6 ms·

On one hand it’s an interesting engineering challenge, but I am always perplexed how covering hundreds of square km of an ecosystem with glass is “good for the

On one hand it’s an interesting engineering challenge, but I am always perplexed how covering hundreds of square km of an ecosystem with glass is “good for the environment”. It sounds like something future generations will shake their heads at while trying to dispose of all the toxic waste.

walrus01 4y ago
I'm not saying pave over the mojave desert with PV, exactly, rather that a dry salt pan or ecosystem that has an absolute minimum of flora and fauna would be preferable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin creating massive hydroelectric dam reservoirs also has ecological costs in terms of toxic waste it would surely be preferable to the percentage of electricity right now that is generated using gas, heavy fuel oil and coal.
- StrictDabbler 4y ago
  Unfortunately the inhabitants of the Mojave turned down a major solar power project last year because of ecological disruption", aka "this wouldn't be pretty on our nature hikes." Perhaps we can use the Salton Sea? It is at least acknowledged as a truly destroyed ecosystem.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    I am sort of a nimby, but there's nowhere wild to protect anymore. Thanks Starlink! I am less and less sympathetic to groups standing in the way of clean energy production because of any aesthetics issue. However, I don't live there so I won't judge, though a wind farm got knocked back near where I live because it'd look like a windfarm and it was the greenies who knocked it back.
goethes_kind 4y ago
Matter of interpretation. Is humanity at all good for the environment? Some would say no. Solar is clean and deserts are mostly, well, deserts. And climate change seems much worse than having a tiny bit of our deserts being used for PV farms.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Pointless to discuss. Deserts are a really dumb place for solar farms. Solar will coexist with agricultural land and existing reservoirs, and benefit both.
bilsbie 4y ago
You just space them out a bit and life will thrive all around them. A lot of species will appreciate the shade.
jjk166 4y ago
Hundreds of square km is not a lot, and the ecosystems where these systems would be installed are typically not rich havens of life. The US's power consumption would require about 6000-9000 sq km of solar panels (assuming ~15% efficiency) For comparison in the US there are about 13000-33000 sq km of parking lots, 93000 sq km of alfalfa cultivation, 69000 sq km of fallow agricultural land, and the mojave desert is about 124000 sq km. Yeah with gross mismanagement you might jeopardize the survival of some rare lizard or something, but it's a very far cry from a silicon wasteland.
- walrus01 4y ago
  > parking lots This is how much of downtown Tulsa, OK is covered in parking lots: https://i.redd.it/ukzcn1xx6cc91.jpg https://i.redd.it/ukzcn1xx6cc91.jpg There is no technological problem to covering a parking lot in PV, it's a question of the political will and money to do it.
  - elihu 4y ago
    The problem with covering a parking lot with solar panels is that it's usually a lot more expensive than covering rural land with solar panels. The panels have to be mounted higher off the ground so vehicles can get beneath them, they're usually expected to have a reasonably visually-appealing design, and all the wiring has to be kept safely out of the way and inaccessible to pedestrians. This drives up costs. If land was truly scarce, parking lot solar would be a good option but I expect most installations will use the cheaper option of just building solar farms a long ways away from people. Solar parking lots also might make sense in situations where all the power is being used on-site, and it's cheaper in the long run than buying power from the local utility.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    There's no scale shown on that photo. What is the total area?
    - walrus01 4y ago
      I've never actually been to that city but that's a mid sized sports stadium you see to the left side. Tulsa I think is an extreme example, if you look at an aerial photo of Seattle from the 1970s there were a ton of "downtown" surface lots too, but now the land is way too valuable to use for that. You can also see what looks like a regulation size baseball diamond to the top right side.
rektide 4y ago
It'a really weird but there's a surprisingly growing base of farming amid a solar farm, where apparently many plants just cant stand the pure sun & benefit from some periodic shade during the day. I dont know how much I believe it but combined agriculture/solar use seems perhaps legit to be a thing. Also, solar panels dont seem that difficult to recycle. There's already a decent & growing reclaimation market. Giant slabs of polysilicon, with perhaps some glass & metal casing, plus some bus-bars. Strip & toss into a chewer.
- ghostpepper 4y ago
  > Also, solar panels dont seem that difficult to recycle. There's already a decent & growing reclaimation market. Curious if you're basing this on firsthand knowledge? I know nothing about solar panels but I've read some stories[0][1] lately about difficulties recycling them, particularly older ones that were deployed 10-20 years ago and are now reaching EOL. [0] https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-was... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-01-17/are-some-solar-panels-toxic-/100757108 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-01-17/are-some-solar-...
  - philipkglass 4y ago
    First Solar (the largest American solar manufacturer) has provided recycling for the panels they make since 2005: https://www.firstsolar.com/modules/recycling https://www.firstsolar.com/modules/recycling https://www.bnl.gov/pv/files/prs_agenda/2_krueger_ieee-presentation-final.pdf https://www.bnl.gov/pv/files/prs_agenda/2_krueger_ieee-prese... https://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Sustainability-Documents/PVTP_6pp_First-Solar-recycling-hi.ashx https://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Sustainabilit... German company Flaxres recently completed a pilot scale trial for recycling silicon photovoltaic modules from any manufacturer: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/22/industrial-process-for-module-recycling/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/22/industrial-process-fo...
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Ultra-pure silicon is intrinsically valuable. Anyone dumping used-up panels is an idiot.
dqpb 4y ago
We’ve already desertified tens of thousands of square km of land into parking lots / heat sinks. We could start by shading those abominations with solar panels.
megablast 4y ago
Wait until you hear about roads.
stefan_ 4y ago
Wait until you hear about how we invented synthetic fertilizer and added 5 billion humans in as many as 100 years. Won't somebody think of the ecosystem!
tuatoru 4y ago
> It sounds like something future generations will shake their heads at while trying to dispose of all the toxic waste. No, it doesn't. They will be far too busy handling coal ash dumps from coal-fired power stations, and remediating landscapes laid waste by mountain-top removal coal mining. This will be orders of magnitude smaller as a problem. They will be grateful we finally stopped using coal.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
34,000 square kilometers [1] have already been disturbed for surface coal mining. Two points about that: - existing energy sources already do a huge amount of damage to land (and in places like West Virginia, particularly environmentally sensitive land) - that's land that can already be converted to solar without significant harm being done (the harm has already been done) [1]: https://www.gem.wiki/The_footprint_of_coal https://www.gem.wiki/The_footprint_of_coal

walrus01 4y ago

I'm not saying pave over the mojave desert with PV, exactly, rather that a dry salt pan or ecosystem that has an absolute minimum of flora and fauna would be preferable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin creating massive hydroelectric dam reservoirs also has ecological costs in terms of toxic waste it would surely be preferable to the percentage of electricity right now that is generated using gas, heavy fuel oil and coal.

StrictDabbler 4y ago
Unfortunately the inhabitants of the Mojave turned down a major solar power project last year because of ecological disruption", aka "this wouldn't be pretty on our nature hikes." Perhaps we can use the Salton Sea? It is at least acknowledged as a truly destroyed ecosystem.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gonzo41 4y ago
  I am sort of a nimby, but there's nowhere wild to protect anymore. Thanks Starlink! I am less and less sympathetic to groups standing in the way of clean energy production because of any aesthetics issue. However, I don't live there so I won't judge, though a wind farm got knocked back near where I live because it'd look like a windfarm and it was the greenies who knocked it back.

goethes_kind 4y ago

Matter of interpretation. Is humanity at all good for the environment? Some would say no. Solar is clean and deserts are mostly, well, deserts. And climate change seems much worse than having a tiny bit of our deserts being used for PV farms.

ncmncm 4y ago
Pointless to discuss. Deserts are a really dumb place for solar farms. Solar will coexist with agricultural land and existing reservoirs, and benefit both.

bilsbie 4y ago

You just space them out a bit and life will thrive all around them. A lot of species will appreciate the shade.

jjk166 4y ago

Hundreds of square km is not a lot, and the ecosystems where these systems would be installed are typically not rich havens of life. The US's power consumption would require about 6000-9000 sq km of solar panels (assuming ~15% efficiency) For comparison in the US there are about 13000-33000 sq km of parking lots, 93000 sq km of alfalfa cultivation, 69000 sq km of fallow agricultural land, and the mojave desert is about 124000 sq km. Yeah with gross mismanagement you might jeopardize the survival of some rare lizard or something, but it's a very far cry from a silicon wasteland.

walrus01 4y ago
> parking lots This is how much of downtown Tulsa, OK is covered in parking lots: https://i.redd.it/ukzcn1xx6cc91.jpg https://i.redd.it/ukzcn1xx6cc91.jpg There is no technological problem to covering a parking lot in PV, it's a question of the political will and money to do it.
- elihu 4y ago
  The problem with covering a parking lot with solar panels is that it's usually a lot more expensive than covering rural land with solar panels. The panels have to be mounted higher off the ground so vehicles can get beneath them, they're usually expected to have a reasonably visually-appealing design, and all the wiring has to be kept safely out of the way and inaccessible to pedestrians. This drives up costs. If land was truly scarce, parking lot solar would be a good option but I expect most installations will use the cheaper option of just building solar farms a long ways away from people. Solar parking lots also might make sense in situations where all the power is being used on-site, and it's cheaper in the long run than buying power from the local utility.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  There's no scale shown on that photo. What is the total area?
  - walrus01 4y ago
    I've never actually been to that city but that's a mid sized sports stadium you see to the left side. Tulsa I think is an extreme example, if you look at an aerial photo of Seattle from the 1970s there were a ton of "downtown" surface lots too, but now the land is way too valuable to use for that. You can also see what looks like a regulation size baseball diamond to the top right side.

rektide 4y ago

It'a really weird but there's a surprisingly growing base of farming amid a solar farm, where apparently many plants just cant stand the pure sun & benefit from some periodic shade during the day. I dont know how much I believe it but combined agriculture/solar use seems perhaps legit to be a thing. Also, solar panels dont seem that difficult to recycle. There's already a decent & growing reclaimation market. Giant slabs of polysilicon, with perhaps some glass & metal casing, plus some bus-bars. Strip & toss into a chewer.

ghostpepper 4y ago
> Also, solar panels dont seem that difficult to recycle. There's already a decent & growing reclaimation market. Curious if you're basing this on firsthand knowledge? I know nothing about solar panels but I've read some stories[0][1] lately about difficulties recycling them, particularly older ones that were deployed 10-20 years ago and are now reaching EOL. [0] https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-was... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-01-17/are-some-solar-panels-toxic-/100757108 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-01-17/are-some-solar-...
- philipkglass 4y ago
  First Solar (the largest American solar manufacturer) has provided recycling for the panels they make since 2005: https://www.firstsolar.com/modules/recycling https://www.firstsolar.com/modules/recycling https://www.bnl.gov/pv/files/prs_agenda/2_krueger_ieee-presentation-final.pdf https://www.bnl.gov/pv/files/prs_agenda/2_krueger_ieee-prese... https://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Sustainability-Documents/PVTP_6pp_First-Solar-recycling-hi.ashx https://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Sustainabilit... German company Flaxres recently completed a pilot scale trial for recycling silicon photovoltaic modules from any manufacturer: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/22/industrial-process-for-module-recycling/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/22/industrial-process-fo...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Ultra-pure silicon is intrinsically valuable. Anyone dumping used-up panels is an idiot.

dqpb 4y ago

We’ve already desertified tens of thousands of square km of land into parking lots / heat sinks. We could start by shading those abominations with solar panels.

megablast 4y ago

Wait until you hear about roads.

stefan_ 4y ago

Wait until you hear about how we invented synthetic fertilizer and added 5 billion humans in as many as 100 years. Won't somebody think of the ecosystem!

tuatoru 4y ago

> It sounds like something future generations will shake their heads at while trying to dispose of all the toxic waste. No, it doesn't. They will be far too busy handling coal ash dumps from coal-fired power stations, and remediating landscapes laid waste by mountain-top removal coal mining. This will be orders of magnitude smaller as a problem. They will be grateful we finally stopped using coal.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

34,000 square kilometers [1] have already been disturbed for surface coal mining. Two points about that: - existing energy sources already do a huge amount of damage to land (and in places like West Virginia, particularly environmentally sensitive land) - that's land that can already be converted to solar without significant harm being done (the harm has already been done) [1]: https://www.gem.wiki/The_footprint_of_coal https://www.gem.wiki/The_footprint_of_coal