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Power Earth United States

Facing Resistance, Large-Scale Solar Installations Search for 'Creative' Locations (nbcnews.com) 127

NBC News reports that energy analysts "still expect most solar energy production in the near future to come from utility-scale projects, in part because of the savings that comes with massive installations."

Unfortunately, "It's those projects that are facing pushback." Local governments in states such as California, Indiana, Maine, New York and Virginia have imposed moratoriums on large-scale solar farms, as a national push for cleaner energy has collided with complaints about how the projects affect wildlife and scenic views. In one Nevada town west of Las Vegas, residents are trying to block a proposed 2,300-acre solar field. NBC News counted 57 cities, towns and counties across the country where residents have proposed solar moratoriums since the start of 2021, according to local news reports, and not every proposed ban gets local news coverage. At least 40 of those approved the measures. Other localities did so in earlier years.

That resistance is a threat to the big ambitions of the solar energy movement.

The current workaround? Solar panel installations "in unexpected places..." [Walmart] told NBC News it has more than 550 renewable energy projects, including solar and wind, implemented or under development. Several have opened recently in California, including with parking lot canopies. The company has a goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, up from 36 percent by its estimate now....

Houston has chosen the 240-acre site of a former landfill to install what the city said will be the largest infill solar project in the nation. In a neighborhood named Sunnyside, the project will generate enough electricity for 5,000 homes, according to the city. Similar projects have been built on landfills throughout New Jersey. An energy firm is building a solar project on a former coal mine on the border of Kentucky and West Virginia, while in New York state, researchers at Cornell University are testing putting solar panels in a field where sheep graze.

A city in Northern California says it has the largest floating solar farm in the U.S. at its wastewater treatment plant, and in January, a China-based energy company said it had built the world's largest floating solar array on a reservoir there. And last year, the Biden administration encouraged the development of solar projects on highway right-of-way, with a notice from the Federal Highway Administration telling field offices to work with states on ideas. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, including Webber, have said most states have more than 200 miles of interstate frontage suitable for solar development, especially near exits and rest stops.

Creative locations have a particular benefit: fewer potential neighbors who might complain.

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Facing Resistance, Large-Scale Solar Installations Search for 'Creative' Locations

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  • There are more than enough rooftops on homes to generate enough power for everyone.

    • There are more than enough rooftops on homes to generate enough power for everyone.

      If they were all suitable, and if they were all oriented usefully, and if they would all support panels, and oh yeah, most solar installer deaths are on residential roofs.

      My first glance at TFS made me shake my head, obviously whoever wrote it is a dumbshit because "in unexpected places..." doesn't include over car parks, which are literally one of the most expected places. They have great accessibility, are located at the point of use, and provide secondary energy savings benefits because the vehicles unde

      • Starting with residential roofs is dumb. That should be the LAST place we install solar panels! It makes the most sense to cover parking lots, THEN you do massive grid-scale installs, THEN you cover the houses. As the most dangerous and least convenient place to do the installs, it makes the least sense to do them first.

        In addition, a large distributed network of roof top installations is hard to control for a load dispatcher; where as a large installation such as on a carpark allows dropping a larger load quickly when needed. Problem is one of the selling points for rooftop is selling power back to recoup costs; along with the "no cost to you" pitch; unless of course you can't make payments and the lose your home since it is a primary lien. Every wonder why salesperson don't worrry about things like credit rating when p

      • " car parks, which are literally one of the most expected places."
        Yet they are at the highest risk of being hit by cars. Whether this is truly a problem I don't know (but I don't have too much faith in drivers).

        • In places where solar installations would make the most sense, parking lots covered with canopies are already common (to keep car interiors from getting too hot in treeless parking lots). Presumably drivers in these areas are already used to navigating the canopy supports which would also be used to support the panels. Even uncovered lots are filled with light poles and other obstacles. Sure, people are stupid but they're not THAT stupid.

          • by necro81 ( 917438 )

            Sure, people are stupid but they're not THAT stupid.

            Oh, they definitely are that stupid. I have, for instance, seen some wahoo in an F-250 back into a parking spot and, in the process, knock over the "Compact Car Only" sign that didn't reach above the truck bed's cover. Even then, his front end stuck a good two feet farther out than any surrounding vehicle.

            But on the whole losses resulting from such stupidity are acceptable and insurable.

        • It's not a big problem because you put each support on top of a concrete support that's big enough that it will win against even a large vehicle. Then you surround that with some xeriscaping to make it not look shit with minimal maintenance.

      • and oh yeah, most solar installer deaths are on residential roofs.

        That's a construction industry problem more than anything else. Idiot fly by night cowboys building a business from nothing installing some panels on roofs without even the most basic safety precautions.

        There's nothing inherently unsafe about rooftop solar, it just attracts more idiots with less oversight than bigger projects given to larger industrial contractors.

        • There's nothing inherently unsafe about rooftop solar

          The argument against bears a resemblance to the argument against nuclear. Humans will be involved, and they will do dumb things. But there are obvious beneficial economies of scale involved in doing larger projects, as well. If everyone could self-install then you'd just ship everything to everyone on the trucks that are already driving around, but since they can't the installers have to do a bunch of extra travel for those residential installs.

          I'm not dead-set against it, but if we were going to spend taxp

          • by jbengt ( 874751 )

            White is the best color for a roof all year.

            From an energy-use standpoint the best "color" is actually a reflective surface with low emissivity.

            • From an energy-use standpoint the best "color" is actually a reflective surface with low emissivity.

              You mean white? Preferably flat white? We do have exotic coatings that are even better, but so far they are expensive and have limited lifespans. You do sometimes get into the position of having to clean a white roof to make it whiter, but even a stained white roof is going to be better than most of what we usually use.

          • Commercial roofs are usually flat and more ideal to setup a bunch of panels. Every building thats not a skyscraper would be valuable real estate that doesnt require a ton of construction. Save the really tall buildings for theeir inherent wireless transmitter locations that they already are; use the flat roofs on every walgrees, planet fitness, strip Mall, etc for solar.
            • Commercial roofs are usually flat and more ideal to setup a bunch of panels.

              They're certainly commonly a more convenient place to put them than most residential roofs. Although frankly it would be a better use of that space to install more literally green roofs, and grow food there. Transportation of delicate vegetables (mostly leafy greens) is expensive and wasteful. Even very lightweight roofs of the kind which frequently appear on commercial buildings can commonly support aeroponic farming, with the reservoirs and pumps stored in a room on the floor below.

              Windows with semi-trans

            • Commercial roofs are usually flat and more ideal to setup a bunch of panels.

              A friend's home in a sunny state has a large flat accessible roof. He filled it with as many panels as could fit, optimally oriented and angled. He goes up there to clean the panels monthly, efficiency requires this in his opinion. And still the power generation is at its best moments noticeably below the salesman's projections. Even with his optimal configuration in a sunny state he finds it to be uneconomical, a vanity project.

              And he has not even had to deal with the costs of panel replacement and deal

              • Then the salesman is a fraud.

                It is not very difficult to read the sticker on the panel and calculate yourself how much power/energy it will generate.

                Or: he has not oriented them optimal. Did he take into account the slope?

                They are considered toxic waste.
                Unlikely. For that he would have had to buy high end thin film solar panels, which he most likely did not.

                Some commercial scale solar panel farms are replacing their panels before they reach their rated end of life and selling them as used to the developin

                • I see significant quantities of used solar panels on a fairly regular basis, so clearly someone is removing arrays which are not residential. On the other hand, these panels seem to be readily purchased by the used market in this country as they never sit around for long.

                  Modern solar panels are generally required to be landfillable, so I don't know where they get this BS about toxicity either.

                  • by drnb ( 2434720 )

                    Modern solar panels are generally required to be landfillable, so I don't know where they get this BS about toxicity either.

                    In the EU they are required to be recycled, not landfilled. Replacing them before end of life and selling as used allows commercial operators to dodge these regs. Also dodges any hazardous waste issues. Export the hazardous waste to the third world as usual.

                    In the US operators generally only need to dodge the hazardous waste issues.

                    Examples of toxicity:

                    "Not all PV modules are hazardous. PV modules can contain heavy metals such as silver, copper, lead, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, which at certain le

                  • by drnb ( 2434720 )

                    Modern solar panels are generally required to be landfillable

                    As if landfilling those that are "not" hazardous isn't a problem in and of itself.

                    Expect the US to follow the EU and require recycling. A surprise expense for current homeowners.

                    • I'm fine with recycling requirements, especially if you bake that into the prices up front for an actually reasonable price like we do in California with consumer electronics already.

                      I'm not suggesting that landfilling panels is good, but panels rarely require disposal anyway as few of them are broken. They are surprisingly durable If you have only a few whole panels you can give them away easily enough, and if you have many then you can probably sell them by the pallet profitably. Again, judging by the ava

                • by drnb ( 2434720 )

                  Then the salesman is a fraud.

                  Kind of a given. At best there is no outright lying, just partial leading information that allows the recipient to fill in the details with their optimistic imagination the salesman knows is almost certainly wrong. I am ashamed to say I was trained in these dark arts in early college days, summer break jobs in sales. Led me to avoid sales and marketing going forward. Although I learned later things can be done with honesty, its just takes more work to do so. So human nature being what it is ...

                  It is not very difficult to read the sticker on the panel and calculate yourself how much power/energy it will generate.

                  Actually it i

          • There's also real downsides such as not resolving the issue of space and transport infrastructure. There's something to be said for consumers generating energy on location rather than having to maintain large infrastructure to transfer it.

            Australia leads the world in per-capita solar consumption, that is partially due to an abundance of sunlight, but also largely due to a huge government program that subsidised rooftop solar installations. Last year alone saw a 3GW increase in installed capacity of rooftop

            • The canal covering idea is stupid. It doesn't solve the NYMBI issue (if they can't be built in empty fields then canals won't be any better)

              Canals (at least, in the Turlock, CA area) are so ugly no one is complaining about NIMBY issues with putting solar panels on top.

      • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        Rooftop solar is also located at the point of use and cools the house underneath it.

        Over car parks need more supporting structure than rooftop solar. Also they need parking lots which are an ecological and financial disaster [reddit.com] of their own. (To be fair, so are single family detached homes [streetsblog.org].)

        • by necro81 ( 917438 )

          Rooftop solar is also located at the point of use and cools the house underneath it.

          Over car parks need more supporting structure than rooftop solar.

          You frame it as an either-or kind of choice, like we are only going to install on rooftops or over carparks. There's more than enough spaces of both kinds to install solar. Most of the best-suited locations have yet to be tapped.

      • Starting with residential roofs is dumb.

        According to you, using a stupid, single metric maybe.

        Putting solar over a walmart parking lot or alongside the interstate doesn't protect my roof, doesn't keep my house cool, and doesn't make me any money. It doesn't keep my fridge running during a power outage. Putting solar on my expansive south facing roof would do all those things.

        It would be dumb for me to support solar elsewhere over my own house given the benefits to me personally. As prices have fallen the payback time has dipped under 10 years for

        • I'm fine with you putting solar on your roof. I'm putting solar all over our RV because power plus shade, so I get your argument. I don't think society should [help] put solar on your roof though, it should be up to you or other commercial entities, because there are better places to put it first.

      • Another big advantage of putting them in parking lots: no one's going to complain you're ruining the beauty of the parking lot.

        No, I should say that. I'm sure someone will manage to complain even about that. But not many people.

      • Both make sense. Car parking lots as well as residential roofs.

        Car parking for the cases you mention, especially as "they do not need storage", the energy is consumed/produced when it is needed most.

        However a residential roof has the benefit of being small, hence cheap, and as it is a house, it likely has a basement or another place you can place a battery. All owned by the same person/company. it is easy to calculate if you want a battery and what it might cost.

        The question only is: how/if you subsidize on

    • There are more than enough rooftops on homes to generate enough power for everyone.

      At significant expense. You lose the economy of scale, you lose the ability to precisely orient the panels or use solar tracking, and you introduce a host of other potential issues like roof maintenance, and cause expensive difficulties with a grid meant to flow one way now trying to accommodate power in both directions. Quite frankly I think there's far more bang for your buck in trying to commercialize these highly reflective white paints that are in development to offset AC load by painting rooves, mix

      • by zlives ( 2009072 )

        "ose the economy of scale"
        but you save the planet,
        but like captin planet said, cash is king

    • There are more than enough rooftops on homes to generate enough power for everyone.

      Sure, but the cost of the infrastructure needed to connect together thousands of randomly-dispersed solar panels is massive compared to a solar farm in the desert.

      Then there's all the installation and maintenance, also more expensive. Plus not everybody wants solar panels on their house.

      If you want to put solar panels on your own house then go ahead. For grid-level generation it doesn't work though.

      • If you want to put solar panels on your own house then go ahead. For grid-level generation it doesn't work though.
        Works perfectly well in Germany and Australia.

        Why would it not?

    • Has this claim been examined in depth? i.e. looking at how much roof can actually be covered in panels and wouldn't be shaded by other structure?

      I ask because my "usable" roof south-facing roof space not shaded or obstructed by dormers is only about 10% of my total roof space.

    • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      There is also thousands of miles of U.S. interstates all with these big ass clearings between lanes and off to the side. Plenty of room to put up panels.

      They really should stop giving us this "no room" bullshit.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        That was mentioned as one of the unconventional places, right in the summary.

      • I once had the idea of putting solar panels on those massive fields between the runways at airports. But then I read that this was a problem because reflections from the panels could blind pilots. Perhaps the same is true with highways.

        • In Germany highways go through nowhere. Connecting cities. Putting solar panels on them means huge investment into grid infrastructure.
          Also many parts of the highways are emergency/war time runways for fighters. If you ever drove a german highway, then watch the center line. Usually it is green, but when you find a straight piece of highway approaching or departing from a crossing bridge, the barriers between opposing lanes are obviously removable - and there is no green bushes but only fine trimmed grass.

          T

    • yes but then the money will be in the hands of the wrong people and not megacorps.

  • Plenty of industrial waste land, brown fields, sewage lagoons, landfills and tailings ponds we could cover. Not to mention microhydro electric has improved.
    • Micro hydro is great for a household next to a stream and under trees where solar won't work. It's senseless for anything else because the output is so small for the cost. Getting good efficiency out of a micro hydro system costs actual money and oh yeah, the turbines don't last forever either. If you want the maximum lifetime out of them you need to settle the water before it goes into the system so you're not gradually water jet cutting your turbine blades.

      It does have its purpose, but it's very very limi

      • When I was talking micro hydro I should have been more clear. It's not great but also rapidly improving. Search up Ragged Chutes Compressed Air plant. A run of the river system that is also being renewed again.
      • It's senseless for anything else because the output is so small for the cost.
        Depends on country.
        The village I live in Thailand is split into 9 or 11 sub-villages. A river goes close by. the river basically makes a great circle around half of the town. We could build micro water power plants every 200 yards, and would have so much excess power we could become rich from selling it. (Keep in mind, in hot Thailand, most people have no and want no AC, so we do not have insane power consumption in rural areas -

    • Not to mention microhydro electric has improved.

      Nope. Won't someone please think of the poor fish? Native American tribes will run you off any useful hydro sites. Even if the site is at a waterfall which fish cannot navigate. Then it's the Spirit of the Great Waterfall God.

      Now excuse me while I go fill in some wetlands to build a casino.

  • over parking lots

    • Yeah, this is the obvious answer, and yet somehow we're discussing it in a story about Solar panel installations "in unexpected places..." ... wat? That is literally one of the most expected places. Garbage summary of garbage article

  • Renewable energy is the key to energy independence. Energy independence is necessary to be able to tell the shitholes of the world to fuck off.

    • Renewable energy is the key to energy independence. Energy independence is necessary to be able to tell the shitholes of the world to fuck off.

      You’re presumably referring to oil, but if it’s the US that you think is importing oil, the shale oil reserves began producing enough that the US crossed over from net importer to net exporter a few years ago [eia.gov], and our grids have always been self-sufficient otherwise, so we essentially already have energy independence.

      Even so, there are plenty of other reasons for the world to pursue these technologies. Most obviously, not every country enjoys the oil reserves the US does, but there are still rea

  • I get my electricity from a wall outlet.
  • Here in Ontario we have a bunch of these solar plants. Like driving past them in the winter with all the panels covered with deep snow... occasionally one sees output from these installations showing up as a blip in the provincial power reports. In addition, in rural areas one sees houses and barns covered with panels and the occasional freestanding setup -- mb 10 to 20kw. I understand the latter, have considered them myself, but the power utilities do not make it easy or inexpensive. And at our age ever se

    • Then ask yourself, or the guys responsible: why are they not removing the snow?

      and are still heavily reliant on CO2 producing sources of generation including coal and natural gas
      You still mean solar panels? What exactly is hard to recycle on a sola panel? Nothing. It is cheaper to recycle them than making a new one from fresh resources. Mostly like everything else we recycle.

  • Those solar farms are popping up all over. And it turns out that birds like to nest under the panels. especially when seed plants grow right under the panels with them. And when the solar panels aren't generating the Allegheny front 24/7 wind farms are doing just fine.

    By the way - world conditions have me thinking strategically again - I want the USA to have a decentralized energy production sector.

    But I want to convince any likely enemy that they want humongous centralized energy production of the

    • A breached reactor core is a good way to find a regional conflict turning into a global one. Radiation doesn't respect national borders.

      • A breached reactor core is a good way to find a regional conflict turning into a global one. Radiation doesn't respect national borders.

        Fo shizzle! I had tried to get some discussion on if in the course of war, if the invading country used weapons to berach a reactor, if that constituted an acto of war on the countries who were affected by the released radiation.

        I would sat yes - a deliberate act of war. It's like the 1987 Chernobyl disaster was an accident. So not an act of war. Russia decides that it was a good idea to breach it on purpose - act of war.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Awesome. It's not like radioactive fallout gets blown around by the wind or anything.

      Intentionally blowing up nuclear plants should be regarded a crime against humanity. But let's be generous and assume you just haven't bothered to think about the consequences of your statements.

      • Coal power plants puts out plenty of radioactive fallout. It is and has been a problem with coal we can't solve easily, as it either stays in the ash or Flys up the flue.
        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Yes. Is that a random factoid, or are you suggesting that the OPs plan to blowup up nuclear plants is a good idea because coal plants exist?

          • Yes. Is that a random factoid, or are you suggesting that the OPs plan to blowup up nuclear plants is a good idea because coal plants exist?

            You're reading this all wrong. Relax a moment. The mental exercise is every bit of a defensive one. The idea is that after the smoke clears, and cooler minds have prevailed, that you didn't set up attractive targets for your enemy to take out.

            Even so, in cases of total war, there's war crimes a-plenty.

            As an example, let's take the 1940's war in the Pacific. The Japanese preferred death to surrender. Even many civilians were convinced that suicide was better than being captured by the US forces. This w

        • Coal power plants puts out plenty of radioactive fallout.
          That is an 1970s myth.

          The atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950 - 1970s put out far more radioactives than any coal civilization ever could do.

      • Awesome. It's not like radioactive fallout gets blown around by the wind or anything.

        Intentionally blowing up nuclear plants should be regarded a crime against humanity.

        Actually I agree. But in case of a repeat of World War 2, total war - it's gonna happen.

        Which for my money, makes the renewable, decentralized setup of many small stations a better strategic solution.

        So let's assume that instead of Nuc stations, in a strategic sense - would you suggest building as few stations as possible, or a decentralized system. Would you prefer to put a country out of commission with just a few missiles, or would you like to have to kill a lot of civilians by having to use many

        • So in your city, your hospitals rely on solar power and have no grid or even emergency power as back up? Sounds like a very remote deep African town, that can be happy to even have a hospital.

          • So in your city, your hospitals rely on solar power and have no grid or even emergency power as back up? Sounds like a very remote deep African town, that can be happy to even have a hospital.

            The panel field is feeding into a substation. It just happens to be sitting beside a hospital. IT's a pretty good solution, because hospitals use hella electricity.

  • Always NIMBY. Electricity comes out of the plug, didn't you know?

    If you want civilization, you need energy. If you want energy, you need to produce it somewhere. I lived 20 years near a nuclear power plant - what's the big deal? After the first year or so, you no longer even notice it's there. Utility-scale solar will be even less obtrusive.

    That said: if you're going to put in a 2300 acre solar park (that's 4 square miles!), you should be putting it in the high desert, someplace like New Mexico. The gai

  • a lot of this NIMBYism goes away when the choice is attached with a price tag.
    Oh my electric prices double if it doesn't go in? hmm Ok do you need any help building it?
  • California lead the way in pushing others to adopt "Green" everything. But when it comes to making power in Cali, it is no, no, no. When was the last time a power plant of ANY kind was built in Cali? What percentage of their power is imported into Cali from NV, AZ etc? Electric cars are just pollution transfers. Let me drive my clean car, the power comes out of the wall. Sorry but that wall may be hooked up to a COAL fired power plant hundreds of miles away. You are polluting someone else's air. Bu
    • by danskal ( 878841 )

      Power plants go up in Cali multiple times per day. Solar is pretty popular everywhere nowadays.

  • Mandate that every building constructed include rooftop solar. Imagine if every big box building had a large solar farm on the roof! So why is this not happening?

  • ...that by putting up solar panels, they're adding to global warming, not subtracting from it: https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]

    SF6 is widely used (and AFAIK economically irreplaceable for its function) in electrical equipment. It's 23000x more potent warming gas than CO2 and persists aloft for 1000 years.

    The installation of solar systems which necessarily need more point-source transformers and equipment means more of this being emitted through inevitable leakage/aging.

    How much? This article goes a ways

  • I've driven through most of Southern and Central California and Nevada and been by many of these projects. Who is complaining? The snakes and coyotes? The prisoners in federal and state prisons? It can't be the commuters; the endless tracts of boring deserts are broken up with a very sci-fi cool looking solar thermal plant.

    Also, as an aside, solar thermal all the way. Racks of panels, takes too much space and not enough power. Solar thermal + molten salt is the way to go.

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