Strip Mine For Solar Panels

The plan includes putting 50 to 100 megawatts of solar panels on a surface mine site outside of pikeville.

Strip mine for solar panels.

Putting solar panels on a reclaimed mine is a different engineering challenge. A coal company is planning a major solar project on a former kentucky strip mine. Solar panels glimmering in the sun are an icon of all that is green. The quartz is extracted from mines putting the miners at risk of one of civilization s oldest occupational hazards.

Some mined sites have needed significant work to compact the soil before construction. The move generated surprised headlines across the country. An eastern kentucky coal mining company plans to build what could become the state s largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine promising jobs for displaced coal miners. A former strip mine would be converted into a solar farm under a proposal announced tuesday by an appalachian coal company that says it wants to place hundreds of thousands of panels in the.

Berkeley energy group estimates that the solar farm could produce as much as 50 or 100 megawatts of electricity which would be five to ten times the size of kentucky s largest solar farm. Solar panels are not made from sand as they lead us to believe but precious and purest quartz that will need hundreds of tons of coal to make solar cells. Rare earth mining is an environmentally devastating process. The company in partnership with edf renewable energy is currently conducting feasibility studies for the project on two reclaimed strip mines both located in the eastern part of the state.

Four years later his campaign got its biggest win when the kentucky coal mining museum a 36 000 square foot shrine to the business that built benham installed about 80 solar panels on its roof in hopes of saving money on energy.