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American solar farms

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Re: American solar farms

#151

Post by adabyron »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #79
mantas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically I could see some reasons. Grids need serious upgrades to support personal solar properly. Which is €€€ and, if end-customers would have to foot the bill themselves, very few people would install solar at home. On top of that, at least in my whereabouts solar is receives a fuckton of subsidies. In the long run lower energy prices will pay back those subsidies for the society, but for now I could see why so…

Isn't US made equipment facing the headwinds of the US being anti-solar. It seems more like the US shot itself in the foot by letting the Chinese get the lead on this technology. And by subsidizing, and maybe regulating buying US, we could support our domestic industry. Seems like all over the place we are giving up and letting China win the technology race. Robots, cars, solar, all the future tech is in trouble. I d…

The US has invested a lot of money, lives, political capital & environment to become a big oil & gas producer.

One of it's potential weapons against China is that China imports most of it's oil & gas. China also has a few easy geographical choke points to prevent it from importing gas. Solar & wind plus electrical vehicles destroy this advantage.

So China has many reasons to push in this direction while the US is doubling down on it's bet, even while other historical oil countries like Saudi Arabia are diversifying away from oil.

It should also be noted that many Chinese companies are selling at a loss or very low margin, especially the electric car companies. https://www.reuters.com/investigations/china-is-sending-its-...

Re: American solar farms

#153

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

bluedino wrote: post #97
bongodongobob wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in Oconto county Wisconsin, residents are all up in arms about a solar farm going up. It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. The arguments against it are "this destroys farmland", "who will clean the snow off of it in winter", "I don't like how it looks", "static electricity will kill the crops around it", "it will raise the temperature of the surrounding area", "you can't re…

> It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. What money? Power bills won't go down. The solar panel factories aren't in that county. The installers will be brought in from out of state contractors.

Power bills will go down. Solar electricity is by far the cheapest form.

Re: American solar farms

#154

Post by Scoundreller »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #147
Scoundreller wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's their argument against interconnects though? Especially as you install more wind and solar, capturing (or sending) generation across a wider geographic area should regress-to-the-mean production and consumption better without turning on peaking plants that may be on for only hours a year. Or get natgas generation from areas where the natgas infra hasn't frozen solid.

Avoiding federal regulatory oversight. https://www.ferc.gov/introductory-guide-electricity-markets-... ("ERCOT is not subject to federal (FERC) jurisdiction because its grid is not connected to those of other states. Thus, power sales in ERCOT are not considered sales in interstate commerce and not subject to federal (FERC) oversight. That said, ERCOT runs some electricity markets that have similarities to those desc…

Maybe my wording is incorrect, I should have said "ties" instead of interconnects. Texas has several, just not much in aggregate capacity (can supply ~1-2% of peak demand):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection (see Ties section)

(Yes, they have to be HVDC or VFT).

Quebec operates like Texas does, for political reasons too, with ample export and import capacity (import/export capacity = 15/20% of peak consumption)

Re: American solar farms

#155

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

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?

being against the #1 killer of children in the US hardly seems insane to me.

Re: American solar farms

#156

Post by kixiQu »

cogman10 wrote: post #129
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...

Yup, my home state of Idaho also has a shockingly green energy portfolio. All of the PNW is like that because it's on a shared grid that has been primarily powered by hydro for as long as I've been alive. And still, we've seen a massive amount of green energy installed here. Both windmills and solar farms.

For what it's worth Oregon and Washington are pretty much at the bottom of new renewable installs: https://www.propublica.org/article/oregon-washington-green-e...

Re: American solar farms

#157

Post by adabyron »

ctime wrote: post #56

The arid and sunny west ware prime candidates for solar, yet the current administration is doing everything they can to further destroy any chance a future of being carbon neutral with cancellations of many projects. TFG cancelled a fairly far along project to build 6gw of solar in the Nevada desert just a few days ago known as Esmeralda 7. The ineptitude and grift of this administration will haunt this country for d…

There seems to be a decent counter argument about the size & impact to local environment. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/massive-esmeralda-s...

I do not have a side as I don't know enough.

Re: American solar farms

#158

Post by JuniperMesos »

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.

There are both red states and blue states in places in the US that are good for solar power (rural, lots of sun). The sunny American southwest with huge amounts of empty desert land good for solar arrays includes the states of California (blue), Arizona (red), Nevada (toss-up), New Mexico (blue), and Texas (red). And the party that a state's population prefers in presidential elections isn't stable over mutli-decade time periods, but this doesn't change suitability for solar energy production.

Re: American solar farms

#159

Post by JuniperMesos »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #153
bluedino wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. What money? Power bills won't go down. The solar panel factories aren't in that county. The installers will be brought in from out of state contractors.

Power bills will go down. Solar electricity is by far the cheapest form.

But it's unreliable, and needs a lot of battery tech + overbuilding to make it reliable. Can people be confident that building the array will in and of itself make their electricity bills go down?

Re: American solar farms

#160

Post by eigencoder »

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.

The blue ones generally have a lot of people and need a lot more energy
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