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This isn't surprising. Or new. I've been saying for years solar is the future. Solar has so many advantages over every other form of power generation. It's flex

by jmyeet 1y ago

This isn't surprising. Or new. I've been saying for years solar is the future. Solar has so many advantages over every other form of power generation. It's flexible, scalable (meaning you can have an installation any size from a solar farm to a calculator) and robust because it has no moving parts. It has no pollution (noise or chemical) and can be dual-use on many structures, everything from rooftops to adding solar to highways. The big problem with solar? Regulation around installing it that is entirely designed to protect the profits of utility companies. We have predatory financing around solar where companies are allowed to put a lien on your house and then essentially extort the homeowner if they ever choose to sell such that solar can reduce the value of your house significantly. We limit the amount of solar basically so the utility can keep selling you electricity. One might say it's to cover the bullding and maintenance of the transmission infrastructure. There's some truth to that. But at the same time utilities are generating massive profits, doing share buybacks and giving massive concessions to data centers that everyone else is paying for. Basically we would all be better off if every electricity provider wasn't a private company but instead what a municipal operation like municipal broadband.

macintux 1y ago
There's also the problem of rural opposition to solar farms. Not unusual to see a "no solar farms" sign every few hundred feet in some parts of Indiana where I wander (often in the same areas where the cars have bumper stickers celebrating coal). I assume astroturfing is at play.
- epistasis 1y ago
  As a steady income stream, solar is a huge help to smaller farmers that might otherwise go bankrupt from a few bad years' of harvests. Larger growers hate that they no longer get to gobble up the land of the smaller growers, so there's a strong political incentive to block solar from their side.

by jmyeet 1y ago

macintux 1y ago

There's also the problem of rural opposition to solar farms. Not unusual to see a "no solar farms" sign every few hundred feet in some parts of Indiana where I wander (often in the same areas where the cars have bumper stickers celebrating coal). I assume astroturfing is at play.

epistasis 1y ago
As a steady income stream, solar is a huge help to smaller farmers that might otherwise go bankrupt from a few bad years' of harvests. Larger growers hate that they no longer get to gobble up the land of the smaller growers, so there's a strong political incentive to block solar from their side.