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There are interesting things in the article, but I think it was never about available land use, but just another knee jerk argument against solar panels. Examp

There are interesting things in the article, but I think it was never about available land use, but just another knee jerk argument against solar panels. Example: Disneyland Europe will generate over 30 GWh per year from just covering a part of its parking lot. And if France makes it mandatory to cover all "substantial" parking lots it will generate as much electricity from just that as 10 nuclear power plants [1]. And that's France. Countries like the US have a lot more space, especially parking lots. There's enough space for solar panels. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/02/06/france-solar-parking-lots/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/02/06/...

vel0city 4y ago
As someone in Texas I'd really love is more parking lots had even partial covered parking with solar above. Please. It gets dang hot out here, I'd love the shade.
- dylan604 4y ago
  shoot, around my parts of Texas, when you stand in the shade of a tree, the tree looks at you and says, "trust me, it's not any cooler here"
  - cyberax 4y ago
    You have trees?!?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      well, they are Mesquite bushes, but it's got leaves, grows from the ground, produces wood, and makes a bit of shade, therefore...tree.
  - Fatnino 4y ago
    Shade under a solar panel is cooler than normal shade because the panel is siphoning energy away from the location
- conductr 4y ago
  I tried to sell this in Texas a decade or so ago and feedback from most tenants and commercial RE folks was they were concerned with lighting, visibility , safety (as in, increase opportunities for theft/assault), liability, etc of having panels on their property. All I wanted was the use of their land and I was going to fund everything else. Likely would have pursued selling them low rate electricity. The market wasn’t ready for it at that time.
  - jcampbell1 4y ago
    So you were thinking about doing a million dollar solar install, but you couldn’t come up with $10k for land to do the install?
    - imtringued 4y ago
      He didn't say he wanted to do a "million dollar solar install" and he certainly didn't say he couldn't come up with "$10k for land".
      - conductr 4y ago
        This. I also only mentioned that part because “selling” was really “convincing” as I wasn’t asking for any money from them. Only a partnership. My early assumption was they’d be receptive to it because shade would be a big boost to comfort and I’d get free use of land though a mutually beneficial arrangement. This was a long time ago so I don’t actually even remember what my ultimate business strategy was, only that I talked to over 100 different companies/property owners and got overwhelming unreceptive feedback (that they didn’t care about shading their parking lots) so that was the extent of my interest in chasing the opportunity. I don’t think $10k would secure much land at all. Even back then, maybe 1 acre 200 miles away from a city. That wasn’t economically feasible back then. I think it’s only recently becoming so and some “solar farms” are popping up. I’ve moved on and don’t follow it much anymore.
xyzzyz 4y ago
> And if France makes it mandatory to cover all "substantial" parking lots it will generate as much electricity from just that as 10 nuclear power plants [1]. It will not, not even close to that. You are being deceived. This deception is willful, because it is obvious to anyone who has any idea about realities of energy generation. The linked article, however, while not literally lying, omits some obvious facts, the goal of which is to make you believe falsehoods. The article talks about "installed capacity", and compares installed capacity of photovoltaics vs. nuclear power plants. It is extremely deceptive to make such comparison without taking into account the notion of capacity factor, and the proof of this is that you have successfully been deceived. The nuclear power plants typically generate north of 90% of their installed capacity, averaged over the entire year. The photovoltaics in Europe, on the other hand, typically generate 10-15% of their installed capacity, averaged over the entire year. This is caused by the unfortunate fact which is that the sun doesn't shine at all for at least half of the year, and for the significant part of the remainder, it is occluded by clouds, or shines at suboptimal angle, preventing the panels from reaching their maximum generating capacity. This means that 1 GW of installed nuclear power capacity is worth at best something like 6-9 GW of installed photovoltaic capacity. At best, because photovoltaic generation will mostly happen on summer days, resulting in excess supply and so low value of generated energy. In winter, when photovoltaics generate relatively little energy, and the energy demand is high due to heating needs (especially during the night), the value of 1 GW of produced nuclear power will be higher than value of 1 GW of produced photovoltaic in summer. The result of this is that covering half of all parking lots in France with photovoltaics is effectively worth less than a single nuclear reactor. This is obvious to anyone who pays even minimum attention to the economics of energy production, but the activist-media complex works very hard to deceive the public, leading them to believe that photovoltaics are already cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear power. They are not, not even close, and this is even ignoring how nuclear power in France subsidizes solar/wind in a deliberate, systemic way.
- gpvos 4y ago
  What makes you think they didn't already take that into account? There are really an awful lot of parking places. Also, the panels will give electricity at the same times we are going to want airco due to global warming, so at least it helps to cover that need.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
And another reason why I think residential solar is so key, right now it takes a backseat in policy to gridscale, which ... ok the US has a lot of land (allegedly), but using commercial roofs and parking lots is a lot closer to residential solar issues than gridscale in the middle of nowhere: there's a lot of variety in geometry, installation headaches, hookups, distributed management, repair. Ultimately it means more jobs, more civilization resiliency in disasters, and a "democraticization" of energy generation, which I think the elite REALLY don't want. It's a thing that economic development basically follows energy production. Central control of economic development (which is what we have with cartel megacorps) wants centralized control of energy production. Solar isn't just a good carbon policy, or a path to cheaper better energy, or better insurance/life in unstable grids. Home solar is an improvement to individual or small-group liberty.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  It’s not some “elite” cabal. It’s transparently the utility companies and adjacent industries. They fight this unless subsidies for their “increased costs to the grid” are covered. It seems in local areas I’ve seen this play out it always comes down to the fact they want the public to pay for the grid upgrades they should’ve been doing in the first place. I think from what I’ve read online and heard from others this is a pretty common if not nearly universal thing happening when it comes to the pushback against rolling out residential / urban solar at scale

vel0city 4y ago

As someone in Texas I'd really love is more parking lots had even partial covered parking with solar above. Please. It gets dang hot out here, I'd love the shade.

dylan604 4y ago
shoot, around my parts of Texas, when you stand in the shade of a tree, the tree looks at you and says, "trust me, it's not any cooler here"
- cyberax 4y ago
  You have trees?!?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    well, they are Mesquite bushes, but it's got leaves, grows from the ground, produces wood, and makes a bit of shade, therefore...tree.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  Shade under a solar panel is cooler than normal shade because the panel is siphoning energy away from the location
conductr 4y ago
I tried to sell this in Texas a decade or so ago and feedback from most tenants and commercial RE folks was they were concerned with lighting, visibility , safety (as in, increase opportunities for theft/assault), liability, etc of having panels on their property. All I wanted was the use of their land and I was going to fund everything else. Likely would have pursued selling them low rate electricity. The market wasn’t ready for it at that time.
- jcampbell1 4y ago
  So you were thinking about doing a million dollar solar install, but you couldn’t come up with $10k for land to do the install?
  - imtringued 4y ago
    He didn't say he wanted to do a "million dollar solar install" and he certainly didn't say he couldn't come up with "$10k for land".
    - conductr 4y ago
      This. I also only mentioned that part because “selling” was really “convincing” as I wasn’t asking for any money from them. Only a partnership. My early assumption was they’d be receptive to it because shade would be a big boost to comfort and I’d get free use of land though a mutually beneficial arrangement. This was a long time ago so I don’t actually even remember what my ultimate business strategy was, only that I talked to over 100 different companies/property owners and got overwhelming unreceptive feedback (that they didn’t care about shading their parking lots) so that was the extent of my interest in chasing the opportunity. I don’t think $10k would secure much land at all. Even back then, maybe 1 acre 200 miles away from a city. That wasn’t economically feasible back then. I think it’s only recently becoming so and some “solar farms” are popping up. I’ve moved on and don’t follow it much anymore.

xyzzyz 4y ago

> And if France makes it mandatory to cover all "substantial" parking lots it will generate as much electricity from just that as 10 nuclear power plants [1]. It will not, not even close to that. You are being deceived. This deception is willful, because it is obvious to anyone who has any idea about realities of energy generation. The linked article, however, while not literally lying, omits some obvious facts, the goal of which is to make you believe falsehoods. The article talks about "installed capacity", and compares installed capacity of photovoltaics vs. nuclear power plants. It is extremely deceptive to make such comparison without taking into account the notion of capacity factor, and the proof of this is that you have successfully been deceived. The nuclear power plants typically generate north of 90% of their installed capacity, averaged over the entire year. The photovoltaics in Europe, on the other hand, typically generate 10-15% of their installed capacity, averaged over the entire year. This is caused by the unfortunate fact which is that the sun doesn't shine at all for at least half of the year, and for the significant part of the remainder, it is occluded by clouds, or shines at suboptimal angle, preventing the panels from reaching their maximum generating capacity. This means that 1 GW of installed nuclear power capacity is worth at best something like 6-9 GW of installed photovoltaic capacity. At best, because photovoltaic generation will mostly happen on summer days, resulting in excess supply and so low value of generated energy. In winter, when photovoltaics generate relatively little energy, and the energy demand is high due to heating needs (especially during the night), the value of 1 GW of produced nuclear power will be higher than value of 1 GW of produced photovoltaic in summer. The result of this is that covering half of all parking lots in France with photovoltaics is effectively worth less than a single nuclear reactor. This is obvious to anyone who pays even minimum attention to the economics of energy production, but the activist-media complex works very hard to deceive the public, leading them to believe that photovoltaics are already cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear power. They are not, not even close, and this is even ignoring how nuclear power in France subsidizes solar/wind in a deliberate, systemic way.

gpvos 4y ago
What makes you think they didn't already take that into account? There are really an awful lot of parking places. Also, the panels will give electricity at the same times we are going to want airco due to global warming, so at least it helps to cover that need.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

And another reason why I think residential solar is so key, right now it takes a backseat in policy to gridscale, which ... ok the US has a lot of land (allegedly), but using commercial roofs and parking lots is a lot closer to residential solar issues than gridscale in the middle of nowhere: there's a lot of variety in geometry, installation headaches, hookups, distributed management, repair. Ultimately it means more jobs, more civilization resiliency in disasters, and a "democraticization" of energy generation, which I think the elite REALLY don't want. It's a thing that economic development basically follows energy production. Central control of economic development (which is what we have with cartel megacorps) wants centralized control of energy production. Solar isn't just a good carbon policy, or a path to cheaper better energy, or better insurance/life in unstable grids. Home solar is an improvement to individual or small-group liberty.

no_wizard 4y ago
It’s not some “elite” cabal. It’s transparently the utility companies and adjacent industries. They fight this unless subsidies for their “increased costs to the grid” are covered. It seems in local areas I’ve seen this play out it always comes down to the fact they want the public to pay for the grid upgrades they should’ve been doing in the first place. I think from what I’ve read online and heard from others this is a pretty common if not nearly universal thing happening when it comes to the pushback against rolling out residential / urban solar at scale