The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

From the scientific journal Nature:




https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82042-5

Land use is really not a problem in Canada or the US. This of a solar farm as a photon mine. In most cases, it has a better economic output than the same field planted with grain. And with wind farms and agrivoltaics, the land itself can actually be used for agricultural output.

It would be good to push more rooftop solar on industrial roofs. But everybody always balks at the cost.

“Let them eat photons”

We are likely to be quite desperate for agricultural land as semi arid agricultural regions (such as the prairies) become less productive due to climate change. Solar is fine for areas like California or Australia where population centres are close to useless land, or for some marginal sites, but it is nonsensical to starve future generations for projects that don’t even generate much power.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Floppa

Things that aren't wind turbines kill birds, so don't be worried about that fact that we're adding to it.

Proportionality matters. Being ignorant doesn't change that. Have you even bothered to Google how many species would get wiped out due to climate change? Or was the Boomer Facebook talking point enough education?

Originally Posted by Floppa

Big oil is backing renewables because they require gas plants to back them up.

Big oil isn't doing shit. Most renewables are built by utilities. Especially in Canada.

Originally Posted by acottawa

“Let them eat photons”

We are likely to be quite desperate for agricultural land as semi arid agricultural regions (such as the prairies) become less productive due to climate change. Solar is fine for areas like California or Australia where population centres are close to useless land, or for some marginal sites, but it is nonsensical to starve future generations for projects that don’t even generate much power.

You're quite the red herring and strawman expert. Nobody is going to starve if we have more solar. Quit your bullshit.

1) Most of what we produce is for the export market. It's not really to feed Canadians.

2) Prairie farm land, in particular, is used for particularly lower value commodities like grain and soybeans. In quite a few cases, there is literally more economic value in putting solar panels on there, than planting more.

3) Solar PV is not some magical technology that stops working at a certain latitude. The only difference is that more panels and grid storage needed (which itself gets lower every year with technological advances). And this is reflected in the economics with utilities paying accordingly.

4) Given the amount of hydro and nuclear and the offshore wind potential, the amount of land the we actually end up dedicating to solar will be closer to the lower bound in the Nature article. But even if it was 5% in aggregate across the entire country, I'm willing to bet that the net effect on agricultural output would be minimal.

Lastly, it's pretty fucking rich of climate change minimizers who argue for zero mitigation efforts to suddenly start feigning grave concern over feeding "future generations".

[Airboy]

From Green Energy Alberta.

Solar capacity.

7022 Solar PV Systems; 77% Residential, 11% Commercial, 11% Farm, 1% Other.
July 2021 7,022 Solar Units Installed in Alberta
2012 355 Solar Units Installed in Alberta
2010 122 Solar Units Installed in Alberta

Wind Power

Alberta now ranks third in Canada for installed wind energy capacity.
Today 1,781 MW Maximum Capacity
2010 724 MW Maximum Capacity
2005 276 MW Maximum Capacity
2000 24 MW Maximum Capacity
Wind represents 9% of Alberta's total generation.

https://www.greenalbertaenergy.ca/statistics.html

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Big oil isn't doing shit. Most renewables are built by utilities. Especially in Canada..

I think big oil actually is doing shit. Probably one of the largest investor of private capital into renewable or emission-less energy. Just off the top of my head - Enbridge with a multi-billion dollar renewable portfolio, TC Energy 50% owner of Bruce Power (recently spent billions to upgrade reactors), Suncor’s petro-Canada electric charging highway. Suncor/ATCO hydrogen energy development,

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

I think big oil actually is doing shit. Probably one of the largest investor of private capital into renewable or emission-less energy. Just off the top of my head - Enbridge with a multi-billion dollar renewable portfolio, TC Energy 50% owner of Bruce Power (recently spent billions to upgrade reactors), Suncor’s petro-Canada electric charging highway. Suncor/ATCO hydrogen energy development,

Enbridge might be the exception here. But most North American majors are massively behind on investing in renewables compared to their European counterparts.

Also, hard to count the recapitalization of nuclear power plants as substantial new renewable investment. And Petro Canada's charger network is great an all. But it's hardly a substantial investment for them. Tesla has spent more on building chargers in Canada. Electrify Canada is about to do the same. And half the provincial utilities in the country will have more chargers than Petro Canada in total in a few years. It's nothing like what say Shell is doing in the UK.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Wrong. PV farms don't degrade the land as much as parking or any other development.

There is also agrivoltaics where produce can be grown under and around the PV panels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaic



Not that I disagree with using roofs and parking lots, the reason fields are used is because of the economics. Make it cheaper to use roofs and parking lots and it will happen.

Just because you found a link on Wikipedia that supports your thesis doesn't make you right or reflect reality. The majority of bare land solar farms in service, under construction or proposed in Alberta are NOT doing this. I know this since I work on them.

It's a terrible land use. It's not even up for debate.

Might make sense for contaminated land that needs to sit for a period of time, but for arable land there are better uses.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

It's a terrible land use. It's not even up for debate.

What is not up for debate is that you don't get to tell a farmer how they use their land. If farming photons is more profitable than farming soybeans, so be it.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What is not up for debate is that you don't get to tell a farmer how they use their land. If farming photons is more profitable than farming soybeans, so be it.

If the farmers could make more money with solar panels there wouldn't be any farmers left.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

If the farmers could make more money with solar panels there wouldn't be any farmers left.

Supply and Demand?

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Why should people in the country have to tolerate these seas of windmills while touchy-feely urbanites don't even though many, especially along waterfronts, maybe ideal locations for windmills? Doesn't that smack of the "out of sight, out of mind" arrogant mentality?

Suzuki certainly loves windmills but he sure as hell doesn't have one on his tony West Side house.

There's a windmill on Grouse Mountain that you can see from everywhere in Vancouver and nobody really gives a shit about it.

Strawman arguments are so tired.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

There's a windmill on Grouse Mountain that you can see from everywhere in Vancouver and nobody really gives a shit about it.

Strawman arguments are so tired.

Without strawmans this place would be dead.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

If the farmers could make more money with solar panels there wouldn't be any farmers left.

Not this would ever happen, but who the fuck are you to tell them what to do with their land?

Do you also complain this much when those farmers let on frackers, risking possible contamination of their land?

If you want to remove revenue potential from them, why don't you pay up?

[casper]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

There's a windmill on Grouse Mountain that you can see from everywhere in Vancouver and nobody really gives a shit about it.

Strawman arguments are so tired.

Not just Vancouver. There is one in downtown Toronto on Lake Ontario. No one cares much about that one as well.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by casper

Not just Vancouver. There is one in downtown Toronto on Lake Ontario. No one cares much about that one as well.

Note you have stated there is "one" which I said could actually look kind of cool. Of course there are more than one littering our countryside. People who don't think having hundreds of windmills all over the damn place are almost always urbanites because they don't have to look at them.

I have an idea..........instead of cutting into our productive farmland for our wind power, why don't we just mandate the very reasonable idea that all municipalities must be electricity independent? This would obviously mean only 2 options....wind & solar. Needless to say all these hundreds of rural windmills that urbanites love would now be littering their cities, blocking their views, creating yet more noise, and killing their birds.

Why is it I think that may result in a "little" resistance from Suzuki and friends in his West Side neighbourhood? Something tells me that such a fair proposition would result in a "tad" less support for windmills from our touchy feely urban population.

[TorontoDrew]

Anybody else here think we are at the tipping point now or have already passed it? We need drastic change right now if it's not already too late. We need to get off fossil fuels right now.

[Floppa]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Anybody else here think we are at the tipping point now or have already passed it? We need drastic change right now if it's not already too late. We need to get off fossil fuels right now.

Start prepping for the collapse. Buy some land, tons of fuel and a generator and solar panels. Learn to live indepedently.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Anybody else here think we are at the tipping point now or have already passed it? We need drastic change right now if it's not already too late. We need to get off fossil fuels right now.

Define "tipping point".

We aren't going to turn in to Venus. But we are on track for 2.5-4 °C. All the agreements say 1.5 °C is manageable. Once we get to 2, some Island nations get wiped out. Lot more natural disasters. More refugees.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I have an idea..........instead of cutting into our productive farmland for our wind power, why don't we just mandate the very reasonable idea that all municipalities must be electricity independent? This would obviously mean only 2 options....wind & solar. Needless to say all these hundreds of rural windmills that urbanites love would now be littering their cities, blocking their views, creating yet more noise, and killing their birds.

Why is it I think that may result in a "little" resistance from Suzuki and friends in his West Side neighbourhood? Something tells me that such a fair proposition would result in a "tad" less support for windmills from our touchy feely urban population.

You keep making up arguments that don't really hold any water. I mean the city I live in put up an urban solar garden, two of their civic buildings have solar panels on them and residents could purchase a panel and have credits put against their electricity bill for the electricity generated by them. They're incredibly popular, so I think your idea would go over fairly well.

What's the next stereotype you're going to try to push? Because your strawman and ad hominem arguments seem to keep failing.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by acottawa

“Let them eat photons”

We are likely to be quite desperate for agricultural land as semi arid agricultural regions (such as the prairies) become less productive due to climate change. Solar is fine for areas like California or Australia where population centres are close to useless land, or for some marginal sites, but it is nonsensical to starve future generations for projects that don’t even generate much power.

Originally Posted by DoubleK

If the farmers could make more money with solar panels there wouldn't be any farmers left.

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Supply and Demand?

Yeah this whole "oh noes the agricultural land" argument (used for other reasons too) doesn't hold water. Canada has a shit ton of land, with a huge amount used for agriculture. The prairie land in particular is vast and seems to encounter varying disasters on a yearly basis, so losing a tiny fraction of the least productive land is hardly going to be an issue.

Even if this was a concern, economics fixes it. In the preposterously absurd scenario that solar energy starts having a significant effect on food production, food prices will rise. If it's more profitable (and therefore valued more by Canada) to farm food on a field than solar, farmers will do it.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Wrong. PV farms don't degrade the land as much as parking or any other development.

There is also agrivoltaics where produce can be grown under and around the PV panels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaic



Not that I disagree with using roofs and parking lots, the reason fields are used is because of the economics. Make it cheaper to use roofs and parking lots and it will happen.

You're totally right, in that way wind farms are more space efficient than I implied. They will extend over a large geographic area though and whatever your feelings, some people seem to have very strong objections to wind farms visually.

I'm not sure if it'll be that big a problem but even I struggle to imagine how much of the land will be covered in wind turbines, when you see the vast scale of what we have already. It "feels like" (I'm fully aware I'm basing this on incomplete data) we'd have to have them pretty much everywhere for wind to produce significant power.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Sure. But why should governments oppose reasonably low impact use of land. It's not like PV farms can't be turned back into farm land if needed.

Comparing a solar farm to parking lots is patently ridiculous. You know what's actually bad for farm land? Sprawling subdivisions. Or fracking wells. We don't stop those.

A "fracking well" (I feel it's my duty to point out there is no such thing) does not use up much land and probably produces a lot more energy per area than most other sources.