alt Hacker News'Yes to fields of wheat, no to fields of iron': how Denmark soured on solar
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Denmark is a poor location for solar. They are pretty far north and don't have a lot of sunny days that are good for solar generation. When they do, those peaks drive energy prices negative. From the article: Over the next 10 years, the official expectation is a very large rise in the amount of solar produced. But that kind of clashes with the reality on the ground – they can’t make money
The dirty secret is of course that the Danish power grid would be totally unusable without the base power provided from Sweden and Norway.
They almost suffered a catastrophic shutdown a year or two ago and the situation has not improved
This would’ve been a non issue if human beings worked together as a species, but we don’t. There is plenty of space on the planet where no one lives and nothing thrives that could be converted massive solar farms that power the planet.
Yes to progress, no to cheap right-wing populism with no real solutions to any problem. How about that?
One interesting detail about Denmark's renewable energy infrastructure mix is that Vestas, the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, is a cornerstone of Danish industry. Note in the article that wind supplies about 40% of Denmark's electrical needs, and that the populist right party mentioned in the article doesn't attack wind turbines, despite the antipathy that other (supposedly populist) rightwing figures do in other countries.
We currently use vast amounts of land growing corn and other crops specifically for biodiesel. Solar panels produce over 100x more energy per hectare than corn ethanol, even in countries like Denmark with limited sunlight. It makes perfect sense to repurpose some biofuel farmland for solar panels. That's just efficient land use, not an attack on agriculture.
Lived there. Baltic weather, not too sunny. Must be a great place for wind generation though.
Denmark has undergone the same sort of right wing populism that has gone through most of the west. Including rhetorical tricks like this.
Though the recent election is slight swing to the left, and the newly created right wing parties are already undergoing various forms of internal meltdowns, making a center left government friendly green energy projects most likely.
Northern Europe really is the energy armpit of the post-fossil world, although more so away from coasts.
Regardless of your political beliefs I would hope you could agree that using arable land for solar power is dumb. Denmark is almost entirely arable land and relatively small to boot so they should be using more compact power sources.
everything that goes into real life is an aesthetic experience. it's not complicated. imo, you can either literally hide things from the public, or aesthetic concerns, like whether or not a piece of infrastructure's exterior is physically beautiful & attractive, becomes the #1 priority.
not buying that this isn't anti renewable propaganda for the US
the images in the article looks bad
until you take a short look at satellite images and realize:
- it's not the norm but the exception
- the photos are made to make it look maximally bad in a deceptive/manipulative way,
and that is even in context, that Denmark is a special case in that it both quite small and has little "dead" (not agriculturally efficiently usable land). And many old "culturally" protected houses where fitting solar on top of it is far more complicated/inefficient. Don't get me wrong it isn't the only special case, but there are very many countries which don't really have such issues.
Also quite interestingly this "iron fields" can be "not bad" from a nature perspective, at least compared to mono-culture with pesticide usage. Due to the plant and animal live below them. Through that is assuming people do extra steps to prevent that live.