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In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

theguardian.com

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Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#81

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

Animats wrote: post #60
danw1979 wrote: post #58

I took a stroll recently through the countryside around Swindon, UK, where there’s a massive new solar farm on formerly arable land. One thing I only just realised was how the view from the ground is so badly affected when you’re down amidst the endless rows of panels - they reach well above head height. It’s basically like walking through a industrial estate, just with more grass in between. Really very bleak. Give…

Needs a beauty strip of trees around the panels.

Most of the new solar farms do plant them, it just takes decades for trees to grow big enough to hide the panels

Personally I like the panels

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#82

Post by ninalanyon »

SoftTalker wrote: post #14
darth_avocado wrote: post #13

This would’ve been a non issue if human beings worked together as a species, but we don’t. There is plenty of space on the planet where no one lives and nothing thrives that could be converted massive solar farms that power the planet.

Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where people do live becomes the problem with that.

The only real problems with long distance electricity transmission are political and to a lesser extent financial. Technically it is solved problem.

The Desertec project could have turned a relatively small patch of Libyan desert into a solar farm that could supply all of Europe's electricity except that politics makes it impossible.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#83

Post by amarant »

fritzo wrote: post #57
SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Denmark is a poor location for solar. They are pretty far north and don't have a lot of sunny days that are good for solar generation. When they do, those peaks drive energy prices negative. From the article: Over the next 10 years, the official expectation is a very large rise in the amount of solar produced. But that kind of clashes with the reality on the ground – they can’t make money

If it's a poor location for photovoltaics, it's exactly as a poor for photosynthesis

It's very seasonal for both. But we're currently better at storing wheat for 6 months than we are at storing electricity for a similar period.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#84

Post by sophacles »

ls612 wrote: post #36

Regardless of your political beliefs I would hope you could agree that using arable land for solar power is dumb. Denmark is almost entirely arable land and relatively small to boot so they should be using more compact power sources.

Why would I agree to such a stupid position?

Here in the us we could swap acres of corn used only for ethanol production for acres of solar panels that produce a 100x more power annually.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#85

Post by amarant »

ceejayoz wrote: post #37
karamanolev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of Texan electrical isolationism, but "people dying every winter from power outages" is stretching it a bit...

Every winter is a stretch, yes. But they did get a big warning shot in 1989 and 2011, and ignored those lessons for cost reasons. A couple hundred people died.

Which actually works out to rather more than one person per winter, when averaged out.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#86

Post by ninalanyon »

Sharlin wrote: post #29
SoftTalker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where people do live becomes the problem with that.

Building HVDC lines from North Africa to Europe, for example, wouldn't be a huge feat of civil engineering. Rather standard stuff, really.

Spain and Morocco already have a 1.4 GW DC interconnect and the XLinks project intends to connect Morocco and the UK.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#87

Post by iso1631 »

jmward01 wrote: post #72

We are at a moment where we are finding more and more ways to integrate solar in. It is likely we will go 'too far' in some ways but hopefully over the next few decades we will see a lot more well integrated solutions like vertical panels complementing farming and solar integrated, potentially with lower efficiency but also less impact, into things like building surfaces and other non-traditional places. Getting a di…

I live in the UK in a town of 10,000 people, so say 4,000 houses (probably far higher than there are). If every house had a 10kWp (way more than most installs) that would be 40MW generation.

On the outskirts of town we have a 40MW solar farm about the same size as the golf course. Most people have no idea it's there, it uses barely any land compared to the rest of farmland around here. That generates about 40GWh a year.

The cost of renting the land it's on each year is about £20k a year, or 50p per MWh, basically nothing. Land is effectively free compared to the value from "farming the sun", it's far cheaper than the scaffolding to put 8kWp on a roof

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#88

Post by simmerup »

carefree-bob wrote: post #77
simmerup wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change is an existential threat, it's switch to green power asap or burn the world our kids will live in

[flagged]

It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit happens in 100 years so of course you're not going to see it materialize over night

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#89

Post by signatoremo »

zipy124 wrote: post #55
mellosouls wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not buying that this isn't anti renewable propaganda for the US" Its the Guardian so that is a very unlikely motivation.

The guardian have previously been found to generate a significant amount of ad revenue from fossil fuel companies. They aren't politically aligned with it, but are financially. Remember that a large portion of the left in the UK are also anti-solar since they are pro-green nature and they have yet to make a choice on this. P.s I am pro renewable and pro-solar/wind/nuclear just to clarify that this is nothing about my…

Cite your source. The Guardian stopped accepting ads from the fossil industry 6 years ago - [0]

It is convenient to be suspicious against news that isn’t aligned with your views.

[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2020/jan/29/...

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#90

Post by etiam »

jmward01 wrote: post #73
SoftTalker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where people do live becomes the problem with that.

I've been watching the math of batteries and cargo ships and we may not be too far from shipping electrons generated in the Sahara to the UK and Europe at a reasonable price. That totally changes the game if you have cargo ships moving to where the power will be needed. I can imagine these ships going to where the weather is predicted to cause an issue to help even out the grid and just in general creating a responsi…

Does it still work out if you take into account the insurance premiums for a cargo ship stacked with batteries? Can't imagine the fire hazard is pretty.
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