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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

#181

Post by garte »

jeppester wrote: post #164
garte wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that all that "nature" you desire is synthetic? Living in rural areas without actually working there is as far from a natural state as it can be: the whole lifestyle is based on subsidies by cities and technology: your concrete, your car, your heating, your power, groceries... it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. So maybe accepting some part of that technology to stand on your "natur…

It seems as though you are antagonizing a certain imaginary group of people that I do not belong to, just because I chose to live in the country side. There was a reason I used the phrasing "green surroundings", I'm well aware that it's not "nature" in the sense of being untouched by humans. There are hardly any such places in Denmark. Nevertheless people live here because they like these surroundings, it doesn't mak…

Thanks for your thorough response, I appreciate it.

My point was less that "everything comes from the city" but that living in the countryside has massive externalities that get deposited elsewhere as I mentioned.

So it would be kind of fair to at least start accepting some externalities - like energy - to be actually part of your living reality.

In essence: you need energy, get it yourself and don't NIMBY your way out of the consequences of "living in the countryside".

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

#182

Post by garte »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #165
garte wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that all that "nature" you desire is synthetic? Living in rural areas without actually working there is as far from a natural state as it can be: the whole lifestyle is based on subsidies by cities and technology: your concrete, your car, your heating, your power, groceries... it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. So maybe accepting some part of that technology to stand on your "natur…

> it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. Which come from where? Last I checked there weren't many pump jacks in Copenhagen. Pretty much all material wealth of modern society comes from raw materials sourced in rural areas. Those then get processed locally (e.g you don't waste money shipping logs, you mill them and ship boards) and post processed in increasingly urban areas. It's the paper pushi…

Cozy small time agriculture in the west is a small part of your general food supply. The rest is in places you do not want to live and is called monoculture.

All "raw materials" you mentioned are not produced "in the countryside" in either Denmark or most of the West.

It all starts with oil and energy. Nothing else matters as much. So getting off oil and producing energy in other ways is at the forefront of our struggle as a species and if you deny this progress because it hinders the view from your detached house porch I get the impression you have not really realized the situation we are in.

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

#183

Post by littlestymaar »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #180
littlestymaar wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they don't have a free house to be mounted on. Rooftop solar is more expensive than solar farms. There's nothing free in putting a solar panel on a roof. (Which is a pity because it means that if your country doesn't have a desert, the economically optimal way of installing solar panels is deforestation, but that's the world we live in…). > Because it turns out, a 60 degree angle that completely avoids shade is…

> Not at all… > The sun isn't just going up and down you know it also circles from east to West… Over a narrow range in winter. You get good coverage from pointing very south and avoiding shade. > I'm sorry but this is utter bullshit. The commercial plants do avoid shade as much as possible because shade destroy efficiency They do not avoid it "as much as possible". The panels are shading each other in that very phot…

> They do not avoid it "as much as possible". The panels are shading each other in that very photo

You haven't linked the photo…

> It's basic trigonometry. Narrow spacing needs the sun to get pretty high before shading stops.

Of course it's “basic trigonometry”… It doesn't matter if the panels are shaded when the incidence angle is high anyway!

> The limiter is the price of land. If land was free I guarantee they would spread them out more.

They wouldn't, they'd just put more panels on a bigger surface. And again, industrial actors are maximizing the economic output they can make. Whatever decision you take at your level, it's going to be more expensive than what they are doing, and more efficient.

> No it's not! If you need it for most of the year it's not "over"

Yes it is… By definition you are over-paneling if your peak production is higher than what you use. This threshold is important because cost calculations only works when you haven't reached that yet!

> If you need 5x or more for half the year, you calculated "x" wrong. Your math is what's nonsense here.

X is the value for which the cost/MWh makes sense. The further you got from there, the bigger fraction of the power is unexploited and the higher the cost per unit of useful electricity rises.

I didn't invent these concepts or these calculations, those are standards when talking about solar.

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

#184

Post by animal531 »

Not mentioned is that studies are showing that areas over solar farms remain stable in temperature, but surrounding areas get a few degrees warmer, which is problematic for either people living close to them and/or if they are planted next to crops, other infrastructure etc.

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

#185

Post by ceejayoz »

gottorf wrote: post #129
ceejayoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But they did get a big warning shot in 1989 and 2011, and ignored those lessons for cost reasons. Cost is always a valid reason! > A couple hundred people died. Looks like about a thousand people in the US die of hypothermia every year, on average. So this happens frequently in states that aren't in its own interconnection, too.

> Looks like about a thousand people in the US die of hypothermia every year, on average.

In their powerless homes?

I don't doubt people get lost in the woods. But that's not some systemic failure.

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

#186

Post by cucumber3732842 »

garte wrote: post #182
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. Which come from where? Last I checked there weren't many pump jacks in Copenhagen. Pretty much all material wealth of modern society comes from raw materials sourced in rural areas. Those then get processed locally (e.g you don't waste money shipping logs, you mill them and ship boards) and post processed in increasingly urban areas. It's the paper pushi…

Cozy small time agriculture in the west is a small part of your general food supply. The rest is in places you do not want to live and is called monoculture. All "raw materials" you mentioned are not produced "in the countryside" in either Denmark or most of the West. It all starts with oil and energy. Nothing else matters as much. So getting off oil and producing energy in other ways is at the forefront of our strug…

I was speaking globally, it's not like Denmark is producing tons of crops. I agree small time boutique agriculture and a lot of the regulatory policy (i.e. crapping on any sort of value producing industrial activity while exempting other things of which farming is one) that enables it is a short sighted scourge that stunts economic development, a sort of "the island tourism economy" we have at home if you will.

That said, I'm happy to watch the people who want to peddle that garbage fling poo at the people who want to peddle bigco solar/wind farm projects because they're bad too. Most of them are miracles of financial/regulatory engineering that only really move panels and electrons around as a pretext for the former and the end result is they drive up the marginal price of all sorts of things and far too often only deliver value to the investors. This is shortsighted and will ultimately hamper adoption of these technologies and is already damaging our institutions.

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

#187

Post by Dylan16807 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #183
Dylan16807 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not at all… > The sun isn't just going up and down you know it also circles from east to West… Over a narrow range in winter. You get good coverage from pointing very south and avoiding shade. > I'm sorry but this is utter bullshit. The commercial plants do avoid shade as much as possible because shade destroy efficiency They do not avoid it "as much as possible". The panels are shading each other in that very phot…

> They do not avoid it "as much as possible". The panels are shading each other in that very photo You haven't linked the photo… > It's basic trigonometry. Narrow spacing needs the sun to get pretty high before shading stops. Of course it's “basic trigonometry”… It doesn't matter if the panels are shaded when the incidence angle is high anyway! > The limiter is the price of land. If land was free I guarantee they wou…

> You haven't linked the photo…

The one at the top of the article.

> They wouldn't, they'd just put more panels on a bigger surface.

Given a specific budget they can only buy so many panels. Free land would change the tradeoffs.

> And again, industrial actors are maximizing the economic output they can make.

Based on current costs. Change the costs and the methods change too.

> Whatever decision you take at your level, it's going to be more expensive than what they are doing, and more efficient.

No. I already have the land and the house. That means most efficient for me is different.

I don't want to waste any more of our time arguing about how to define X so I'll skip the rest.

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

#188

Post by nixpulvis »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #116
nixpulvis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're qualified to make this assessment. If a large majority of the scientific community is treating it and calling it an existential threat, I'm tempted to agree. In fact, I think most widely held scientific stances on this are meant to be balanced and as agreeable as possible, so I personally believe it's likely to be worse than the mainstream opinion. Climate migration is already an issue. Extreme c…

> large majority of the scientific community is treating it and calling it an existential threat I haven’t seen evidence of this. What I see is scientists making measured predictions about massive costs in human life, economies, refugee crises, and wars. Extinctions. Like, horrible stuff. But not extinction or even civilisational collapse.

So extinctions, but not extinction?

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

#189

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nixpulvis wrote: post #188
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> large majority of the scientific community is treating it and calling it an existential threat I haven’t seen evidence of this. What I see is scientists making measured predictions about massive costs in human life, economies, refugee crises, and wars. Extinctions. Like, horrible stuff. But not extinction or even civilisational collapse.

So extinctions, but not extinction?

> extinctions, but not extinction?

Yes. Extinctions are horrible, but they aren’t an existential threat to us. Climate change simply isn’t an existential threat. That doesn’t mean it isn’t urgent. Like, the Bronze Age collapse and black plague and WWII weren’t existential, doesn’t mean they’re fine. But raising the stakes beyond what the science says like this undermines the credibility of the real warnings.

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

#190

Post by flohofwoe »

jeppester wrote: post #154
shibapuppie wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the over-under on tire and brake dust settling on panels next to (presumably) high-speed motorways?

Thank you for bringing this up. It's not something I've thought of as a problem before. It does in fact - based on my 5 minutes of research - seem that it can be an important factor, especially if the panels are placed within "splash range" of the road. When I mention solar panels near motorways I'm not picturing them right next to the road, I'm thinking of larger strips, perhaps 30-100 meters from the road and in ar…

> When I mention solar panels near motorways I'm not picturing them right next to the road, I'm thinking of larger strips, perhaps 30-100 meters from the road and in areas that have already become unattractive due to noise pollution. There are many such areas.

FWIW, most of the bigger solarfarms in East Germany seem to be on former Cold War airbases, or in former lignite mining areas. IMHO a pretty good 'land recycling strategy':

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1658488,12.4325343,5059m/dat...

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8290328,13.6890243,2783m/dat...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3296415,12.6590003,1983m/dat...

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.633346,13.7674599,1989m/data...

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.9209948,13.2235344,3356m/dat...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5524298,13.9695021,4648m/dat...

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.612948,14.2381122,2691m/data...

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