%, that area will have to be doubled every 23 years.  So, in 23 years from now we will need to have four Tasmanias covered in solar panels, in 46 years from now we will need to have eight Tasmanias covered in solar panels, and so on, doubling the area covered every 23 years.  This is exponential growth, and exponential growth produces huge increases unexpectedly quickly.

There can be no doubt the we need to stop using fossil fuels as our energy source, as there are several important problems associated with using them, with climate change at the top of the list.  Nuclear power is risky, expensive, and produces dangerous and problematic waste, (although, not as problematic as stored carbon dioxide). 

While renewables are certainly our best option for generating electrical energy, they also have their own problems.  The real answer to resolving our energy issues is to stop our energy use from growing by finding ways to use less energy.  As our energy use is tied directly to our economic activity the most effective, and actually essential, thing we must do to use less energy is to reduce our economic activity; that is, we must stop and reverse global economic growth.

You can find related posts here:

economic growth, renewable energy

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