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The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

bbc.com

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Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#31

Post by toper-centage »

xaedes wrote: post #25
newyankee wrote: post #6

This helps control evaporation losses as well, the water flow in canals is more predictable which helps. Also there is a great potential for floating solar especially behind existing hydro as the grid infrastructure almost exists.

A good point from a dead comment : "I wonder how this would affect the climate, the rains especially." Reducing water evaporation should have some kind of effect. Does anybody know of weather and/or rain effects due to these evaporation preventing floating black balls on reservoirs?

The reduction of evaporation is negligible when wete talking about affecting local climate. These are man made canals after all.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#32

Post by stuaxo »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #30
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell you what, why don't you give it a try? It should take 30 secs to disable JS on firefox, then see how it feels, re-enable it afterwards. See what a snappy web can feel like (when it doesn't break, which is ~30% of the time). I keep saying it, strange that nobody has ever said that they tried it. There seems to be some weird mental block around trying something new, even if easy to do and with possible benefits. W…

I'm going to ask again if someone would PLEASE give this a try and tell me what you think. Just 15 minutes, no more, just so we can get an unbiased opinion (ie not mine). If it turns out to be tolerable then you've got a trivially easy way of cutting carbon use, a little. thanks

The BBC page didn't seem to load at all, clicking the link above.

BBC is a bad choice as they don't have traditional ads, just ones for their own content.

Another note: the preference to disable JS is not surfaced in Firefox unless you go to about: config, so it is a little fiddly.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#33

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

stuaxo wrote: post #32
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to ask again if someone would PLEASE give this a try and tell me what you think. Just 15 minutes, no more, just so we can get an unbiased opinion (ie not mine). If it turns out to be tolerable then you've got a trivially easy way of cutting carbon use, a little. thanks

The BBC page didn't seem to load at all, clicking the link above. BBC is a bad choice as they don't have traditional ads, just ones for their own content. Another note: the preference to disable JS is not surfaced in Firefox unless you go to about: config, so it is a little fiddly.

Finally, some feedback! thanks.

The link I see is https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200803-the-solar-canals... and it works fine for me. What do you see?

I'm very surprised about the JS, when I used firefox (I now use palemoon) it was under preferences. Noted, thanks.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#34

Post by raducu »

rblatz wrote: post #2

This is an awesome idea that I hope SRP adopts here in Phoenix. We have plenty of sun, and canals crisscross the whole valley.

Aren't the metal structure that can bridge the gap more expensive than the ones planted on ground?

If land is expensive, then it might be worth it.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#35

Post by CyberDildonics »

xaedes wrote: post #25
newyankee wrote: post #6

This helps control evaporation losses as well, the water flow in canals is more predictable which helps. Also there is a great potential for floating solar especially behind existing hydro as the grid infrastructure almost exists.

A good point from a dead comment : "I wonder how this would affect the climate, the rains especially." Reducing water evaporation should have some kind of effect. Does anybody know of weather and/or rain effects due to these evaporation preventing floating black balls on reservoirs?

You might want to check the numbers on the cost of enough solar panels to actually affect evaporation enough to make any change in local climate.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#36

Post by raducu »

elongatedMusku wrote: post #8
newyankee wrote: post #6

This helps control evaporation losses as well, the water flow in canals is more predictable which helps. Also there is a great potential for floating solar especially behind existing hydro as the grid infrastructure almost exists.

I wonder how this would affect the climate, the rains especially.

Given that a square of 300X300km would produce enough electricity to power the WHOLE WORLD, and 300X300km square of ocean is such a minuscule thing, I'd say -- no measurable impact.

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#37

Post by CyberDildonics »

Baeocystin wrote: post #19
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loaded in well under 2 secs for me (no JS, all ads blocked, not that there will be on the bbc)

Makes me wonder just how much power/carbon waste goes in to ads vs content on the modern web.

A pi-hole dns filter will typically block 10%-30% of all domain queries (for a fast and loose estimate).

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#38

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

stuaxo wrote: post #32
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to ask again if someone would PLEASE give this a try and tell me what you think. Just 15 minutes, no more, just so we can get an unbiased opinion (ie not mine). If it turns out to be tolerable then you've got a trivially easy way of cutting carbon use, a little. thanks

The BBC page didn't seem to load at all, clicking the link above. BBC is a bad choice as they don't have traditional ads, just ones for their own content. Another note: the preference to disable JS is not surfaced in Firefox unless you go to about: config, so it is a little fiddly.

Yep, they removed it

"Beginning from Firefox version 23, Firefox web browser from Mozilla has removed the UI to disable and enable the JavaScript (JS) on web pages from “Content” tab of web browser’s Options menu."

https://techjourney.net/disable-javascript-in-firefox/

Re: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space

#39

Post by AlotOfReading »

rblatz wrote: post #2

This is an awesome idea that I hope SRP adopts here in Phoenix. We have plenty of sun, and canals crisscross the whole valley.

Fun fact about those canals: many of them are close to 1,000 years old. The modern incarnation largely follows the old Hohokam canal system, though some of the newest, most expensive parts carefully deviate from it.
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