Solar farm on trash

[dan_b]

A new large solar farm has been built atop a sealed landfill site near London.

This quote is amusing:

"If it weren’t for the black plastic methane valves dotted among the solar panels on the Ockendon site, you wouldn’t know that you were walking over layer upon layer of rotting garbage. Vast landfill sites like this are present near every major city and often aren’t being used."

https://fortune.com/2023/08/12/why-a-so ... -on-trash/

[Mr Gus]

This means council tips will be effectively sculpting trash in anticipation of long term payments for second lifing trash heaps, it would be nice to see the old stenchpile in bedford - mk road stretch utilised in this manner it is massive & hilly.

In Cambridgeshire we already have a council solar tip in operation for a while now, sure ive linked to it previously just not as "tip solar" as part of CCC renewables portfolio.

Edit: Nope, I lie, it has been in the planning stage for far too long but is obviously touted on the website regardless..

I do remember both landfills (beds & p'boro) being out in the sticks, both now have houses right up to the edge of them, "progress" they call it.
A mate was on the methane burn off installs back in the day, they had to proceed with caution.

The Beds Ampthill area landfill was also arse-end filthy backroad when I went to agri college out that way, now a big high speed road to Milton keynes missing out Bedfords worse off areas altogether. but is elevated enough to make it a really interesting solar prospect, but the road may well kill any prospect of it too based on glare potential I guess, we do need more than "parks" for these areas that is for sure.

[Mart]

The same has been done in Cardiff. The very longstanding tip in Lamby Cardiff, which has been getting life extensions since the 1980's, has been landscaped, and a very large/long PV farm installed.

Sadly, much of the area couldn't be used, as it has slopes, and would need long ground screws to fix in place, and these would be longer than the earth/clay capping, and could pierce the seal.

It's a shame, because it would all face south, and be right on the coast of the Bristol Channel, so lots of cooling, and possibly a little bit of reflection too.

But it's still pretty big at ~9MWp.


There's also a huge amount of roof mounted PV on the very large recycling buildings, but the roofs are shallow pitched, and the panels are literally covered in seagull shite ...... and also seagulls.

[Mr Gus]

Hmm, mart, what is the capping depth?

Should not stop this happening, if it means rolling another caterpillar over the place adding more protection enabling use thereafter, what's the cost per foot for compacted soil over that sort of area I wonder?

We saw enough heavy tracked vehicles there over the years, it shouldn't be the end of making good on our decades of "just bury it" excess.

[Mart]

I thought the same, but I suspect it's because those areas were already finished a long time ago, and had been landscaped and established, so I guess they didn't want to 'muck it up' again. The top must be thicker as there are some small trees, but the slopes would be trickier I suppose.

The original plan, going back almost 20yrs was for a 9 hole golf course, so times have changed.

In fact I'm being a bit harsh, the Google view does show that they utilised a large amount of the land, and lots of potential next to it, as the rest of the site eventually gets landscaped. [But look at those shite covered panels (centre top of the triangular site)]


View of the Lamby site PV farm

[AE-NMidlands]

[But look at those shite covered panels (centre top of the triangular site)]
View of the Lamby site PV farm

Are you sure? If I'm looking at the right bit (RHS of the water-hole and a bit below (S) of it?) my guess would be a duff batch of panels. Too much of a coincidence if the wildlife was settling on regular blocks and not fading out into nearby areas...
I reckon they mounted the panels from W to E and the last lot along the roadway were the crap ones.

[Mart]

[But look at those shite covered panels (centre top of the triangular site)]
View of the Lamby site PV farm

Are you sure? If I'm looking at the right bit (RHS of the water-hole and a bit below (S) of it?) my guess would be a duff batch of panels. Too much of a coincidence if the wildlife was settling on regular blocks and not fading out into nearby areas...
I reckon they mounted the panels from W to E and the last lot along the roadway were the crap ones.

Are you looking at the PV farm, the left hand side of the site, rather than the recycling centre building roof, in the centre top of the site?

There's also a huge amount of roof mounted PV on the very large recycling buildings, but the roofs are shallow pitched, and the panels are literally covered in seagull shite ...... and also seagulls.

[Mr Gus]

Mart, the phrase "Landscaped" is farcical for a pile of earth materials hiding a goodness knows how high pile of peoples crap, & a council that offers that as an excuse is fuller of crap than the tip itself.

Landscaped for a tip likely meaning still lots of methane pipes water sprinklers (whatever the smell & fire deterrents have been) visible

They need to pull their fingers out, folk lived with the stench, noise, vermin for likely decades, extended the life of it much to the annoyance of locals & then a council pulls this sort of BS? reduced earnings over no earnings & a longer but certain recovery period into profit (as well as chance to optimise a site for more solar) ...bloody myopic fools.

yes, i'm likely fizzing, they'd prefer sell it on as a golf club with all the crap that go's with it, including a fully plumbed clubhouse, pro-shop kitchen, hotel ...blah blah, still involves digging, pilings, compaction, more landscaping etc etc...

Madness.

[AE-NMidlands]

OK, if you mean this bit https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Car ... ?entry=ttu then maybe a regular attack with the fire hose would be a good idea, I'm still concerned by the funny colour of the panels along the "roadway" though.

[Mart]

Hi Gus, yes, the site has methane pipes, and 3 (I think) large industrial 'thingies', about the size of a mini-bus each, which I think burn the gas, not sure if it generates anything.

I've lived in the area all my life, and whilst I wouldn't suggest tips are fine, there's never been a smell issue. Not sure about rodents, but the rescue I helped at does regularly trap feral cats there. Some are re-homed, but about half are TNR (trap neuter release) back on the site for rodent control.*

Things are fine now, as the food waste goes for anerobic digestion. The recycling stuff, is separated. The green garden waste is collected separately, and turned into compost (see the various colour piles in the far right lower corner of the triangular site), and lastly the rest goes to a waste to power incineration site. So the site handles very little 'waste' now, but the seagulls still haven't caught on.

Also, when the last extension was granted, Cardiff CC built the lake and park (to the upper NW of the site) on what was just a muddy wasteland, as a thank you to residents. I've watched that park grow from nothing to a rich wild area over the past 24yrs, as nature steadily bedded in.

Silly little factoid, but around the bottom and west side, you will see the Rhymney River, and this goes around the bottom side of the park/lake. This river (at that point) has a tidal range of about 10-12m, so during low tide, the lake is higher than the river, but during high tide, the river is higher than the lake.

Bonus factoid, you can see the fleet of rubbish trucks, and about 8 (I think) are now BEV's.




*One of them, I named Rufus (as in refuse site), seemed very friendly, and I gave him many cuddles. But about 3 weeks after neutering (and it takes about 6 weeks to fully work), he took advantage of my good nature, nipped out of his pen, cornered another big Tom, and then when I picked him up, he spun round and attacked me, repeatedly sinking his teeth nearly an inch into my arm, and added about 20 new holes to my body. After 20 mins he was calm and friendly again, and I was able to fuss him, but we decided he should probably go back to the tip!

Stupidly, although my hand and arm swelled up, and went very red, I thought it was OK, and it all went down after 2 days, so no harm no foul. 10 days later, when I couldn't work my hand properly, as if I had permanent cramp in my arm muscles, I went to A&E, and after a few days of antibiotics, and an ever growing lump (want to see a pic?), scans showed an abcess in the arm muscle, so I had to have surgery, and the wound left open so the gunk could be drained every few days for about 6 weeks, till it had slowly closed up. The fun of animals!