Abandoned nuclear power plant given new life as a solar farm

Solar farms can pop up in unlikely places – like the site of an old, unfinished nuclear power plant in Tennessee. The Phipps Bend Nuclear Power Plant was abandoned in 1981, but today nearly 3,000 solar panels rest on the site. The new one megawatt (MW) farm provides clean energy for around 100 homes.

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The Phipps Bend Nuclear Power Plant has scarred the landscape since it was abandoned in 1981. Popular concern over the Three Mile Island incident and increased costs to meet regulations prompted the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors to stop building the nuclear plant, which was once expected to re-energize the local economy. Phipps Bend was never operational, and for decades was utilized only for safety training exercises.

That was until Birdseye Renewable Energy and United Renewable Energy came along. Birdseye already boasts over 430 MW of clean energy greenfield projects. They installed solar panels on around four acres on the old nuclear plant site. The panels rotate throughout the day to maximize the energy they absorb from the sun. Holston Electric will purchase the electricity to power homes in eastern Tennessee.

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The Phipps Bend Nuclear Power Plant would have been large if completed, offering more than 2,400 MW and powering around 1.8 million households. The new solar farm at Phipps Bend won’t be able to meet that, but it will generate around 1,100 to 1,400 megawatt-hours per year, and it will be operational for at least 30 years.

United Renewable Energy executive vice president Keith Herbs said in a statement, “Due to its location, this project visibly demonstrates how clean, efficient solar energy matches other forms of power generation to meet our country’s growing energy needs.”

The United States has around 100 cancelled nuclear power plants – perhaps some of them could receive new life as solar farms as well.

Two world-leading clean energy projects have opened in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Two world-leading clean energy projects have opened in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

An industrial plant is capturing the CO2 emissions from a coal boiler and using the CO2 to make valuable chemicals. It is a world first.

And just 100km away is the world's biggest solar farm, making power for 150,000 homes on a 10 sq km site.

The industrial plant appears especially significant as it offers a breakthrough by capturing CO2 without subsidy.

Built at a chemical plant in the port city of Tuticorin, it is projected to save 60,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year by incorporating them into the chemical recipe for soda ash - otherwise known as baking powder. 

Here's how it works: 

1.  The plant operates a coal-fired boiler to make steam for its chemical operations.

2.  CO2 emissions from the boiler's chimney are stripped out by a fine mist of a new patented chemical. 

3.  A stream of CO2 is fed into the chemicals plant as an ingredient for soda ash - a compound with many uses, including the manufacturing of glass, detergents and sweeteners.

Zero emissions

The owner of the chemicals plant, Ramachadran Gopalan, told a BBC Radio 4 documentary: "I am a businessman. I never thought about saving the planet. I needed a reliable stream of CO2, and this was the best way of getting it."

He says his operation has now almost zero emissions. He hopes soon to install a second coal boiler to make more CO2 to synthesise fertiliser.

The chemical was invented by two young Indian chemists. They failed to raise Indian finance to develop it, but their firm, Carbonclean Solutions, working with the Institute of Chemical Technology at Mumbai and Imperial College in London, got backing from the UK's entrepreneur support scheme.

Their technique uses a form of salt to bond with CO2 molecules in the boiler chimney. The firm says it is more efficient than typical amine compounds used for the purpose. 

They say it also needs less energy, produces less alkaline waste and allows the use of a cheaper form of steel -  all radically reducing the cost of the whole operation.

The firm admits its technology of Carbon Capture and Utilisation won't cure climate change, but says it may provide a useful contribution by gobbling up perhaps 5-10% of the world's emissions from coal. 

Lord Oxburgh, former chairman of Shell, and now director and head of the UK government's carbon capture advisory group, told the BBC: "We have to do everything we can to reduce the harmful effects of burning fossil fuels and it is great news that more ways are being found of turning at least some of the CO2 into useful products."

Solar farm

Meanwhile, the nearby giant Kamuthi solar plant offers a marker for India's ambition for a rapid expansion in renewables.

It is truly enormous; from the tall observation tower, the ranks of black panels stretch almost to the horizon. 

Prime Minister Modi is offering subsidies for a plan to power 60 million homes with solar by 2022 and aims for 40% of its energy from renewables by 2030. 

For large-scale projects, the cost of new solar power in India is now cheaper than coal. But solar doesn't generate 24/7 on an industrial scale, so India has adopted a "more of everything" approach to energy.

The firm behind the solar plant, Adani, is also looking to create Australia's biggest coal mine, which it says will provide power for up to 100 million people in India. Renewables, it says, can't answer India's vast appetite for power to lift people out of poverty. 

And questions have been raised recently as to whether India will stick to its renewables promises now President-elect Donald Trump may be about to scrap climate targets for the US.

At the recent Marrakech climate conference, China, the EU and many developing countries pledged to forge ahead with emissions-cutting plans regardless of US involvement. But India offered no such guarantee.

Some environmentalists are not too worried: they think economics may drive India's clean energy revolution.

Chernobyl Solar Plant Chinese Companies To Build Massive Solar Farm in Exclusion Zone

Chernobyl Solar Plant: Chinese Companies To Build Massive Solar Farm in Exclusion Zone

Faces Of Chernobyl: Remembering The Tragedy

 

The area around what was once the Chernobyl nuclear plant has largely been abandoned since the tragic nuclear accident that took place in 1986, but two Chinese solar companies are eyeing the land to create a giant solar farm, according to Reuters.

GCL System Integration Technology (GCL-SI), a subsidiary of the GCL Group, and China National Complete Engineering Corp (CCEC) have stated their intentions to work together to create a field of solar panels that would generate over one gigawatt of power—enough to provide power to about 725,000 homes.

GCL plans to install the solar components, while CCEC will be in charge of managing the project.

The companies haven’t disclosed how much the project will cost to undertake, but they have the knowhow to make it work; These Chinese companies come from the country that is the world's biggest solar power generator, producing 43 gigawatts of capacity in 2015. China is also responsible for 72 percent of all solar power components produced, according to Everbright Securities.

According to a report from Reuters, the companies behind the project have not revealed the exact location where they plan to build, but noted the site has already undergone inspection and is available to be developed.

The massive farm of solar panels would be built within the exclusion zone, a 1,000 square mile area that was deemed uninhabitable and unusable for most land uses like forestry or agriculture. While other projects would be unsuitable inside the exclusion zone, the solar farm would actually benefit from some of the existing infrastructure still in place from the nuclear plant.

Ukraine began seeking a company to build a solar plant within the exclusion zone earlier this year in an effort to free itself from its reliance on Russian oil.

Belarus, a neighboring country to Ukraine, already set forth its own plans to build a solar plant inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The planned plant will provide enough power to illuminate the lights around the country’s capital city of Minsk.

While the exclusion zone has gone mostly untouched since the disastrous events at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the location has slowly been made more available. In 2011, Ukraine began offering tours to the public of the area. While the site has been mostly untouched by humans, wildlife has been thriving in the exclusion zone.

Vast Moroccan solar power plant is hard act for Africa to follow

Vast Moroccan solar power plant is hard act for Africa to follow

On the edge of the Sahara desert, Morocco is building one of the world's biggest solar power plants in a project largely funded by the European Union.

It is a hard success for other African nations to match as they seek to implement a new global deal to combat climate change.

The huge 160-megawatt first phase of the Noor plant near the town of Ouarzazate contrasts with efforts by some other nations focused on tiny roof-top solar panels to bring power to remote rural homes.

At Noor, curved mirrors totaling 1.5 million square meters (16 million square feet) - the size of about 200 soccer pitches - capture the sun's heat in the reddish desert.

Morocco is showcasing Noor before talks among almost 200 nations in Marrakesh about implementing a global deal to combat climate change that entered into force on Nov. 4 - a day when the Saharan sky was unusually overcast with spots of rain.

"We hope we can be an inspiration," Mustapha Bakkoury, head of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), told Reuters. Many African nations are pushing to boost economic growth to end poverty, while seeking greener energies.

The gleaming concentrated solar power plant is not economically competitive with cheaper fossil fuels, but is a step to develop new technologies as prices for solar power fall sharply.

"Unfortunately for many, it's thought that renewables are to have a light bulb or light a school ... This is to get away from the caricature of renewables," Bakkoury said.

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Morocco aims to get 52 percent of its electricity from clean energy such as wind and solar by 2030, up from 28 percent now.

Once completed, Noor will cost 2.2 billion euros ($2.45 billion) and generate 580 MW, enough power for a city of almost 2 million people. Morocco aims to expand at other desert regions to 2 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2020 at a cost of $9 billion.

On the sprawling site, south of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, workers clear ground with diggers, build concrete pillars or clean off Saharan dust that dims sunshine. In Arabic, Noor means light.

By contrast in East Africa, M-KOPA Solar has installed 400,000 tiny rooftop solar panel systems costing $200 each on homes in the past five years to provide power for light bulbs and a radio. That completely by-passes the grid.

M-KOPA Chief Executive Jesse Moore, whose company focuses most on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, said rooftop solar systems were a breakthrough for Africa, where half the 1.2 billion people lack electricity.

He noted that Tesla founder Elon Musk was trying to sell solar systems to U.S. homes.

"Elon Musk is trying to get people to leap off the grid in California. Over here on the other side of the planet this is happening already," he told Reuters.

Unlike Morocco, some nations in Africa find it hard to attract investors to green projects, part of global efforts to limit climate change and more floods, heat waves and droughts that are a big threat to Africa.

"Morocco is particularly suited for a large-scale project. It may not be suitable for all other countries," Roman Escolano, vice president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), told Reuters.

The European Union including the EIB has funded about 60 percent of Noor. Masen issued Morocco's first green bond, of 106 million euros, on Friday to help finance Noor.

Apart from sunshine, Morocco has had relative political stability in recent years and a predictable legal and banking system, helping it attract investors.

Even so, Morocco has had a week of street protests after the death of a fishmonger, crushed to death in a garbage truck in a confrontation with police, in one of the biggest and longest challenges to authority since the 2011 Arab Spring.

Unusually for a desert, Morocco has water from the Atlas mountains to help clean off dust. And in some countries, power lines from remote parts of the Sahara could be vulnerable to attacks - Noor's pylons have red spikes to discourage intruders.

At Noor, the sun's rays bounce off the mirrors, heat a fluid that in turn heats a vast tank of molten salt that can drive a turbine to generate electricity even after dark