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BHA can now celebrate. Hypocrites

Buzz cares... of anyone on the thread who would actively put up a stink about a shitty project in WY there is no doubt in my mind it would be Buzz.

and when I say put up a stink, I mean actually do something rather than complain on a forum
Assumptions.
 
No.

I actually like 80-90% of what. BHA does and tries to do. To the point of losing a ranch to hunt on for wearing a BHA hat, to losing business over them being open to Patagonia.

I don't like the politics steering them in directions opposed to their own mission.

Yes yes. We got that. My post was the spark notes version.

Maybe people would understand how you felt if there was an additional 15 page thread on the topic.
 
Location of the project if anyone wants to see it on their onX. It sits right next to a pig farm.
38.20050, -113.11488
I just stuck it in google search and then switched to satellite view when I got close. Looks like there are a ton of pig farms there. Doesn't look like the land they are using is very useful for other things, maybe if they nationalized the company and took away the profits no one could say a private company is profiting off our public lands. Not real big on BHA, and having spent plenty of time along the Canning River I'm not sure developing ANWR would be the end of the world, still it's good to stop spewing CO2.
 
Here’s some rough numbers based on observations I’ve made lately with this thread in mind.

These are real examples:
A combined cycle gas turbine electric generator sits on a 1/4 section (160 acres). It produces 1.2 gigawatts (1200 megawatts)
It’s a 100% intensive use of most of this 160 acres.

An 1100 acre solar development would produce around 150 megawatts. It’s a 100% intensive use of this 1100 acres.

A proposed wind development spread across a whopping 44,000 would produce around 300 megawatts. It is not a 100% intensive use.
It would have similar impacts as oil and gas fields as far as habitat fragmentation.

The Palo Verde Nuclear generating station sits on 4,000 acres, (not all acreage is used but it’s not accessible)
It produces nearly 4,000 megawatts rain or shine, windy or calm.
 
I just stuck it in google search and then switched to satellite view when I got close. Looks like there are a ton of pig farms there. Doesn't look like the land they are using is very useful for other things, maybe if they nationalized the company and took away the profits no one could say a private company is profiting off our public lands. Not real big on BHA, and having spent plenty of time along the Canning River I'm not sure developing ANWR would be the end of the world, still it's good to stop spewing CO2.
I'd take a hard pass on nationalizing an energy project, especially a relatively small solar field. I'll leave that experiment to Venezuela and China.
 
? how many members does BHA have?
Look at the 990
Its about the wishes of the donors not the mission statement
follow the money
 
Here’s some rough numbers based on observations I’ve made lately with this thread in mind.

These are real examples:
A combined cycle gas turbine electric generator sits on a 1/4 section (160 acres). It produces 1.2 gigawatts (1200 megawatts)
It’s a 100% intensive use of most of this 160 acres.

An 1100 acre solar development would produce around 150 megawatts. It’s a 100% intensive use of this 1100 acres.

A proposed wind development spread across a whopping 44,000 would produce around 300 megawatts. It is not a 100% intensive use.
It would have similar impacts as oil and gas fields as far as habitat fragmentation.

The Palo Verde Nuclear generating station sits on 4,000 acres, (not all acreage is used but it’s not accessible)
It produces nearly 4,000 megawatts rain or shine, windy or calm.
Would it be fair to mention that the CCGT example you gave above can be a bit misleading in terms of generated megawatts per acre of facility. A CCGT station will require the existence of oil and gas infrastructure both to produce the gas and to transport the gas to the station. I'm not sure how many cubic feet of gas are required per megawatt for these plants, but I would assume it would take a decent number of wells and accompanying infrastructure to operate one for a few decades.
 
So what do you propose? Should BHA actively campaign against all energy development on public land?

I don’t like seeing any development on public land. Solar is especially bad. Heck I don’t even like to see solar going in on private prime farmland in the midwest.

I don’t know what the official BHA policy statement is on energy development without looking it up. I would say as long time proud BHA member, this just really isn’t something that is on the radar much. Can’t say that Ive ever heard energy development actively discussed. Tons of other public land issues and projects to deal with, and personally im glad we don’t spend our time fighting development that’s likely inevitable. Land may support it, I have no idea what his personal stance is. I guarantee BHA doesn’t actively support this development. They may not be actively opposing it, but those are very different things.

How much are houses fetching next to a massive commercial hog farm?
Hog farms come and go.
 
Would it be fair to mention that the CCGT example you gave above can be a bit misleading in terms of generated megawatts per acre of facility. A CCGT station will require the existence of oil and gas infrastructure both to produce the gas and to transport the gas to the station. I'm not sure how many cubic feet of gas are required per megawatt for these plants, but I would assume it would take a decent number of wells and accompanying infrastructure to operate one for a few decades.
Yeah, that’s definitely an important point.

However, this gas is coming from that no public lands havin’ wasteland of Tejas
 
Now do the tons of CO2 that the wind farm generates versus the gas or oil.

Because that's a major point of switching to renewables that seems to get glossed over here in favor of looking only at land usage.
Takes a lot of CO2 to make the quantities of wind turbines we're talking about though too. Not to mention the blades aren't recyclable. I read somewhere that by 2050 the world will need to dispose of 2 millions tons of wind turbine blade waste every year. Obviously, that figure could be wrong but I'm not really sure how to check that data myself at this point.

edit: carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated is obviously significantly less.



28085538-8294057-image-a-24_1588795731941.jpg
 
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Takes a lot of CO2 to make the quantities of wind turbines we're talking about though too. Not to mention the blades aren't recyclable. I read somewhere that by 2050 the world will need to dispose of 2 millions tons of wind turbine blade waste every year. Obviously, that figure could be wrong but I'm not really sure how to check that data myself at this point.

edit: carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated is obviously significantly less.

Then add the energy costs to drill a well/dig a hole, as well as the manufacturing costs of that steel needed to make a rig, electronics, etc. Let's see exactly what's in fracking fluid so we can tell if we're poisoning our aquifers and small towns close to development. Let's make electrical generation companies actually clean up their ash ponds rather than walk away, and let's be sure to get our two pounds of flesh out of renewable companies too.

Equal is equal. The blade issue is being solved. Just as methane emissions from flared wells can be solved, coal ash can be cleaned up, etc.

I'm staunchly against industrial scale development on public lands. That means all development, not just some. I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that it's going to happen, wildlife will continue to lose, and if we don't make the industries responsible for our existence, as well as our unwise use of resources, then we've given away our greatest treasures without any kind of recompense and our future generations will rightly hate us.
 
Then add the energy costs to drill a well/dig a hole, as well as the manufacturing costs of that steel needed to make a rig, electronics, etc. Let's see exactly what's in fracking fluid so we can tell if we're poisoning our aquifers and small towns close to development. Let's make electrical generation companies actually clean up their ash ponds rather than walk away, and let's be sure to get our two pounds of flesh out of renewable companies too.

Equal is equal. The blade issue is being solved. Just as methane emissions from flared wells can be solved, coal ash can be cleaned up, etc.

I'm staunchly against industrial scale development on public lands. That means all development, not just some. I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that it's going to happen, wildlife will continue to lose, and if we don't make the industries responsible for our existence, as well as our unwise use of resources, then we've given away our greatest treasures without any kind of recompense and our future generations will rightly hate us.
Sounds like we should be building nuclear power plants as fast as we can.
 
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