quick loop

[nev]

During the week I had a day off work, and the weather was fine, so I pointed the Terra out of the garage for the first time in I can't remember how long and took off for a skoot.

Out of the northern suburbs towards Watson's Creek then the Ridge Road around Sugarlake Reservoir. Melbourne water has just constructed a massive solar farm on the banks of the reservoir to power the water treatment plant located onsite.
It consists of about 20,000 solar panels.





Then I headed up Steels Creek, Mt Slide, I haven't been up this road for ages. The road was in really good condition. It brought back memories from the early 90s when I was out exploring on my GPX250 and I rode up there, not knowing how much dirt road there was, or where it would end.

I headed up Captains Creek Road for a few km, but eventually came to a mud hole which I would have been happy to navigate once, but I didn't know what condition the rest of the road up there was going to be in, and I didn't want to have to ride it twice, so I retreated back to Glenburn Rd to head into Kinglake.

From Kinglake i took the Bald Spur road back down the hill, which I haven't been on for ages. At one point there is a bit of a deviation which used to be a fire lookout tower and had a road looping around, but is now closed to vehicles (well.. closed to vehicles too wide to fit between the big stones they have blocking access, and it has been converted into a memorial to the 14 residents of St Andrews who perished in the 2009 bushfires here.

 

[glitch]

They must have built that solar farm through the CoVid years....last time we were there there was still works going on along the shores of that little bay to the north-west of your rectangle.
Wise move on Captains Creek there... that boghole is the measure for the steep part of the track towards the falls carpark. If that's wet/ waterlogged, the climb furtheron is near impossible.
No idea if someone has cut back that overgrowing greenery in that steep part either.

Will have to check that memorial; circle next time...I haven't been up that little side track for yonks.
Looks like you've had a good day up in the hills

 

[Williamson]

Might be time to get out and about, and see some of the COVID changes.



Let's say 800m x 400m.

Went to Beechworth on the weekend, on the way back drove along the Old Hume Highway near Winton. There's a massive solar farm been established there.



Let's say 3000m x 2500m, and it's getting bigger. In the NE corner of the second pic, you'll see preparations are progressing for an extension, looks like another 5000m x 1500m.



I'm guessing some farmers have worked out that they can get a better return on supplying electricity to the grid than they get from beef, sheep, crops, etc .. and have not gotta get up at 5:00am 356 days per year, work in cow shit, pay vet bills and buy and maintain farm equipment.

 

[nev]

I do a bit of rural driving for work and I have seen on my way to/from Mildura, a couple of massive solar farms which have been build in the desert up in NW Vic. Just north of Ouyen is the Kiamal Solar Farm. I think Stage 1 is complete there, which is 200MW (approx 714,000 panels) . And a bit further up the road, near Hattah, is the Wemen solar farm, which is 110MW and approx 310,000 panels. Another off the highway near Karadoc is a similar size. According to the vic govt planning website, for ever MW of existing in use or under construction solar farm, there are another 4MW of solar farms in various stages of planning which have already gained regulatory approval.

 

[glitch]

I'm guessing some farmers have worked out that they can get a better return on supplying electricity to the grid than they get from beef, sheep, crops, etc .. and have not gotta get up at 5:00am 356 days per year, work in cow shit, pay vet bills and buy and maintain farm equipment.

....until they find out that getting screwed by "XYZ Energy Developments" is the same as by Frontera/ Parmalat previously

 

[glitch]

I do a bit of rural driving for work and I have seen on my way to/from Mildura, a couple of massive solar farms which have been build in the desert up in NW Vic. Just north of Ouyen is the Kiamal Solar Farm. I think Stage 1 is complete there, which is 200MW (approx 714,000 panels) . And a bit further up the road, near Hattah, is the Wemen solar farm, which is 110MW and approx 310,000 panels. Another off the highway near Karadoc is a similar size. According to the vic govt planning website, for ever MW of existing in use or under construction solar farm, there are another 4MW of solar farms in various stages of planning which have already gained regulatory approval.

Serious stuff!

We were surprised about numbers and sizes of solar farms, and even far more so the HUGE windfarms in Germany, when driving the 800k's from Frankfurt to the Baltic Coast in February.
And that's in a place not exactly known for its sunshine hours. Then again, they have committed to be "totally renewable-ed" by the end of ?'25? due to the Russian attempt to starve their industry into the inability to produce more weaponry for the Ukraine.
Instead, politics and renewables have gone into a total approval/building/ financing/subsidy frenzy.

 

[Zuckerbaron]

"totally renewable-ed" by the end of ?'25?

Objectives and guidelines change all the time it seems. In the moment the EU wants that 42 % of the consumed energy is from renewables in 2030.

 

[nev]

I was just listening to a podcast where they were talking about renewable energy projects in the USA and how they currently have enough already in the planning pipeline to completely replace all fossil fuel and nuclear power for the USA, but they are currently stalled by lack of infrastructure, because the solar and wind energy needs to be build where the sun shines and the wind blows, but most of their capacity for handling power distribution is currently centred in places where you can find oil, coal or run nuclear facilities, so basically, there is a 20-30 year backlog until the distribution infrastructure can be built.

 

[ant]

was reading about advances in windfarm and turbine technology - offshore windfarm turbines and blades can keep getting bigger and bigger as they can be manufactured on the coast and shipped (literally) to the offshore windfarm - but these are already too big to be installed on land as transport via roads is now logistically impossible given the size of the things.

 

[glitch]

You're right....saw a huge convoy with maybe a half-dozen super-long double articulated low-loaders on the German Autobahn in March carting turbine blades up north, 1 blade per truck. The whole convoy was maybe a kilometer long with all the escorting warning vehicles, police etc. I still wonder how they put those things together onsite...