Thread

What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

372 points · 744 comments · Jtsummers

nbf_1995 · 1790086541 · focus · HN ↗
It seems like it would be more effective to simply put all the solar panels in a field, and construct a cheap shade over the entire canal no? The supports in the picture are massive and don't look cheap. Also I would imagine the solar array uses more copper than a similar capacity array just built in a field. You can't daisy chain multiple miles of solar panels together, so you need an extra power line to run alongside the whole thing.
Put the solar panels in a field: The solar array uses less copper. The shade supports don't have to hold up solar panels: Shade supports cost less.
The best reasoning they give is that California has insane permitting requirements, and it takes 1/6 the time to build on developed land compared to undeveloped land.
1. schnevets · 1790111056 · focus · HN ↗
  Anecdotally speaking, I have heard of a massive California solar farm in an undeveloped area that has serious vandalism problems. Junkies will find ways through the fencing at night, strip copper and other materials from panels, and cause thousands in damages and lost energy just to extract enough scrap for a fix.
  Nothing short of a face-to-face security response will deter these criminals, so there it is a challenging cost-benefit balance. At least panels in parking lots and other developed spaces have the benefit of witnesses. I'm sure a 20 foot climb up a steel beam over running water is a decent deterrent as well.
  1. Henchman21 · 1790118107 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m willing to bet if we gave them their fix they wouldn’t steal a thing. But because their fix is illegal they have to steal to get their fix.
    Seems to me like the root cause is the illegality of the drugs. I hope you never have to deal with substance abuse problems yourself. You won’t like being on the dehumanizing end of the stick that you’re presently poking with.
    dylan604 · 1790118983 · focus · HN ↗
    If you're going to give junkies their fix, are you going to buy my alcohol too? What about my gambling debts? What about my escort bill for my sex addiction? Shy are you differentiating addiction to drugs?
    philipkglass · 1790120455 · focus · HN ↗
    Someone with heavy, habitual alcohol use can still get drunk on $20 of alcohol. Someone with a heavy opiate habit may spend hundreds of dollars a day on drugs just to maintain. A habituated opiate user could also get through the day with $20 worth of drugs if we allowed opiates to be produced and sold like alcohol, but we don't. So the unemployed junkie needs to beg or steal a lot more than the unemployed alcoholic to get their fix. That's why the parent comment highlighted "illegality of the drugs" as the cause.
    dylan604 · 1790123390 · focus · HN ↗
    If you think an alcoholic stops drinking when they get drunk, then it sounds to me like you don't really understand alcoholism
    jdprgm · 1790125167 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you missed the posters point. I just checked prices on a store nearby and for the cheap Vodka you can buy a handle which is ~40 drinks for $12. So basically no matter how extreme for $20 you can buy more alcohol than pretty much any human could consume in a day.
    fahrvrgnugen · 1790149931 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    some_furry · 1790123901 · focus · HN ↗
    Sex addiction isn't a real thing.
    <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(17)30441-8/fulltext" rel="nofollow">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
    <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-014-0016-8" rel="nofollow">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-014-0016-8
    <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735820301136" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...
    pstuart · 1790124072 · focus · HN ↗
    Junkies and meth-heads are a different kind of animal from your average drunk, and the reality of the proposal that you responded to is a simple economic analysis of investing in keeping them placated or paying for the damage they cause. It's far cheaper to prevent rather than react and repair.
    If we ended the War on Drugs we would be doing exactly this thing and saving billions of dollars doing it.
    Henchman21 · 1790132282 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't have anything to add, other than my appreciation for this comment. Glad I'm not the only one here that gets it.
    kelnos · 1790137082 · focus · HN ↗
    Ending the war on drugs doesn't mean making all drugs legal. It means removing the stigma and jail time for people who use drugs.
    Some drugs are genuinely dangerous. Many are addictive and will damage the quality of one's life, even if buying and using the drug isn't illegal. Normalizing addiction to drugs as a regular, normal, accepted part of everyday life is not the answer.
    pstuart · 1790179428 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm advocating for all drugs to be legal -- regulated and taxed.
    Keeping them illegal does not "protect" anyone and just creates more crime, death, and misery. You've swallowed the propaganda -- it was never about protecting people, it was designed for oppression and it's wildly successful at that.
    Take a look at any video of police busting people for drugs: does it look like they're trying to help those poor innocent victims or are they gleefully enjoying their ability to completely fuck with those people in the name of "protecting" them?
    The fact that drugs are still such a problem despite countless billions of dollars shows that it's never going to work in the way that they promise.
    Drug addiction is a health issue, not a crime. My brother died of a heroin overdose and the law did not help him and the fact that the only resources public money went to were jails and prisons vs clinics shows where the priorities lie.
    Feel free to read up on the truth of this matter: <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race-mass-incarceration-and-disastrous-war-drugs" rel="nofollow">https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race...
    Henchman21 · 1790132052 · focus · HN ↗
    No, you misunderstand, which means I didn't communicate it well: The problem is that the drugs are illegal. I would make them legal so they could be purchased from a pharmacy. The problem with junkies stealing to get their fix is that they're already criminals for the addiction and already people without support in society. So straight up stealing copper from wherever isn't really a big deal. You're already a criminal. You're already halfway down that slippery slope.
    But there was a world in which junkies existed when the junk wasn't criminal. People had serious addictions, but kept normal lives, because their addiction wasn't criminal. I'm not trying to solve addiction. I'm trying to end the criminality for substance abuse.
    And to answer, no, buy your own booze. Cover your own debts, gambling or otherwise. Sex addiction is made up bullshit. I don't need to differentiate because I am not trying to solve that problem.
    gottorf · 1790147237 · focus · HN ↗
    I suppose you'd agree that some drugs will actually hamper one's ability to function as a productive member of society, whether or not it is illegal; for example, heroin. So if heroin was legal and you could buy it at the pharmacy, and you become addicted and you lose your job and alienate your friends and family, why wouldn't you also end up stealing copper? Maybe heroin being illegal would have made that trajectory one step shorter, but I don't see the story changing fundamentally.
    Taking a step back, why doesn't society have a legitimate interest in making sure that people aren't able to take that first hit?
    ben_w · 1790152429 · focus · HN ↗
    > Taking a step back, why doesn't society have a legitimate interest in making sure that people aren't able to take that first hit?
    This can be done by going after suppliers.
    There's non-trivial elements to this, otherwise we'd have already done it. Off the top of my head (and it will go much deeper): if all vendors are punished then the price remains high ("the iron law of prohibition") -> so you need the government to supply it to avoid dealers getting dollar signs in their eyes at the potential income -> the government must not promote it as part of this -> I'd say "medical prescriptions", but that's from a bias to my experience growing up in the UK where we don't have all the "talk to your doctor about ${pharmaceutical_brand}" ads I hear about in the USA -> would the USA even be able to pass laws preventing this, or is that a 1st Amendment problem?
    Henchman21 · 1790162863 · focus · HN ↗
    Fundamentally I disagree. Specifically about heroin, because that is the junk I am referring to specifically. It does not follow that legal heroin leads to job loss, alienation, etc. Because those are social penalties applied by pious douchebags who wish to punish the addicted.
    Perhaps give the book “Chasing the Scream” a read. It is eye opening and respectfully, you seem to need that.
    We do have a legitimate interest in making sure people don’t ever take that hit. BUT .. in the USA punishments take precedent over everything. Because we’re cunts from what I can tell.
    gottorf · 1790172709 · focus · HN ↗
    > It does not follow that legal heroin leads to job loss, alienation, etc. Because those are social penalties applied by pious douchebags who wish to punish the addicted.
    I follow what you're saying, that the downsides of drug addiction outside of the user's own body is imposed by the people around them. I suppose that's almost definitionally true. I and many people do in fact find it unpleasant to be around people who are high out of their minds. I do not wish to associate with such people while they're in that state. I do not think that society would be better off with more of them, so I would prefer that society actively disincentivize such behavior. And you could certainly make the argument that this is the same thing as wanting punishment.
    But if you're making the argument that being high on drugs might lead a user to job loss organically, I find that hard to believe. What if I didn't even know what heroin was, and saw that an employee was nodding off on the job? Wouldn't I be inclined to fire him?
    Henchman21 · 1790201628 · focus · HN ↗
    I also find it unpleasant to be around people when they're high out of their minds. But the way society chooses to disincentivize a thing matters. What we presently choose is absolutely a punishment, and a cruel one. People who are addicts aren't partying anymore. They're broken inside, broken spiritually. You seek that solace because something happened and you're dealing with it alone.
    On a purely human level we should all want to help someone like that. But we choose to turn a blind eye, criminalize their actions, break them further. Because it's uncomfortable right? To have to be a person and help someone else? Isn't it a lot easier to, say, throw them in jail?
    I'm confused by your final statement. If you saw an employee nodding off on the job and ended up firing them, wouldn't that be job loss organically? I'm not sure how to respond to that? I don't think I'm making that argument though -- I'm saying it's possible to hold down some kinds of jobs while being a junkie. You're not running at full capacity but you can still do something -- so long as you aren't in jail.
    I'll say this though: I am not against social consequences for drug addiction. You kinda need that to get clean? But it doesn't have to be criminal. It could be more like: when it's discovered you're using a drug, you're mandated to get it from the state while attending counseling, you have to check in with some state agency, etc. As opposed to: right to jail. Perhaps that's entirely too empathetic?
    cindyllm · 1790206953 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    ipaddr · 1790132485 · focus · HN ↗
    Or you could give them an option of treatment instead of jail.
    ulrikrasmussen · 1790135845 · focus · HN ↗
    No differentiation here, alcohol is widely available from legal sources and very affordable compared to illegal drugs.
    I come from a country with social healthcare, and here we also heavily subsidize drugs for people who need them because of their own lifestyle choices, e.g. diabetes medicine due to obesity. Why do people who have become addicted to psychoactive drugs not deserve the same compassion?
    kelnos · 1790136480 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    ulrikrasmussen · 1790136734 · focus · HN ↗
    So is drug addiction, and that's my point.
    dylan604 · 1790136941 · focus · HN ↗
    You can become addicted if you're mom is a junkie. You can become addicted from scripts given to you by Dr.Feelgood. There are many ways of becoming an addict without waking up one day and deciding "I'm going to become an addict today".
    ulrikrasmussen · 1790137739 · focus · HN ↗
    Exactly, noone decides to become an addict, it's a long sequence of lines that are crossed until you find you crossed one that would seem unthinkable before. You also don't become obese from one day to the other, and I genuinely also don't think that it's peoples own fault.
    I am frankly appalled by the absence of compassion towards other people in this thread.

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