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I would caution that deserts are some of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world. Covering up large areas of a desert with solar panels may be more harmful t

I would caution that deserts are some of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world. Covering up large areas of a desert with solar panels may be more harmful than you realize. That said, I am a strong solar advocate; I simply believe we should start with the roofs of warehouses. These are huge areas of relatively flat space where the ecological damage has already been done.

jefurii 10y ago
> roofs of warehouses And parking lots.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  Parking lots are dangerous to build over, for two reasons: 1) people cannot drive. The amount of dents or other damage from incompetent drivers done to a concrete-built park house is crazy, I don't want to imagine the damage they'll do to tiny aluminium/steel constructions holding the panels 2) people cannot drive. They underestimate their vehicle height all the time - just google for "can opener bridge". Just a couple days ago a truck driver massively damaged the lighting in a Munich tunnel because he forgot that the excavator on the flatbed was higher than the truck...
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    > They underestimate their vehicle height all the time There's a simple way to fix that: Have a solid steel bar slightly lower than the max clearance at the entrance. People that can't drive will notice there without causing further damage.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      Not to mention multi-level parking lots, which have height restrictions imposed by the structure itself. I'm sure most people wouldn't mind having the top level covered as well.
  - devicenull 10y ago
    There is no reason to make them tiny: http://solairegeneration.com/project/rutgers-university/ http://solairegeneration.com/project/rutgers-university/ You just build the solar panel mounts like you would usually build lighting mounts (big concrete bases). Height is less of a concern in some parking lots (where it's virtually all cars)
te_platt 10y ago
I agree that we should use caution in setting up solar panels. That said the ecosystem in most of northern Chile is dirt. Not sagebrush or cactus with a few insects, or dormant seeds waiting for the next rain. Just dirt, sometimes rocks. If ever there was a place for solar panels it's northern Chile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#/media/File:Atacama_Desert_between_Antofagasta_and_Taltal.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#/media/File:Ata...
millettjon 10y ago
I agree. They should start by deploying local solar in the huge and already impacted active mining areas.
bbctol 10y ago
I don't mean to disagree, just share a fun fact: the Atacama is actually so dry, parts of it are barely an ecosystem at all. Obviously, the life that does exist there is quite sensitive, but there's large swathes of desert that are some of the only places on Earth where no life has been detected whatsoever; the land is literally just rock, without even bacteria living in it.
ctdonath 10y ago
Covering up large areas of a desert with solar panels may be more harmful than you realize. I've heard & use the term solar strip-mining. Solar power maxes out at no better than 1kW/m^2 (sun at zenith, clear day, practically 100% efficient conversion), we're talking an absolute minimum of 1 sq km to match a baseline 1GW power plant ... and likely 100 times larger for real-world scenarios (10% efficiency, night/clouds, non-zenith air densities, dust, etc). So yeah, the net effect is "strip-mining" a vast area by removing all (or a seriously impactful percentage) natural power input and thus killing everything off. Rooftop solar should indeed be the focus. There's even solar panels intended as road/pavement surfaces, super-durable interlinked hexes grabbing power where we've already wrecked the natural surface.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  > 1 sq km to match a baseline 1GW power plant Does that sound like a lot to you? A single airport runway is much larger than 1 sq km.
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    As I noted: real-world conditions demand 100x as much space.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    Uh, no. Chicago Midway happens to fit very nicely inside 1 mi² = 2.56 km². Its main runways (5 of them) with feeder ramps collectively take up at best ½ the space, so a single runway itself is not 1 km² but more like .2-.3 km².
    - honkhonkpants 10y ago
      Midway is an airport for ants. 10/28 at SFO is 2 sq km, and there are two of them, and 1/19 are 1.5 sq km, and there are two of them. Then you also have OAK and SJC. Point: a square kilometer to generate 1GW peak of electricity would be an obviously excellent trade off, well within the cost parameters that humans are willing to spend on far less useful endeavors like runways and parking lots.
Arnt 10y ago
Solar panels are large compared to a house, not large compared to a desert.
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  Here is a couple of square miles of solar panels in the Mojave Desert. If you zoom out, you'll find quite a bit more nearby. Whether or not you count this as large, the impact is not negligible. https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B048'44.1%22N+118%C2%B025'47.3%22W/@34.779389,-118.4394264,4845m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d34.812264!4d-118.429794 https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B048'44.1%22N+118%C2... EDIT: To be clear, I am not fundamentally opposed to such installations just as I am not fundamentally opposed to new hydroelectric projects, but we need to be aware of the impacts, and we need to make conscious decisions about when the costs are worth paying and when they are not.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Traditional power stations aren't exactly small, either. In fact, people will think you're a lunatic if you start talking about nuclear or coal in "per square meter of land" terms.
    - wtallis 10y ago
      For context: my local nuclear power station is about 600 W/m^2, unless you count the purpose-built lake it relies on for cooling water, in which case it's 50 W/m^2. The 17 W/m^2 estimate above for solar doesn't look as bad as I would've guessed.
    - Gibbon1 10y ago
      Think I point out is there is a perception issue. When people thing 'power plant' they think of a large concrete building with a bunch of machines in it. But they don't think of all of the supporting infrastructure. (Comment I've heard about nuclear power in France is on hot days it's partly limited by the need to avoid dumping too much waste heat into the rivers. Coal fired plants seem neat and tidy until one thinks of the strip mines. Gas fired, the massive network of pipes needed to extract the gas and move it to where it'll be burned.

jefurii 10y ago

> roofs of warehouses And parking lots.

mschuster91 10y ago
Parking lots are dangerous to build over, for two reasons: 1) people cannot drive. The amount of dents or other damage from incompetent drivers done to a concrete-built park house is crazy, I don't want to imagine the damage they'll do to tiny aluminium/steel constructions holding the panels 2) people cannot drive. They underestimate their vehicle height all the time - just google for "can opener bridge". Just a couple days ago a truck driver massively damaged the lighting in a Munich tunnel because he forgot that the excavator on the flatbed was higher than the truck...
- Xylakant 10y ago
  > They underestimate their vehicle height all the time There's a simple way to fix that: Have a solid steel bar slightly lower than the max clearance at the entrance. People that can't drive will notice there without causing further damage.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Not to mention multi-level parking lots, which have height restrictions imposed by the structure itself. I'm sure most people wouldn't mind having the top level covered as well.
- devicenull 10y ago
  There is no reason to make them tiny: http://solairegeneration.com/project/rutgers-university/ http://solairegeneration.com/project/rutgers-university/ You just build the solar panel mounts like you would usually build lighting mounts (big concrete bases). Height is less of a concern in some parking lots (where it's virtually all cars)

te_platt 10y ago

I agree that we should use caution in setting up solar panels. That said the ecosystem in most of northern Chile is dirt. Not sagebrush or cactus with a few insects, or dormant seeds waiting for the next rain. Just dirt, sometimes rocks. If ever there was a place for solar panels it's northern Chile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#/media/File:Atacama_Desert_between_Antofagasta_and_Taltal.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#/media/File:Ata...

millettjon 10y ago

I agree. They should start by deploying local solar in the huge and already impacted active mining areas.

bbctol 10y ago

I don't mean to disagree, just share a fun fact: the Atacama is actually so dry, parts of it are barely an ecosystem at all. Obviously, the life that does exist there is quite sensitive, but there's large swathes of desert that are some of the only places on Earth where no life has been detected whatsoever; the land is literally just rock, without even bacteria living in it.

ctdonath 10y ago

Covering up large areas of a desert with solar panels may be more harmful than you realize. I've heard & use the term solar strip-mining. Solar power maxes out at no better than 1kW/m^2 (sun at zenith, clear day, practically 100% efficient conversion), we're talking an absolute minimum of 1 sq km to match a baseline 1GW power plant ... and likely 100 times larger for real-world scenarios (10% efficiency, night/clouds, non-zenith air densities, dust, etc). So yeah, the net effect is "strip-mining" a vast area by removing all (or a seriously impactful percentage) natural power input and thus killing everything off. Rooftop solar should indeed be the focus. There's even solar panels intended as road/pavement surfaces, super-durable interlinked hexes grabbing power where we've already wrecked the natural surface.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
> 1 sq km to match a baseline 1GW power plant Does that sound like a lot to you? A single airport runway is much larger than 1 sq km.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  As I noted: real-world conditions demand 100x as much space.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  Uh, no. Chicago Midway happens to fit very nicely inside 1 mi² = 2.56 km². Its main runways (5 of them) with feeder ramps collectively take up at best ½ the space, so a single runway itself is not 1 km² but more like .2-.3 km².
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    Midway is an airport for ants. 10/28 at SFO is 2 sq km, and there are two of them, and 1/19 are 1.5 sq km, and there are two of them. Then you also have OAK and SJC. Point: a square kilometer to generate 1GW peak of electricity would be an obviously excellent trade off, well within the cost parameters that humans are willing to spend on far less useful endeavors like runways and parking lots.

Arnt 10y ago

Solar panels are large compared to a house, not large compared to a desert.

goodcanadian 10y ago
Here is a couple of square miles of solar panels in the Mojave Desert. If you zoom out, you'll find quite a bit more nearby. Whether or not you count this as large, the impact is not negligible. https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B048'44.1%22N+118%C2%B025'47.3%22W/@34.779389,-118.4394264,4845m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d34.812264!4d-118.429794 https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B048'44.1%22N+118%C2... EDIT: To be clear, I am not fundamentally opposed to such installations just as I am not fundamentally opposed to new hydroelectric projects, but we need to be aware of the impacts, and we need to make conscious decisions about when the costs are worth paying and when they are not.
- vacri 10y ago
  Traditional power stations aren't exactly small, either. In fact, people will think you're a lunatic if you start talking about nuclear or coal in "per square meter of land" terms.
  - wtallis 10y ago
    For context: my local nuclear power station is about 600 W/m^2, unless you count the purpose-built lake it relies on for cooling water, in which case it's 50 W/m^2. The 17 W/m^2 estimate above for solar doesn't look as bad as I would've guessed.
  - Gibbon1 10y ago
    Think I point out is there is a perception issue. When people thing 'power plant' they think of a large concrete building with a bunch of machines in it. But they don't think of all of the supporting infrastructure. (Comment I've heard about nuclear power in France is on hot days it's partly limited by the need to avoid dumping too much waste heat into the rivers. Coal fired plants seem neat and tidy until one thinks of the strip mines. Gas fired, the massive network of pipes needed to extract the gas and move it to where it'll be burned.