Looks expensive. The grey ones are the broken ones.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    158
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    8 months ago

    I feel like this is one of those things that definitely has to have happened before now; after all, grid-scale solar isn’t something we’ve just started doing in the last two or three years, we’ve been at it for at least 15 that I know of. And hail isn’t exactly a new phenomenon in TX. So I wonder why we’re hearing about it like it’s news. Is this fossil fuel funded bad press? Did they skimp on protection they shouldn’t have?

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      68
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      It’s Texas. So without doing any research, it’s *probably all of the above and also there’s corruption in there somewhere…

    • Yer Ma@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Idk, here in the PNW I had only seen hail once in the past 10 years, this spring it has hailed over a dozen times… climate change is wild

        • Yer Ma@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          I meant that yes hail happens in Texas, but these freak storms are getting worse and it is a new phenomenon. Also most houses around here have solar

          • ikidd@lemmy.worldOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Actually, I guess I was trying to be funny. And me having 25kW of solar panels is even crazier, because I’m an afternoon’s drive away from the Arctic Circle. In winter, we get about 6 hours of sunlight a day, at a ridiculously terrible angle.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        Really? I grew up near Seattle (>20+ years ago) and I remember getting hail fairly frequently, probably more frequently than snow, at least in my neighborhood. Then again, the hail was quite small and only lasted a few seconds to a minute most of the time.

        • Yer Ma@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          I lived in Seattle for a while and it never hailed, late 20-teens, but in the Willamette valley it is pretty rare, yet it has been hailing every few days this spring/early spring, we also have been having lightning storms. It is an unusual beginning to the yeat

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      Solar farms on rust scale are relatively new, though. So this might have happened countless times before, but not that concentrated on a single entity.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      theres more solar than ever, the news is doing less interesting things now than it ever has been. Big oil is losing more money at the mere smell of none oil based power.

      Makes sense really.

    • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      50
      ·
      8 months ago

      Maybe it’s just good footage. Photovoltaics are synergetic with fossil fuel power, both in terms of green washing and actually prolonging dependence.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          28
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          No, because they’re shitposting at best and trolling at worst. See their other comments.

        • Liz@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          I can tell you right now whatever alternative solution they have, no one will accept.

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          13
          ·
          8 months ago

          Because photovoltaic and wind power are inherently unreliable, they create a need for fossil fuel power sources to always be ready to go in order to fill in the gaps. Fossil fuel companies like to talk about how they’re all for a green transition, but what they don’t say is that they want the transition to last forever.

          • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            This is brain dead, we have plenty of green energy storage methods available. We just need a big enough green energy surplus to store.

            • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              15
              ·
              8 months ago

              The benevolent fossil fuel industry will be there to help with every step of this revolutionary transition to renewable energy.

              • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                9
                ·
                8 months ago

                You know what, you’re right, we’re all fucked, there is nothing we can do, let’s gather round and jerk ourselves off about how miserable we all are until the warm embrace of the ocean washes over our heads. Thanks for helping me finally see that.

                • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  What’s with the histrionics? Nuclear power is a mature technology that’s practically a drop in replacement for fossil fuel power. No need to redesign the grid to make it smart and add problematic battery storage.

                  • bbuez@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    I wasnt going to comment but

                    Nuclear is practically a drop in replacement for fossil fuel

                    got me real good, keep up the good trolling.

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          8 months ago

          There are good applications for PV, but it is not reliable thermal power, so it will never sufficiently dispace fossil fuels. We need nuclear, concentrated solar, and/or deep-well geothermal power plants in order to accomplish that.

            • isles@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              8 months ago

              I think they might be taking issue primarily with the “reliability”, the argument that solar is all well and good, but because generation isn’t uniform, it can’t fully replace fossil fuels. And I can see the argument for using nuclear for base-load and supplement with solar as it’s available to use.

              • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                8 months ago

                i know what they’re saying, but they’re objectively wrong. Sure it’s hard, it’s not the most trivial thing to do. Harder than engineering, designing, and building a CCG turbine plant from the ground up? Highly doubt it, probably more expensive though.

                Nuclear base load is an incredibly good strategy though, although nuclear isn’t fossil fuels, so.