Growing crops under solar panels • Hacker News Board

Re: Growing crops under solar panels

#151

Post by thethethethe » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #147

thethethethe wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what point you are making that contradict my original comment. Yes deserts are less important to the health of the planet than biodiversity hotspots, but why would we destroy them when we have other alternatives?

Hasn't area of desert increased a lot in recent years. We hear, for example, about increased desertification in Saharan Africa. If we reverse some of that desertification that would seem to help?

From my other comment:

desertification is the destruction of arable land, not the expansion of healthy desert ecosystems. Healthy desert ecosystems are disappearing, not expanding

Re: Growing crops under solar panels

#152

Post by the8472 » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

thethethethe wrote: post #150

the8472 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing in deserts means you need minimal mechanical support for the panels. Parking lots require raised ones. Individual roofs are small compared to large solar farms. Most farming isn't compatible with panels (think tractors and harvesters). That it works for some fraction doesn't mean it's sufficient to get us the terawatts we need. And economics matter. If the installation is more expensive then it'll take lon…

So essentially you are saying we should destroy the environment because it appears to be cheaper in the short term? Sounds like a classic 20th century trapping that might not age so well when the externalities come back and demand repayment. I wouldn't underestimate the power of distributed arrays either. There are estimates that if every house had rooftop solar, it would generate 30-40% of total power demand [0], an…

> So essentially you are saying we should destroy the environment because it appears to be cheaper in the short term?

"Destroy the environment" is not a binary variable. Decentralized installations could also result in more emissions from transportation to reach all the places, it could eat up more resources (steel) for the support structures. No action you take (or don't take) will have zero side-effects.

So, I'm saying pick the most lifeless places you can find that are still reasonably close to some power distribution infrastructure and put it there. But of course also put it on rooftops and industrial ruins where reasonable. It's not an either/or thing.

> but we shouldn't just disregard the desert or other pristine ecosystems without also utilizing other alternatives to minimize our impact.

It's not disregarding them, it's making tradeoffs. If we need some cheap, flat, unobstructed land to get PV deployed then some marginal desert can be a better choice than cutting down forests, draining swamps or covering arable land.

Re: Growing crops under solar panels

#153

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

thethethethe wrote: post #151

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't area of desert increased a lot in recent years. We hear, for example, about increased desertification in Saharan Africa. If we reverse some of that desertification that would seem to help?

From my other comment: desertification is the destruction of arable land, not the expansion of healthy desert ecosystems. Healthy desert ecosystems are disappearing, not expanding

Then they're orthogonal, and siting such projects on land that has become desert in the last century, say, will not harm these "healthy desert ecosystems" you speak of?

Re: Growing crops under solar panels

#154

Post by no_wizard » Mon, Mar 20, 2023, 5:27 AM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #132

locallost wrote: post #69

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]. A…

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 mor…

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