15 ms·

American solar farms

223 points by marklit 1y ago

ZeroGravitas 1y ago
The title is a bit non descript, so the blog post is exploring > a 15K-array, 2.9M-panel dataset of utility and commercial-grade solar farms across the lower 48 states plus the District of Columbia. This dataset was constructed by a team of researchers including alumni from NOAA, NASA and the USGS.
Bonobozpage 1y ago
[dead]
jibal 1y ago
This will change under the policies of the current U.S. administration.
- cactusplant7374 1y ago
  I am still receiving advertisements from solar companies that want to put panels on farm land. They pay around $3-$4k an acre
  - binarymax 1y ago
    Per month or year? And what region?
    - cactusplant7374 1y ago
      Per year, midwest.
  - tecleandor 1y ago
    Like monthly? Yearly?
    - ben_w 1y ago
      I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I read the following link correctly, the USA average price to purchase is only $5.5k/acre, and any part of the US cheaper than or including the average price in Nebraska (ranked 17th at $3,884/acre) could well be trading food farmland for solar farm land at that price: https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-prices https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-pr...
      - Zigurd 1y ago
        In Nebraska, you're talking about food for cattle. The profit per acre is low and so the price is low.
        ben_w 1y ago
        1. The Nebraska price is the 17th highest on that list. Nevada and Montana are both below $1k/acre. I've seen Nevada in person, I can guess why the small amount of possibly-arable land I saw there might be cheap, never been to Montana but the Google street view photos told me the same story. 2. If the profit per acre is low, surely this just means they don't have a better use for the land? 3. Even if you assume they're all idiots who could make more profit if they thought harder about better uses for their land, I'm not clear why the reason for the land being what it is, is supposed to matter?
        Zigurd 1y ago
        The point I was trying to get across is that, because animal feed is an inefficient way of making people food, it's a little tendentious to say that we're trading food for energy.
        ben_w 1y ago
        Oh, right; I agree, but that intent wasn't clear.
      - tecleandor 1y ago
- hwillis 1y ago
  Pretty unlikely. Solar is built on cheap land with low demand, and if the land isn't sold then the power is free so why wouldn't you sell it? No matter how high the taxes are, free money is free money. Aside from making it totally illegal it is very hard to reduce the incentive to sell power. On top of that the subsidies for solar installations are mostly frontloaded, since the costs are frontloaded. Annual tax breaks are transferrable, so they get sold at the beginning of the project to offset investment cost, lowering interest payments. Even removing tax breaks would not make existing installations less profitable.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    You are right it makes sense but that hasn’t stopped them from gutting all sorts of sensible programs both energy-related and otherwise regardless of the stage of investment/development. Have we forgotten about Musk and his mob already? This administration is openly touting “beautiful clean coal” (doesn’t exist) for powering servers. Renewables are yet another front where people are divided based on politics. It has little to do with efficacy or practicality. I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
    - joshstrange 1y ago
      > I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson And if they are anything like the people I've talked to, they never once cared about whales (or any sea life) before this. Same with the "wind turbines kills birds" or even "trans women are ruining women's sports". Ahh yes, a whole list of things you've never cared about, made fun of, or derided in the past but now suddenly care about because of some talking head. It's exhausting.
      - Forgeties79 1y ago
        Too true. Until they realized they could use it to bully the trans community the only time they talked about the likes of the WNBA was in service of a punchline for a bad joke.
- UltraSane 1y ago
  Federal funding for solar farms will stop but private funding will continue because solar electricity is the the cheapest source right now.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Unless it gets outlawed, which I suspect is something Trump might do or attempt as part of his campaign in favour of fossil fuels and/or to own the libs/China. I'm also not clear how cheaply the US could make its own PV in the event of arbitrary trade war (let alone hot war) between the USA and China. (The good news there is that even in such a situation, everyone else in the world can continue to electrify with the panels, inverters, and batteries that the USA doesn't buy, but the linked article obviously isn't about that).
  - criley2 1y ago
    It's more than just funding. There's a lot of regulatory hurdles and desire to use federal lands that will also be killed. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-officials-drop-major-solar-power-project-in-another-renewable-energy-attack https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-offici... >The following month, the president said his administration would not approve solar or wind power projects. “We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” he posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” Realisitically, solar is dead in America and China is the undisputed worlds #1 solar superpower. The US might hook up a few little projects here or there, but functionally the US is in full retreat on solar, cedeing the industry and technology to China.
    - UltraSane 1y ago
      The federal government doesn't have to approve solar farms built on private land. Solar is far from dead in the US and there is tons of private land solar farms can and will be built on.
      - criley2 1y ago
        Most the best land for solar farms in the west half of the US is controlled by the federal government. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Map_of_all_U.S._Federal_Land.jpg/1920px-Map_of_all_U.S._Federal_Land.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Ma... For example, there basically will not be large scale solar in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, etc under this administration. You know, some of the highest value spots.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  [flagged]
- rsynnott 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jibal 1y ago
  Downvoted and yet plenty of support for the statement in the responses. (And I didn't even say in which direction it would change, or exactly what will change.)
paulnpace 1y ago
My experience has been that people living next to newly constructed solar farms are unhappy about living next to a solar farm. It is also my experience that this is a fringe opinion because a very low percentage of people live next to solar farms.
- squigz 1y ago
  "My experience is that people whose homes have burned down are unhappy that their homes burned down. It is also my experience that this is a fringe opinion" Like what?
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    Is a solar farm being built nearby as bad as your house burning down? I didn't think the property value would change that drastically...
    - squigz 1y ago
      No, but I was trying to illustrate the absurdity of dismissing these as 'fringe' opinions, simply because they only apply to the segment of the population that are actually going through it.
  - trimethylpurine 1y ago
    Seeing them feels dystopian. I actually don't think that opinion is so fringe. There were lots of environmental protesters when the solar farm near us went up. The valley was rich in low shrubs and wildlife, and even some forest was leveled. A multi billion dollar energy company destroyed it to pick up their share of the free government funding while powering less than 2% of homes. Sure, it's better than a gas refinery or some other things you could find yourself living next to. But let's not ignore what's bad about our current solutions.
    - physicles 1y ago
      What do you propose instead?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
chasd00 1y ago
I’ve seen some of the ones out in far west Texas. They’re amazing, you see this blue shimmer on the horizon that looks about the size of a lake and then when you eventually get close enough it turns out to be a huge solar array. There’s some smaller ones just south of dfw that I drive by when going hiking at a state park my wife likes. Still impressive but nothing like the giant farms in west Texas.
- alnwlsn 1y ago
  Texas also has a lot of wind power. I was driving though at night one time and there were turbines on either side of the road as far as could be seen. Thing is, they are tall so they have those red airplane warning lights on top - which would all flash at exactly the same time. A rather trippy thing to see.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Depending on which one, most of them don't have airplane warning lights. There have been extensive study, and if done right you can only light up a small number but because the lights are synchronized that is a better stay away indication than having a light one them all. (lights not synchronized is a disaster - too many lights to keep track of)
    - dpe82 1y ago
      At first I questioned your assertion, but after reading the most recent FAA AC revision (https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_70-7460-1M_Change_1_POST.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...) I found: 13.5.3 In most cases, not all wind turbine units within a wind turbine farm need to be lighted. Obstruction lights should be placed along the perimeter of the wind turbine farm so that there are no unlit separations or gaps more than 1/2 SM (0.80 km) (see Figure A-26). Wind turbines within a grid or cluster should not have an unlighted separation or gap of more than 1 SM (1.61 km) across the interior of a grid or cluster of turbines
  - jasonwatkinspdx 1y ago
dzonga 1y ago
the sad thing about this data is how politicized clean energy has become. the blue states have a lot of energy solar - while the red ones are sparse. the red ones get a lot of sun while the blue ones don't.
- rapind 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - FrustratedMonky 1y ago
    What is the argument against it? I've never heard any logical reasons beyond hating the Left. It's like hating bikers, why? The same people that have pickup trucks and swerve to intimidate bikers, seem to hate solar energy. But why?
    - rapind 1y ago
      Rhetoric mostly I'd say. The idea being promoted is that clean energy subsidies hurt the honest Joe coal miner (details being very hand wavy). I'm not convinced it's really that well thought out though and might just be about owning the libs. Maybe there's a MAGA in here that can educate us.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Because anything one side says the other must automatically and reflexively oppose no matter what. The example here is Right hating on Left, but the Left as the same illogical hate against the right - though in different areas. This has often been blamed on first past the post voting - if you want to win you have to team up which means your views on Abortion and Environment Policy have to align even though there is no reason to think the two should have anything to do with one another. Since there is no room for thinking each side is correct one one and wrong on the other you have to oppose anything the other does without wondering if maybe they are correct. Now remember that are thousands (millions?) of different issues, and many of them have a range of different answers, yet there can only be one unified position that you support... I'm not convinced that the various alternatives are really better though. They all seem to have issues in the real world, and too often people will look at what they have an ignore the issues because they want to feel better.
ctime 1y ago
The arid and sunny west ware prime candidates for solar, yet the current administration is doing everything they can to further destroy any chance a future of being carbon neutral with cancellations of many projects. TFG cancelled a fairly far along project to build 6gw of solar in the Nevada desert just a few days ago known as Esmeralda 7. The ineptitude and grift of this administration will haunt this country for decades. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/feds-appear-to-cancel-vegas-sized-solar-project-planned-in-rural-nevada https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/feds-appear-to-canc...
- adabyron 1y ago
  There seems to be a decent counter argument about the size & impact to local environment. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/massive-esmeralda-seven-solar-project-in-nevada-killed-website-notice-shows/ https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/massive-esmeralda-s... I do not have a side as I don't know enough.
  - whatisthiseven 1y ago
    I think every engineer knows that all things come with trade-offs. A great engineer, however, is able to readily admit when one option among others has a far, far greater set of costs than another, for the exact same benefit. And if said engineer can't decide (for claim of ignorance), they mature to learn that the experience and knowledge of others is the best source for understanding the trade-offs involved to make a decision. I think its pretty clear solar power has trade-offs. I think it's also obvious solar has far less negatives than all other power generating sources.
    - adabyron 1y ago
      Interesting that just sharing a link of the trade-offs got a bunch of down votes when I didn't even take a side. Maybe it was a misunderstanding of my intentions to purely share information based on your reply. If you don't mind, please help me understand. Did it come across as anti-solar in general? That's how I'm interpreting your reply. The article, which I wonder if anyone read, argues local environmental concerns based on the giant size of the solar farm. One of those things was mountain sheep that migrate across the lands. This would be creating a wall of sorts. Another was Native American archeology. What I'm ignorant of is if any of these issues were addressed at all & what the impact is. In a general sense, I'm a huge fan of solar farms. I think they make more sense than using land to plant corn for energy, which funny enough also got me down votes here.
bell-cot 1y ago
Speculation: The biggest reason for solar farms often being unpopular with locals is that, socially, they feel like dystopian giga-scale machines. Serving some far-away, unfriendly power. Utterly disinterested in the welfare, or even lives, of the local populace. Vs. almost any other business (farm, mine, oil drilling, warehouse, whatever) would both hire far more local people, and interact far more with the local community.
- nocoiner 1y ago
  The beginning of Blade Runner 2049 was a succinct depiction of the eternal struggle between Big Solar and the local grub farmers.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  Is it intentional that you're listing export-based business as "local" while that solar farm probably does supply the town? It's a beautiful contrast either way.
  - bell-cot 1y ago
    All the businesses produce fungible commodities, and feed those into distribution systems ~10000X larger than the town. So, socially, it does not matter where any given ear of corn, gallon of milk, or watt of electricity ends up.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  How is this different from >50% of farm land in the US growing corn for ethanol or corn or soy for export?
  - bell-cot 1y ago
    If your next door neighbor worked on the production line at a tire factory, how much would it change your social relationship with him if half of those tires were being exported, or sold to manufacturers of ICE cars? Or - maybe you're an introvert, or live in a place where it's normal to have no social relationships with your neighbors. If so, try talking to somebody who has lived in a small farming community. It is a very, very different world.
jasoncartwright 1y ago
Very much enjoy this guy flexing his setup his always interesting articles
- kiddico 1y ago
  Half flexing and half avoiding answering questions about what he ran it on
t1234s 1y ago
Solar panels == shade. Any companies deploying solar in this manner (parking lots, pedestrian trails, bus benches, etc..)
- rmason 1y ago
  Locally Michigan State is covering all their parking lots with solar panels. The added advantage is that since you're car is parked under them you don't have to clear the snow off. https://ipf.msu.edu/about/news/solar-carport-initiative-earns-national-attention https://ipf.msu.edu/about/news/solar-carport-initiative-earn... But what I haven't figured out is if they have to broom them off after a snow or just wait until the sun melts it. By the time I am around in the afternoon time they are always cleared.
  - labcomputer 1y ago
    No idea if anyone actually does this. In theory, you could forward-bias the panels with an external power supply. That should generate infrared light at the band gap, which should melt the snow. It might be enough to just form a thin layer of water, so the whole mass of snow slides off.
  - torgoguys 1y ago
    For panels in northern climates, if the tilt is fixed or just seasonally adjusted (i.e., not tracking the sun), we often will bias towards a bit more vertical tilt than mathematically optimal to encourage snow shedding.
  - jojobas 1y ago
    Unless it's borderline melting, brooming is not enough, you'd have to move the snow away or berms would form quickly.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Panels have a low albedo - they absorb a lot of energy. About 25% of that is turned into electricity, the rest heats the panel. So as soon as a corner is exposed to the sun, it tends to melt off the rest of the snow comparatively quickly.
thelastgallon 1y ago
Go vertical. Vertical panels take minimal space, can replace fences (everywhere!), nothing to clean (wind cleans it), heat dissipates and increases production, flattens the duck curve and produces energy during peak demand (early evenings), increases the window of time unlimited free energy is available. Vertical panels provide shade (and this can be calibrated for different types of plants) Vertical panels may even be stacked on top of one another. Considering how big a fan of solar panels this administration is, perhaps the Big Beautiful Border Wall can be built with vertical solar panels.

223 points by marklit 1y ago

The title is a bit non descript, so the blog post is exploring > a 15K-array, 2.9M-panel dataset of utility and commercial-grade solar farms across the lower 48 states plus the District of Columbia. This dataset was constructed by a team of researchers including alumni from NOAA, NASA and the USGS.

Bonobozpage 1y ago

[dead]

jibal 1y ago

This will change under the policies of the current U.S. administration.

cactusplant7374 1y ago
I am still receiving advertisements from solar companies that want to put panels on farm land. They pay around $3-$4k an acre
- binarymax 1y ago
  Per month or year? And what region?
  - cactusplant7374 1y ago
    Per year, midwest.
- tecleandor 1y ago
  Like monthly? Yearly?
  - ben_w 1y ago
    I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I read the following link correctly, the USA average price to purchase is only $5.5k/acre, and any part of the US cheaper than or including the average price in Nebraska (ranked 17th at $3,884/acre) could well be trading food farmland for solar farm land at that price: https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-prices https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-pr...
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      In Nebraska, you're talking about food for cattle. The profit per acre is low and so the price is low.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        1. The Nebraska price is the 17th highest on that list. Nevada and Montana are both below $1k/acre. I've seen Nevada in person, I can guess why the small amount of possibly-arable land I saw there might be cheap, never been to Montana but the Google street view photos told me the same story. 2. If the profit per acre is low, surely this just means they don't have a better use for the land? 3. Even if you assume they're all idiots who could make more profit if they thought harder about better uses for their land, I'm not clear why the reason for the land being what it is, is supposed to matter?
        Zigurd 1y ago
        The point I was trying to get across is that, because animal feed is an inefficient way of making people food, it's a little tendentious to say that we're trading food for energy.
        ben_w 1y ago
        Oh, right; I agree, but that intent wasn't clear.
    - tecleandor 1y ago
hwillis 1y ago
Pretty unlikely. Solar is built on cheap land with low demand, and if the land isn't sold then the power is free so why wouldn't you sell it? No matter how high the taxes are, free money is free money. Aside from making it totally illegal it is very hard to reduce the incentive to sell power. On top of that the subsidies for solar installations are mostly frontloaded, since the costs are frontloaded. Annual tax breaks are transferrable, so they get sold at the beginning of the project to offset investment cost, lowering interest payments. Even removing tax breaks would not make existing installations less profitable.
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  You are right it makes sense but that hasn’t stopped them from gutting all sorts of sensible programs both energy-related and otherwise regardless of the stage of investment/development. Have we forgotten about Musk and his mob already? This administration is openly touting “beautiful clean coal” (doesn’t exist) for powering servers. Renewables are yet another front where people are divided based on politics. It has little to do with efficacy or practicality. I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
  - joshstrange 1y ago
    > I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson And if they are anything like the people I've talked to, they never once cared about whales (or any sea life) before this. Same with the "wind turbines kills birds" or even "trans women are ruining women's sports". Ahh yes, a whole list of things you've never cared about, made fun of, or derided in the past but now suddenly care about because of some talking head. It's exhausting.
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      Too true. Until they realized they could use it to bully the trans community the only time they talked about the likes of the WNBA was in service of a punchline for a bad joke.
UltraSane 1y ago
Federal funding for solar farms will stop but private funding will continue because solar electricity is the the cheapest source right now.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Unless it gets outlawed, which I suspect is something Trump might do or attempt as part of his campaign in favour of fossil fuels and/or to own the libs/China. I'm also not clear how cheaply the US could make its own PV in the event of arbitrary trade war (let alone hot war) between the USA and China. (The good news there is that even in such a situation, everyone else in the world can continue to electrify with the panels, inverters, and batteries that the USA doesn't buy, but the linked article obviously isn't about that).
- criley2 1y ago
  It's more than just funding. There's a lot of regulatory hurdles and desire to use federal lands that will also be killed. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-officials-drop-major-solar-power-project-in-another-renewable-energy-attack https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-offici... >The following month, the president said his administration would not approve solar or wind power projects. “We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” he posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” Realisitically, solar is dead in America and China is the undisputed worlds #1 solar superpower. The US might hook up a few little projects here or there, but functionally the US is in full retreat on solar, cedeing the industry and technology to China.
  - UltraSane 1y ago
    The federal government doesn't have to approve solar farms built on private land. Solar is far from dead in the US and there is tons of private land solar farms can and will be built on.
    - criley2 1y ago
      Most the best land for solar farms in the west half of the US is controlled by the federal government. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Map_of_all_U.S._Federal_Land.jpg/1920px-Map_of_all_U.S._Federal_Land.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Ma... For example, there basically will not be large scale solar in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, etc under this administration. You know, some of the highest value spots.
IAmBroom 1y ago
[flagged]
rsynnott 1y ago
[flagged]
jibal 1y ago
Downvoted and yet plenty of support for the statement in the responses. (And I didn't even say in which direction it would change, or exactly what will change.)

paulnpace 1y ago

My experience has been that people living next to newly constructed solar farms are unhappy about living next to a solar farm. It is also my experience that this is a fringe opinion because a very low percentage of people live next to solar farms.

squigz 1y ago
"My experience is that people whose homes have burned down are unhappy that their homes burned down. It is also my experience that this is a fringe opinion" Like what?
- nemomarx 1y ago
  Is a solar farm being built nearby as bad as your house burning down? I didn't think the property value would change that drastically...
  - squigz 1y ago
    No, but I was trying to illustrate the absurdity of dismissing these as 'fringe' opinions, simply because they only apply to the segment of the population that are actually going through it.
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  Seeing them feels dystopian. I actually don't think that opinion is so fringe. There were lots of environmental protesters when the solar farm near us went up. The valley was rich in low shrubs and wildlife, and even some forest was leveled. A multi billion dollar energy company destroyed it to pick up their share of the free government funding while powering less than 2% of homes. Sure, it's better than a gas refinery or some other things you could find yourself living next to. But let's not ignore what's bad about our current solutions.
  - physicles 1y ago
    What do you propose instead?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

chasd00 1y ago

I’ve seen some of the ones out in far west Texas. They’re amazing, you see this blue shimmer on the horizon that looks about the size of a lake and then when you eventually get close enough it turns out to be a huge solar array. There’s some smaller ones just south of dfw that I drive by when going hiking at a state park my wife likes. Still impressive but nothing like the giant farms in west Texas.

alnwlsn 1y ago
Texas also has a lot of wind power. I was driving though at night one time and there were turbines on either side of the road as far as could be seen. Thing is, they are tall so they have those red airplane warning lights on top - which would all flash at exactly the same time. A rather trippy thing to see.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Depending on which one, most of them don't have airplane warning lights. There have been extensive study, and if done right you can only light up a small number but because the lights are synchronized that is a better stay away indication than having a light one them all. (lights not synchronized is a disaster - too many lights to keep track of)
  - dpe82 1y ago
    At first I questioned your assertion, but after reading the most recent FAA AC revision (https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_70-7460-1M_Change_1_POST.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...) I found: 13.5.3 In most cases, not all wind turbine units within a wind turbine farm need to be lighted. Obstruction lights should be placed along the perimeter of the wind turbine farm so that there are no unlit separations or gaps more than 1/2 SM (0.80 km) (see Figure A-26). Wind turbines within a grid or cluster should not have an unlighted separation or gap of more than 1 SM (1.61 km) across the interior of a grid or cluster of turbines
- jasonwatkinspdx 1y ago

dzonga 1y ago

the sad thing about this data is how politicized clean energy has become. the blue states have a lot of energy solar - while the red ones are sparse. the red ones get a lot of sun while the blue ones don't.

rapind 1y ago
[flagged]
- FrustratedMonky 1y ago
  What is the argument against it? I've never heard any logical reasons beyond hating the Left. It's like hating bikers, why? The same people that have pickup trucks and swerve to intimidate bikers, seem to hate solar energy. But why?
  - rapind 1y ago
    Rhetoric mostly I'd say. The idea being promoted is that clean energy subsidies hurt the honest Joe coal miner (details being very hand wavy). I'm not convinced it's really that well thought out though and might just be about owning the libs. Maybe there's a MAGA in here that can educate us.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Because anything one side says the other must automatically and reflexively oppose no matter what. The example here is Right hating on Left, but the Left as the same illogical hate against the right - though in different areas. This has often been blamed on first past the post voting - if you want to win you have to team up which means your views on Abortion and Environment Policy have to align even though there is no reason to think the two should have anything to do with one another. Since there is no room for thinking each side is correct one one and wrong on the other you have to oppose anything the other does without wondering if maybe they are correct. Now remember that are thousands (millions?) of different issues, and many of them have a range of different answers, yet there can only be one unified position that you support... I'm not convinced that the various alternatives are really better though. They all seem to have issues in the real world, and too often people will look at what they have an ignore the issues because they want to feel better.

ctime 1y ago

The arid and sunny west ware prime candidates for solar, yet the current administration is doing everything they can to further destroy any chance a future of being carbon neutral with cancellations of many projects. TFG cancelled a fairly far along project to build 6gw of solar in the Nevada desert just a few days ago known as Esmeralda 7. The ineptitude and grift of this administration will haunt this country for decades. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/feds-appear-to-cancel-vegas-sized-solar-project-planned-in-rural-nevada https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/feds-appear-to-canc...

adabyron 1y ago
There seems to be a decent counter argument about the size & impact to local environment. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/massive-esmeralda-seven-solar-project-in-nevada-killed-website-notice-shows/ https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/massive-esmeralda-s... I do not have a side as I don't know enough.
- whatisthiseven 1y ago
  I think every engineer knows that all things come with trade-offs. A great engineer, however, is able to readily admit when one option among others has a far, far greater set of costs than another, for the exact same benefit. And if said engineer can't decide (for claim of ignorance), they mature to learn that the experience and knowledge of others is the best source for understanding the trade-offs involved to make a decision. I think its pretty clear solar power has trade-offs. I think it's also obvious solar has far less negatives than all other power generating sources.
  - adabyron 1y ago
    Interesting that just sharing a link of the trade-offs got a bunch of down votes when I didn't even take a side. Maybe it was a misunderstanding of my intentions to purely share information based on your reply. If you don't mind, please help me understand. Did it come across as anti-solar in general? That's how I'm interpreting your reply. The article, which I wonder if anyone read, argues local environmental concerns based on the giant size of the solar farm. One of those things was mountain sheep that migrate across the lands. This would be creating a wall of sorts. Another was Native American archeology. What I'm ignorant of is if any of these issues were addressed at all & what the impact is. In a general sense, I'm a huge fan of solar farms. I think they make more sense than using land to plant corn for energy, which funny enough also got me down votes here.

bell-cot 1y ago

Speculation: The biggest reason for solar farms often being unpopular with locals is that, socially, they feel like dystopian giga-scale machines. Serving some far-away, unfriendly power. Utterly disinterested in the welfare, or even lives, of the local populace. Vs. almost any other business (farm, mine, oil drilling, warehouse, whatever) would both hire far more local people, and interact far more with the local community.

nocoiner 1y ago
The beginning of Blade Runner 2049 was a succinct depiction of the eternal struggle between Big Solar and the local grub farmers.
Dylan16807 1y ago
Is it intentional that you're listing export-based business as "local" while that solar farm probably does supply the town? It's a beautiful contrast either way.
- bell-cot 1y ago
  All the businesses produce fungible commodities, and feed those into distribution systems ~10000X larger than the town. So, socially, it does not matter where any given ear of corn, gallon of milk, or watt of electricity ends up.
onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
How is this different from >50% of farm land in the US growing corn for ethanol or corn or soy for export?
- bell-cot 1y ago
  If your next door neighbor worked on the production line at a tire factory, how much would it change your social relationship with him if half of those tires were being exported, or sold to manufacturers of ICE cars? Or - maybe you're an introvert, or live in a place where it's normal to have no social relationships with your neighbors. If so, try talking to somebody who has lived in a small farming community. It is a very, very different world.

jasoncartwright 1y ago

Very much enjoy this guy flexing his setup his always interesting articles

kiddico 1y ago
Half flexing and half avoiding answering questions about what he ran it on

t1234s 1y ago

Solar panels == shade. Any companies deploying solar in this manner (parking lots, pedestrian trails, bus benches, etc..)

rmason 1y ago
Locally Michigan State is covering all their parking lots with solar panels. The added advantage is that since you're car is parked under them you don't have to clear the snow off. https://ipf.msu.edu/about/news/solar-carport-initiative-earns-national-attention https://ipf.msu.edu/about/news/solar-carport-initiative-earn... But what I haven't figured out is if they have to broom them off after a snow or just wait until the sun melts it. By the time I am around in the afternoon time they are always cleared.
- labcomputer 1y ago
  No idea if anyone actually does this. In theory, you could forward-bias the panels with an external power supply. That should generate infrared light at the band gap, which should melt the snow. It might be enough to just form a thin layer of water, so the whole mass of snow slides off.
- torgoguys 1y ago
  For panels in northern climates, if the tilt is fixed or just seasonally adjusted (i.e., not tracking the sun), we often will bias towards a bit more vertical tilt than mathematically optimal to encourage snow shedding.
- jojobas 1y ago
  Unless it's borderline melting, brooming is not enough, you'd have to move the snow away or berms would form quickly.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Panels have a low albedo - they absorb a lot of energy. About 25% of that is turned into electricity, the rest heats the panel. So as soon as a corner is exposed to the sun, it tends to melt off the rest of the snow comparatively quickly.

thelastgallon 1y ago

Go vertical. Vertical panels take minimal space, can replace fences (everywhere!), nothing to clean (wind cleans it), heat dissipates and increases production, flattens the duck curve and produces energy during peak demand (early evenings), increases the window of time unlimited free energy is available. Vertical panels provide shade (and this can be calibrated for different types of plants) Vertical panels may even be stacked on top of one another. Considering how big a fan of solar panels this administration is, perhaps the Big Beautiful Border Wall can be built with vertical solar panels.