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. happyopossum · 1790116042 · focus · HN ↗
    > Anecdotally speaking
    First hand experience here - worked with a non-profit that has a tiny solar and battery installation for a light display, and we have had constant theft and vandalism problems with it. It's not even easy to get to - those meth-heads had to work to steal the lead acid batteries and copper wire...
    dylan604 · 1790118706 · focus · HN ↗
    Several years ago one of the local youth sports complex was limited to daylight use because the copper would get stolen from the light poles. This was a large complex with many light poles. Within a week of them being fixed, they'd come and steal the new copper. I never did follow up to see what they ultimately did to discourage the thieves.
    Enginerrrd · 1790126035 · focus · HN ↗
    Man, we don’t have tools to deal with these clowns. I had the gas tank in my truck drilled. I doubt they got even 5 gallons worth of gas, worth about $25 at the time. The fix cost me $2500. I found out from the shop that there had been a string of these going around town. After some digging, I came up with an order of magnitude estimate of somewhere around 50 such instances. So, what was undoubtedly just a couple of people at the most had done probably over $100k in damages to get maybe $1200 worth of spoils. Even if caught, unless they confessed to more, they’d probably only ever risk getting linked to a single one of these crimes and face a tiny fraction of the consequences they deserved. Such a drain on society.
    vkou · 1790132719 · focus · HN ↗
    > Man, we don’t have tools to deal with these clowns.
    We do. Arrest and imprison the fences and scrappers that pay cash to buy copper off the tweakers.
    The problem will solve itself in a few weeks. Hang the fences, and the thieves will starve. It's both way easier to go after them, and they have something to lose if they don't follow the law.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790135189 · focus · HN ↗
    > Arrest and imprison the fences and scrappers that pay cash to buy copper off the tweakers.
    How do you expect the scrappers to know if something was stolen and not just some old wires you've been stuffing in a bin until you accumulate enough to justify a trip to the scrap yard?
    How do you even expect to catch the scrappers who knowingly pay for stolen copper if you don't have a way to know that what they throw into the smelter was stolen?
    Meanwhile if the idiots keep stealing copper from the same place over and over, is it really that hard to maybe put up some cameras or set up a sting?
    vkou · 1790136625 · focus · HN ↗
    They don't need to know if something was stolen. All they need to do is require an ID, not pay in cash, and pay 30 days after receiving the merchandise.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790139041 · focus · HN ↗
    At which point people with legitimate copper to sell start going somewhere else because the repeat players resent having 30 days worth of interest stolen from them every month and the one-time sellers don't trust an IOU from a company they've never done business with before.
    Meanwhile you just create a new line of business for fences who are willing to pay cash today in exchange for a margin and then take the IOU from the legitimate scrapper and turn a profit in 30 days. Or the drug dealers take the copper as payment and then don't care about the 30 days if it means they can sell more drugs.
    You can't make a commodity not worth money. At some point you have to actually catch the thieves.
    vkou · 1790142515 · focus · HN ↗
    > At which point people with legitimate copper to sell start going somewhere else
    Make it required by law, and they won't be able to go somewhere else. Legitimate businesses with scrap to sell aren't going to risk committing a felony to get paid below market value 30 days sooner (Not to mention that many businesses are used to getting paid on a delay, and selling scrap for pennies is a tiny portion of their revenue flow).
    Catalytic converter thefts have been decimated by similar policies. As it turns out, there are plenty of hoops that you can introduce that aren't a serious impediment to b2b transactions (which make up the overwhelming, massive majority of legitimate trade in this space), but are a serious impediment to tweakers selling stolen property.
    > Or the drug dealers take the copper as payment and then don't care about the 30 days if it means they can sell more drugs
    Street dealers are trying to run a drug business, not a goddamn copper clearinghouse. If they wanted to run one, they wouldn't be out on the street slinging meth.
    irishcoffee · 1790144283 · focus · HN ↗
    The engine block in an old car blew up so I ripped it completely apart and sold the parts online and in person to various people. I tried to sell my own catalytic converter to a shop I found online that was some kind of on-the-up-and-up licensed buyer.
    What I didn’t know is they wouldn’t buy it from me if I wasn’t a licensed seller. I was irritated but realized it probably was for the best. And it worked, I still have it sitting in my shed.
    I don’t know how to make that reality happen with copper, which is clearly much more abundant than cat converters are, but I imagine you could at least do something like what happens when you buy a pseudoephedrine product, they scan your ID and track the frequency of your purchases. Too much too quick and you’re on a short list.
    I don’t see a feasiae way to invert that, selling copper requires an ID and infrastructure for maintaining a database of sellers, amount, and frequency, but I imagine if you started at the top and worked your way down it could become a regulated commodity to sell… somehow.
    AnthonyMouse · 1790155289 · focus · HN ↗
    > And it worked, I still have it sitting in my shed.
    Isn't that exactly the problem? That's your property, which you now can't sell. So it's sitting in your shed. Most people in that situation are ultimately going to chuck it in the trash, which means not only that you've been harmed, but that those rare elements aren't getting properly recycled.
    > you could at least do something like what happens when you buy a pseudoephedrine product
    The thing that causes grief at scale for anyone with a cold but has produced zero reduction in the availability of street drugs?
    sfn42 · 1790165189 · focus · HN ↗
    99,999% of people won't pull their car apart to sell the parts individually. We just take the whole car to the scrap yard.
    So even though the ~17 people who take the time to do this are slightly inconvenienced by not being able to sell that one part, I'd say it's easily worth it given the millions of people who are not having their catalytic converters stolen any more.

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