this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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Solar is the worst thing ever. It requires a lot of land, land which effectively will be dead if you install solar panels. It's worse than monoculture crop fields.
The wind is only good if it's off shore. If you're UK, you hit a jackpot. Otherwise it's meh.
Solar can be installed on roofs of existing structures, requiring zero land. Although just because it can be done doesn't mean it will be. Thats a policy problem more than anything, though.
Lots of places have windy coasts besides the uk. And also I don't believe that offshore is the only good place for wind: praries, plains, etc also seem like good options. Places with extensive tracts of land with low vegetation.
Roof panels don't have enough area to provide enough power. Especially in high density apartment blocks common in most of the world. My apartment block has solar panels, they produce energy which is barely enough to power heat pump machinery for the central heating system. And they're useless during the winter when heating is actually needed.
That's not a policy problem, solar panels are just useless.
Sorry, I wasn't clear.
There is a significant amount of real estate for solar panels that won't require any land cleaning, if policy paved the way for it. Total rooftop area in a city and surrounding area is not a small amount, it's not all high density housing.
You also don't need to go all-in on solar, or rooftop solar. You can also have wind farms. You can also have solar farms (which now wouldn't need to be as large).
And I never pretended that this was the best solution everywhere. There are places where nuclear absolutely makes more sense. Landlocked countries that have dark winters and no plains, for example.
Crops grow very well under solar panels, so it's not "dead land" as you mention.
Agrivoltaics
Agrivoltaics is the dumbest idea ever.
Dumb because? I didn't realise maximizing land usage was a bad thing.
Are you trolling?