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.
    kelnos · 1790136422 · focus · HN ↗
    The root cause is all the people addicted to drugs. We are never going to entirely stamp out addiction, but certainly there are structural things we can do with our society to make it less common, and make it easier for people to get out of that situation.
    I don't think dangerous, addictive drugs should be legalized, or available to buy at pharmacies. People who traffic in these sorts of drugs should be jailed.
    But possession and use should be decriminalized. People shouldn't be considered criminals because they're addicted to a drug. We should help them, not stigmatize them or throw them in jail.
    Ultimately, a healthy society that actually takes care of the people who live in it will have fewer people getting into addictive drugs in the first place. That's a huge lift, though, unfortunately: fixing income and wealth inequality, food insecurity, housing insecurity, etc. is not trivial, and our political leaders (especially those on the right) generally do not want to fix society in this way.
    gottorf · 1790143481 · focus · HN ↗
    > fixing income and wealth inequality, food insecurity, housing insecurity, etc. is not trivial, and our political leaders (especially those on the right) generally do not want to fix society in this way
    On food insecurity: the five states that are the least food-insecure are a swing state, two solid red states, and two solid blue states[0].
    On housing insecurity: the states with the most affordable homes (median house price to median income ratio, or share of income spent on housing) are for the most part solid red states[1]. I would wager this is largely due to stronger private property rights in red states that make it easier for supply to rise to meet demand and establish a better-functioning rental market[2].
    Let's not make the mistake of judging politicians and government programs by their stated intent and not their factual outcomes. Whether someone "wants to" fix society in one way or another is very, very far removed from whether it actually gets fixed under their leadership. Plenty of times in history, the problem actually got worse!
    On income and wealth inequality: unfortunately, these things cannot be fixed except by fixing the fact that different people have different abilities, talents, preferences, and tastes, and some of those differences include the ability to make money and build wealth. Nobody would look at me and think I have an equal chance of making it in the NBA as, say, the guys in this picture[3], but for some reason we're supposed to believe that when it comes to the skills of moneymaking and wealth-building, anyone is about as good as anyone else.
    [0]: <a href="https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/food_insecurity_household" rel="nofollow">https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/food...
    [1]: <a href="https://www.affordabilityindex.org/rankings/states/" rel="nofollow">https://www.affordabilityindex.org/rankings/states/, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/every-state-ranked-by-housing-cost-burden-2026" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/every-state-ranked-by-housin...
    [2]: In parts of California, tenancy laws are so insane that it could take a landlord over a year and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to evict a nonpaying tenant. There's a whole cottage industry of landlords paying those same nonpaying tenants good money to just leave quietly. If you had property to rent, how much extra money would you charge to compensate for this risk?
    [3]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_draft#/media/File:NBA_Draft_2011_Rookie_Class.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_draft#/media/File:NBA_Draf...
    tovej · 1790149315 · focus · HN ↗
    Red v. Blue is not the issue here. Neither of those parties is doing much to combat inequality. You should be comparing the USA to countries that actually try (or have historically tried) to combat inequality and social precarity, like Switzerland, or the Scandinavian countries.
    solatic · 1790149215 · focus · HN ↗
    > People shouldn't be considered criminals because they're addicted to a drug. We should help them, not stigmatize them or throw them in jail.
    I agree with you, but it's worth spelling out exactly why. Philosophically, prison has one of three purposes: protecting society, rehabilitation, or punishment.
    If the sentence for use is anything less than spending the rest of your life in jail, then society isn't really protected from addicts; the recidivist rate is too high. Get out, steal again for the next high, rinse and repeat through the revolving door.
    Prison is not an environment capable of rehabilitating addicts. Leaving aside drug smuggling into prisons, getting people past the withdrawal period is the "easy" part of rehab, the real work is in therapy, developing better relationship models, better boundaries, better strategies for the triggers that drove people to look for a high. It's very, very difficult to facilitate that in prison.
    Finally, it's debatable whether prison is actually punishment for addicts. If they keep access to drugs through the people who smuggle them into prisons, and the prison pays for meals and a roof that were often lacking for the addict on the street, then, is it really a punishment?
    matwood · 1790151453 · focus · HN ↗
    > Prison is not an environment capable of rehabilitating addicts.
    IMO, prison makes it worse. Once an addict gets out, it is much harder to go back into regular society. Getting a job, etc., after prison is harder which leads to despair and back to drugs.
    solatic · 1790229068 · focus · HN ↗
    Right, this is why a real war on drugs would use social workers, not police, as its soldiers. But they are underpaid, so there are hardly enough of them to be effective.

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