Published

2 years ago

May 13, 2024

Alice Rush

Silicon Ranch and Middle Tennessee Electric (MTE) are set to partner on the 110 MW Copeland Solar Farm, which the company says will be the largest solar facility to serve a local power company (LPC) directly in the Tennessee Valley.

It is the first large-scale solar facility planned under the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) newly expanded Generation Flexibility Program.

On behalf of MTE, Silicon Ranch will fund, construct, own, operate and maintain the project, located in Cumberland County, Tenn.

“At Silicon Ranch, our number one priority is to support stronger, healthier and more resilient communities through the work that we do, and this mission aligns perfectly with the ethos of America’s electric cooperatives,” says Matt Kisber, co-founder and chairman of Silicon Ranch.

“Silicon Ranch is thrilled to expand this important work with MTE, the region’s largest co-op and an innovative utility that embraces its leadership role to drive the Tennessee Valley forward. We are pleased to have this opportunity to deliver more positive impacts at scale right here at home, and we thank Cumberland County for welcoming us as its newest corporate citizen.”

Construction is slated for completion in 2027.

The post MTE, Silicon Ranch Announce First Utility-Scale Solar Under Expanded TVA Program appeared first on Solar Industry.

MTE, Silicon Ranch Announce First Utility-Scale Solar Under Expanded TVA Program

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy Concepts Can’t Violate the Laws of Physics

Published

17 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

In the early days of 2GreenEnergy, my people and I were vigorously engaged in finding solid ideas in cleantech that needed funding in order to move forward.

I vividly remember a conversation with a guy in Maryland who was trying to explain the (ostensible) breakthrough that he and his team had made in hydrokinetics. When I was having trouble visualizing what we was talking about, he asked me to “think of it as a river in a box.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You mean you take a box full of standing water, add energy to it get it moving, then extract that energy, leaving you with more energy that you added to it.”

“Exactly.”

I politely explained that the laws of physics, specifically the first and second laws of thermodynamics, make this impossible.

He wasn’t through, however, and insisted that, in his office, his people had constructed a “working model.”

Here’s where my tone descended into something less than 100% polite. I told him that he may think he has a working model, but he’s wrong; if he believes this, he’s ignorant; if he doesn’t, but is conducting this conversation anyway, he’s a fraud.

“But don’t you want to come see it?” he implored.

“No. Not only would not fly across the country to see whatever it is you claim to have built, I wouldn’t walk across the street to a “working model” of something that is theoretically impossible.”

—

I tell this story because the claim made at the upper left is essentially identical. You’re pumping water up out of a stream, and then claiming to extract more energy when the water flows back into the stream.

Of course, social media today is rife with complete crap like this. We’ve devolved to a point where defrauding money out of idiots is rapidly replacing baseball as our national pastime.