California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms • Hacker News Board

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#181

Post by yostrovs » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

door5 wrote: post #180

yostrovs wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is safe. It's safer than coal, solar, wind, and pretty much every other form of energy. And cleaner too. But it's "nuclear" and "radiation," which means half the public enters a state of paranoia. Do investigate the relative dangers of energy production.

The Fukushima disaster almost got to the point where they had to evacuate Tokyo . I support nuclear power, but to say that it is without risks and the public is just irrational is disingenuous.

Nobody has nor anyone will die from Fukushima. Tokyo wasn't evacuated.

I didn't say nuclear is without risks, but it is safer than other methods of producing lots of electricity

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#182

Post by squozzer » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #159

tyu1000 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These huge renewable projects do have major ecological impact, why lie about it? Due to low power generation density they take up a lot of space compared to fossil fuel/nuclear plants and that's not including the large amount of power lines that have to be run to all these new facilities. There are well known negative ecological impacts from the solar farms in this area that others have pointed out. Just because a de…

Well the alternative to more renewables is, realistically, more coal and gas. I think that covering up one or two percent of even the most valuable biomes with solar panels is no where near as destructive as climate change.

Another alternative is reducing energy consumption. I'm sure the people of California have no problem with the consequences of that.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#183

Post by squozzer » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #160

hyperbovine wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people willing to accept “local” environmental change are not local, are they? Let’s be honest, coastal liberals want to build solar in the desert so they can charge their Teslas with a clear conscience. The people actually living there resent this. It’s the same dynamic that’s been playing out for over a century between urban and rural CA as regards water.

At the end of the day someone gets the powerplant in their backyard.

And the defining characteristic of that decision is the social status of the location.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#184

Post by gdpgreg » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #112

jadell wrote: post #52

> “These vast open areas are precious for their natural, historical and recreational qualities. But they are fragile, and no amount of mitigation can counter the damage that industrial-scale renewable energy projects would cause,” Fairchild told the supervisors. “Once destroyed, these landscapes can never be brought back.” Because climate change won't destroy precious fragile landscapes? Okay, here's my deal: you get…

From the article: > The policy approved by the supervisors prohibits utility-oriented renewable energy projects — defined as projects that would mostly serve out-of-town utility customers, rather than local power needs — within the boundaries of Community Plans that have been adopted by more than a dozen unincorporated towns. It doesn't seem like they're opposing local renewable energy. They're opposing renewable ene…

The same can be said about any power flowing into the county. Wikipedia indicates that the two major power plants in San Bernardino county are in solar, thus they must be importing power at night in order to meet the cities needs. Consequently the argument "They're opposing renewable energy that is used primarily to serve out-of-town customers" can be applied for any and all energy projects which has/is currently fedding the county. The power grid is communal resource, all communities benefit from it and as a result we all need to contribute to it, if not you'll end up with islanded power distribution systems that are a lot more expensive.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#185

Post by telchar » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

tyu1000 wrote: post #153

jadell wrote: post #52

> “These vast open areas are precious for their natural, historical and recreational qualities. But they are fragile, and no amount of mitigation can counter the damage that industrial-scale renewable energy projects would cause,” Fairchild told the supervisors. “Once destroyed, these landscapes can never be brought back.” Because climate change won't destroy precious fragile landscapes? Okay, here's my deal: you get…

These huge renewable projects do have major ecological impact, why lie about it? Due to low power generation density they take up a lot of space compared to fossil fuel/nuclear plants and that's not including the large amount of power lines that have to be run to all these new facilities. There are well known negative ecological impacts from the solar farms in this area that others have pointed out. Just because a de…

While it seems like a bad idea to cut down a forest to replace it with a solar farm, that's not virgin forest. As cited by the article, the land has been timbered before. There is almost no virgin forest left in the eastern US at this point.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#186

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #86

mikeash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s renewable and carbon-neutral, why isn’t it an option to consume more?

I guess an argument could be that the distribution of electricity still costs money. For example, if households use more electric power, we can either increase the electric current or the voltage. For the former we may have to replace transmission lines to be thicker; for the latter we may have to reconfigure or perhaps rebuild the local transformers. In either case, there are other costs involved that do not involve…

There’s nothing wrong with increased costs per se. If people are willing to pay it, let them! The problem is when there are substantial externalities not reflected in the price, as is the case with electricity sourced from fossil fuel.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#187

Post by admax88q » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

zenexer wrote: post #30

killion wrote: post #12

It took me a while to find out why locals were saying solar farms cause dust storms. The locals claim solar farms destabilize the soil. Dust isn’t in the interest of the energy producer because it lowers efficiency so my assumption is that they would do everything to limit dust. I guess I’m surprised that the LA Times would publish a claim like that without comment or caveat.

They’re just reporting what each side is saying without arguing against their claims. They leave it to the reader to make of it what they will. In my personal opinion, this is how reporting should be. Don’t do my thinking for me and don’t lead me in a particular direction. I doubt most people actually believe dust has anything to do with it. They don’t want these infrastructure projects near them, plain and simple.

> In my personal opinion, this is how reporting should be. Don’t do my thinking for me and don’t lead me in a particular direction.

That's the type of reporting that leads to false equivalence and IMO wastes my time.

I don't need to hear "both sides" of every argument. I don't have enough time to understand every complex issue in detail. What I do need is a smart journalist I trust to investigate the issue, determine the truth and than share that with me along with the evidence that lead them to that conclusion.

That's actually useful to me. Currently reporting of just "Person A said blah, Person B said foo" doesn't help me, it leaves the power with whether A or B are more eloquent, deceitful or experienced, not who is more truthful or accurate. It can still be misleading based upon which pieces are chosen to be reported, and the parts left out people will naturally fill in with their personal biases about how they believe the world works.

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#188

Post by admax88q » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

undersuit wrote: post #83

analog31 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, this is a problem if each side is making claims without any attempt at quantifying or disclosing the relative magnitude of effects. That's a case where a reporter could do a little digging and fill in those details. For instance, how much dust? How is it stirred up? And so forth. You can still make of it what you will, but with better information. I encounter the same thing dealing with engineers. They wi…

Exactly. Can the dust be mitigated? Maybe via replanting afterwards? Or maybe the panels need to be farther apart to encourage regrowth of plants? Is a square field of panels more destructive than a longer line of panels? Are there construction vehicles that can cause less damage to the existing plant life? If journalism can't be bothered to do research maybe the rise of AI created factuals is well deserved.

Already you're assuming that the dust problem is truthful to begin with.

An investigative piece should actually look in to that claim rather than just repeat it. How can solar farms cause more dust than agriculture?

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#189

Post by admax88q » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

rlpb wrote: post #171

undersuit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Can the dust be mitigated? Maybe via replanting afterwards? Or maybe the panels need to be farther apart to encourage regrowth of plants? Is a square field of panels more destructive than a longer line of panels? Are there construction vehicles that can cause less damage to the existing plant life? If journalism can't be bothered to do research maybe the rise of AI created factuals is well deserved.

Like come other commenters here, I don't think it's a journalist's job to _do_ the research. However, the journalist can quite accurately report "X claims Y but says they haven't performed any research to quantify this claim". The key is to ask the question.

> I don't think it's a journalist's job to _do_ the research.

Then who's job is it?

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#190

Post by admax88q » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #124

r00fus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then source's credentials, data or other factual bases for the opinion can help the reader/listener/viewer decide (e.g. source1 is a 25y veteran meteorologist, source2's data is based on postings from 4chan). Without facts and common assumptions, opinions are noise.

And when what was posted on 4chan was links to a series of meteorological studies and reports? I'm not being obtuse - I think this is actually a perfect example of one of the many problems here. It's difficult to get (and in turn, give) a fair assessment of an issue without actually genuinely understanding the nuances of arguments on all significant sides. But issues are not simple and journalists are, in general, no…

> But issues are not simple and journalists are, in general, not qualified to meaningfully interpret the things they're reporting on

The general public is even less qualified to interpret things being reported on.

Jouralists who just repeat the press releases that each party gives are I believe a net negative. They set themselves up to be propaganda mouth pieces.

> Meteorological forecasts are pretty much meaningless at the 20 day level. Should our journalist mention this? Is failing to omit it misleading?

At some point certain topics are maybe just not worth reporting on at all. If there's no way to make a 20 day prediction beyond a wild guess, then why bother reporting that there's even a disagreement? The report at this point is "Two people make different guesses as to the value of a random variable."

It serves no purposes to report, and only creates a debate on a topic that there shouldn't be a debate about.