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American solar farms

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Re: American solar farms

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think every engineer knows that all things come with trade-offs. A great engineer, however, is able to readily admit when one option among others has a far, far greater set of costs than another, for the exact same benefit. And if said engineer can't decide (for claim of ignorance), they mature to learn that the experience and knowledge of others is the best source for understanding the trade-offs involved to make…

People in cities are voting that rural people should bear the cost of getting power to the cities.

Like mining coal. Same as it ever was.

Re: American solar farms

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from rural Michigan and everyone in the areas where the turbines are complain about it. Its the view or its the sound. The former sure, the latter I haven't heard it myself but I don't go home anymore. It is also the only new investments made in the area in 50 years in any which way shape or form. When they first started, they had to build the infrastructure and stations to collect the power to transport it fr…

I wonder if the noise becomes a lesser concern once the turbines reach a certain size? I was in Iowa a couple of years ago and the sight of the turbines near the freeway was truly something, but I don't think I could hear them when I stopped to take a look.

I think it's just fud and nimbyism, I live very near a bunch of large windmills and I cannot hear them at all.

Re: American solar farms

#293

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 c…

Every new construction is always unpopular with locals. Farms smell. Businesses produce traffic and emit noise. Oil and gas annoy people for miles around with flaring. Heck, even pro-social ventures like pubs serving the local populace get complaints from other members of the local populace. This only gets mitigated by the social factor after something has existed for a long time.

Personally I like seeing renewables, big or small, cleanly producing energy for us to use. It's a small pro-social signal about environmental responsibility.

(my pet local hate, recently remediated after years of complaints from a twenty mile radius: Mossmorran flaring by Exxon-Mobil https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-5... )

Re: American solar farms

#294
post #223
post #222

Solar panels == shade. Any companies deploying solar in this manner (parking lots, pedestrian trails, bus benches, etc..)

Locally Michigan State is covering all their parking lots with solar panels. The added advantage is that since you're car is parked under them you don't have to clear the snow off. https://ipf.msu.edu/about/news/solar-carport-initiative-earn... But what I haven't figured out is if they have to broom them off after a snow or just wait until the sun melts it. By the time I am around in the afternoon time they are alway…

Panels have a low albedo - they absorb a lot of energy. About 25% of that is turned into electricity, the rest heats the panel. So as soon as a corner is exposed to the sun, it tends to melt off the rest of the snow comparatively quickly.

Re: American solar farms

#295
post #222

Solar panels == shade. Any companies deploying solar in this manner (parking lots, pedestrian trails, bus benches, etc..)

This gets proposed a lot. The reason it isn't more frequent is due to the cost of the structure to hold the panels & risks of people running into them. It would be great if these costs could come down. Parking lots, animal pastures & other areas could be protected & create energy at the same time.

The other main obstacle to solar construction anywhere is grid permitting.

Re: American solar farms

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dou…

I don't buy that it isn't in the US's strategic interest to diversify away from fossil fuels.

We know the shale oil boom wont last, that larger reserves are in other countries. The Us should be diversifying now, before it runs out. To be prepared. Eventually we'll just be back to beholding to some other country for oil.

It's like we were granted some breathing room and just squandering it, when we could be leaping ahead by developing other sources of energy.

Re: American solar farms

#297
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas also has a lot of wind power. I was driving though at night one time and there were turbines on either side of the road as far as could be seen. Thing is, they are tall so they have those red airplane warning lights on top - which would all flash at exactly the same time. A rather trippy thing to see.

Yeah, western Kansas is like that now too. A whole lot of wheat fields, wind turbines, and nothin' else.

Iowa too. Gives me something to look at when driving through

Re: American solar farms

#298
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! I think I understand what's going on here. I think we're having a few different misunderstandings, let me see if I can describe them. By "human sex" I'm referring to everything that developmentally contributes to a human sexual genotype or phenotype. Here is a fun textbook example of all the things that go into human sexual development: https://open.lib.umn.edu/evosex/chapter/8-7-variations-in-hu... From all th…

That textbook chapter you linked is quite revealing, thanks. I see that diagram in particular as a good demonstration of how the "sex is a spectrum" concept can't possibly work in practice. The number of arrows criss-crossing back and forth shows how impossible it would be to order disorders of sex development (DSDs) into a spectrum in any logically consistent manner. More importantly, there's not really any reason t…

Hi! I'm a little confused what the confusion is. Yes, talking about binary terms and using them as an abstraction and a summary is perfectly convenient, and can be useful, but that doesn't change the data. It's just a summary of a very complex system. The terms "female" and "male" have multiple definitions because of that. Here's an example from the dictionary:

Female: (1) Of or denoting the sex that produces ova or bears young. (2) Characteristic of or appropriate to this sex in humans and other animals. (3) Of or denoting the gamete that is larger and less motile than the other corresponding gamete. Used of anisogamous organisms. (4) Designating an organ, such as a pistil or ovary, that functions in producing seeds after fertilization. (5) Bearing pistils but not stamens; pistillate.

There's a few others, but that's why both males and females have both "male" and "female" sex hormones. They're different levels of abstraction. Yes, talking about these abstractions is very convenient for reproduction, that's why we created them, but they're inherently abstract. Just like talking about a voltage as 0V or "OFF" or "FALSE" when it's actually 0.12323V is perfectly convenient and useful.

I actually talk to several biologists on a regular basis, and this is all pretty standard, because mostly what we're doing is just talking about how science works and data.

Being dependent on multiple variables, having that many possible dimensions, makes the data a spectrum. We can summarize that data in arbitrary ways, including drawing an arbitrary line and sorting them into categories, but that doesn't fundamentally change the data. No one is confused when we talk about male and female hormones within an individual. If a person who presents as phenotypically female and considers herself a woman comes into a doctor's office and it's discovered she has XY chromosomes, no one is that surprised: we know about the SRY gene, we know about lack of testosterone receptors etc etc, we understand this is normal. Or if someone presenting as a woman comes in with a beard, no one is surprised. Hirsutism in PCOS is fairly common. We know men and women have both male and female hormones. Again, we know how all of this works, so no one is surprised. Talking about abstract concepts for reproduction is a useful model, but it is just a summary and an abstraction, and it does not change the diversity of human sexual development. Words and abstractions do not change actual biology. We change words and abstractions based on increased knowledge of biology. We can talk about abstractions until we're blue in the face, but ultimately it's only a useful way of trying to describe the actual data. Does that make sense?

Re: American solar farms

#299
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.

Where are all these "environmentalists" when it's coal mines and oil pipelines?

Re: American solar farms

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think every engineer knows that all things come with trade-offs. A great engineer, however, is able to readily admit when one option among others has a far, far greater set of costs than another, for the exact same benefit. And if said engineer can't decide (for claim of ignorance), they mature to learn that the experience and knowledge of others is the best source for understanding the trade-offs involved to make…

People in cities are voting that rural people should bear the cost of getting power to the cities.

They're free to move to cities if they don't like it.
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