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American solar farms

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Re: American solar farms

#111

Post by southernplaces7 »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #52
dzonga wrote: post #45

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.

I don't disagree about it being politicized, but if you look at the states with the highest amounts of renewable generation, your second sentence is not supported. There is a LOT of wind energy in Republican-led states in places where wind makes sense.

It's lovely to see actual data swat away ideological mosquito bite sniping points.

The curious thing is that so many of these kinds of claims can be disproven in literally seconds to minutes in any debate, yet they persist.

Certain tendencies aside, republican and conservatives types aren't utter idiots and do know how sidestep some rally talk to serve their own benefit if they think it's practical, profitable and useful.

Not to mention that many conservatives love the field of off-grid prepping to this day and would certainly know about the value of solar, wind, hydro and any other robust renewable power technology. You're not going to build a coal plant or an oil refinery next to your deep-woods Utah cabin.

Re: American solar farms

#112

Post by volkl48 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #105
volkl48 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(To preface: I am strongly in favor of renewable energy overall). To the extent that there is anything real to their dislike: Poorly structured/overly generous homeowner net metering initiatives, especially for solar without storage, legitimately have escalated costs for everyone else in some regions. The excessive subsidy given to those homeowners for power that's often not very valuable (as it comes primarily at a…

Highest demand for energy is during the day. Highest output of solar is during the day. Your comment about energy supply implies we just don't need any solar at all. I think we need is a large set of incentives to do home solar with storage.

My comment doesn't imply that at all. We absolutely need more solar, and a lot of it. Just that we don't necessarily need more of it everywhere without making accompanying storage investments. (+ possibly transmission investments).

We shouldn't be overpaying in generous subsidies to homeowners for power mid-day where it's now worth the least.

Early net metering schemes were often basically 1:1. You supply a kWh mid-day where it's not worth much and that's "equal" in value to you drawing a kWh at 18:30, even though the market price of electricity then might be 10x what it was when you earned your "credit" and the grid is far more strained.

-------

Most regions that already have a decent amount of behind the meter home solar at this point exhibit a strong "duck curve" effect, at least on sunnier days. Mid-day demand is deeply suppressed while solar output is strongest.

Meanwhile, the AM/PM peaks remain and are at times of the day when solar output is very low.

With more storage - solar can help cover those peaks (+ overnight demand). Without, you're not accomplishing all that much by just depressing mid-day loads even further unless you can restructure society to better match it's energy demands to those solar supply curves.

A few illustrations/articles:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915

https://www.iso-ne.com/about/where-we-are-going/solar-power-... (New England).

Re: American solar farms

#113

Post by southernplaces7 »

pstuart wrote: post #95
bluGill wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

> the Left as the same illogical hate against the right Challenge accepted. Receipts please.

Firearms for home and personal defense. Also, not to even dig deeply into the many lunacies that the progressive left became insane about during the pandemic (both sides were guilty here, but it was BOTH sides).

Don't get too smug. You really think your entire half of a political spectrum is free of stupidity and irrational thinking?

Re: American solar farms

#114

Post by frenchman_in_ny »

chasd00 wrote: post #50
dzonga wrote: post #45

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.

Texas is about as red as it gets and leads the nation in renewable energy including solar. Red or blue, if the gov can setup a situation where renewable energy is profitable then nature will take its course. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-tops-us-states...

There's a very specific reason (or quirk) as to why Texas leads the nation in renewable energy -- ERCOT. Basically, 90% of Texas' electric load is serviced by in-state assets, and they have very few interconnections to the rest of the grid. The electricity dispatch curve is priced on the margin, on the cost to operate the last-fired generator (natural gas), and ERCOT has moved to grow solar as a way to reduce prices.[0]

ERCOT has also had a number of spectacular -- and costly -- failures.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_o...

Re: American solar farms

#115

Post by ben_w »

Zigurd wrote: post #102
ben_w wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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.

Oh, right; I agree, but that intent wasn't clear.

Re: American solar farms

#116

Post by rapind »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #113
pstuart wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Left as the same illogical hate against the right Challenge accepted. Receipts please.

Firearms for home and personal defense. Also, not to even dig deeply into the many lunacies that the progressive left became insane about during the pandemic (both sides were guilty here, but it was BOTH sides). Don't get too smug. You really think your entire half of a political spectrum is free of stupidity and irrational thinking?

> Firearms for home and personal defense.

Given the current political climate, the left should definitely get on board with this one ASAP.

There's lunacy on both sides for sure, but MAGA has a pretty strong hold on blatant cruelty when it comes to their issues. Also, I'd argue the Overton window has shifted pretty far right, so you have to be pretty extreme to be considered a right wing extremist these days. In fact, some of the major MAGA rallying points could actually be points of compromise to most progressives if they weren't so cruel about it (ICE, farm slavery visas, trans sports). Plus curiously the one we could all agree on but don't hear much about on the right anymore; Epstein.

Re: American solar farms

#117

Post by bell-cot »

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.

Re: American solar farms

#118

Post by dylan604 »

dzonga wrote: post #78
chasd00 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is about as red as it gets and leads the nation in renewable energy including solar. Red or blue, if the gov can setup a situation where renewable energy is profitable then nature will take its course. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-tops-us-states...

I lived in texas before & the first time I saw massive wind farms alongside oil pumps was in texas. wind turbines are wonderful things to look at. but yeah some of those were constructed in the years there was a "blue" admin n I guess market forces took over too.

If you can use free energy to power your pumps to bring out that oil that just means there's that much more profit in the dinosaur juice

Re: American solar farms

#119

Post by quickthrowman »

ben_w wrote: post #17
tecleandor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like monthly? Yearly?

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-pr...

High plains Nebraska land can support cattle grazing or maybe a wheat crop, given they receive less than 10” of rain per year.

Nobody is converting irrigated Ogallala aquifer farmland to solar fields, they’re taking marginal land used for grazing and using that for solar fields. Productive farmland can have wind turbines within it, due to the smaller footprint of the turbine tower.

Productive farmland is $10k+ an acre, more if it’s irrigated. The cost of rural land is based on the economic rents/value that can be extracted from the land.

Re: American solar farms

#120

Post by [deleted] »

dzonga wrote: post #45

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.

[deleted]
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