- cross-posted to:
- tech@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- tech@lemmit.online
Arizona’s solar-over-canal project will tackle its major drought issue::undefined
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Arizona and the entire South West don’t have a drought problem. They have an aridification problem. While this canal project is a good move in general and we should have been doing it years ago, there is no solving the over-population of a desert. One look at Colorado River basin and its reservoirs is enough to know there is nothing we can do to fix it.
With any luck pretty soon they’ll look at alfalfa farming in the desert too
Why the fuck are humans so stupid that we decided to grow one of the thirstiest crops in the fucking desert.
Because entrenched, and exceptionally wealthy interests. Reading about how about in CA there are tons of Colorado River fed foreign owned farms growing alfalfa to export to the middle east is the definition of capitalist success…the profit of a commodity has been made the most efficient; acquired cheaply for something otherwise impossible with international arbitrage as the medium.
Every time someone asks people in the southwest to take shorter showers show them this: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2022/02/24/california-water/
We should probably update the dictionary so the word ‘greed’ is synonymous to dumb, stupid, ect. Cuz it sure seems that greedy people just have a super low IQ.
They already do.
Also, all those new Intel wafer plants near Phoenix.
And Samsung and TSMC and others
Yeah… but sometimes you’ve gotta accept that a band-aid is all you can do. While this doesn’t fix the underlying problems, if it works it’ll provide more water and low carbon energy, which is better than nothing.
if it works it’ll provide more water
Unfortunately they will just use even more then, so the “shortage” will be maintained.
The “one more lane” of water supply.
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It’s also a win win design. Shade from the panels reduces evaporation in the canals and the water helps cool the panels which improves their efficiency.
It would be cheaper and easier to maintain separate instaaleions of a lightweight cover for the aquaduct and solar panel installed on solid ground. You could use the same money to add square miles of panels.
I really hope this works. Also: banning water-intensive farming in dumb places might help.
It would definitely help because that is the main problem.
What do you mean I can’t farm on a fucking desert? What kind of communist dunghole is this?
Or we could put effort towards limitations of fossil fuels and fix it long term. Maybe both, but if we don’t do former, only duct tape.
Luckily this does both, to some extent. It’s not as far as we need, but solar offsets dirty energy usage.
Doesn’t Arizona get most of its energy from the giant nuclear power plant near Phoenix?
Well they’re part of a larger grid. Any clean energy on the grid will be cheaper than dirty, so will be sold to offset dirty even if Arizona was 100% clean.
I don’t understand how it “offsets”. If someone pisses in the pool and I do it behind a tree, that somehow gets rid of piss molecules in the pool?
You only need a certain amount of power. (In fact, you can’t generate more power than is needed, or you cause massive issues.) If this adds extra energy generation but doesn’t add demand, generation somewhere else will be taken offline. This will be whatever is cheapest, and green energy is nearly free after construction, so it’ll be dirty energy that isn’t running anymore.
My guess is that producing solar panels uses tons of fossil fuels. And they’re pretty much used up after 10-20 years and needs to be replaced and the old ones ends up in a landfill.
It takes energy to produce them, sure, but it’s way less than even just the production needs for coal or natural gas. Not to mention that’s a one time carbon cost (per lifespan which is close to 30 years these days) vs ongoing emissions. And additionally, as the energy mix where the panels are produced cleans up, the carbon footprint of the panels go down as well! Is it the perfect solution? No, but there is no silver bullet to get off fossil fuels. Solar is just one part of that transition and it is exciting to see more groups exploring the solar/shade synergy (there’s some cool shaded farming solar experiments going on that also make use of the solar panel’s shadow for additional benefits!)
Water Knife here we come
Synopsys?
Water scarcity causes societal collapse throughout the American Southwest. Well written book, interesting premise - just an all around enjoyable bit of fiction.
I just finished reading that. Agree with all of that
Good book :)
YES! Such a good read!
They should try this at those retaining ponds where they filled them with black balls.
There are several companies working on solar covers for reservoirs. I agree, seems like a win win. Reduce evaporation and have a large, level, “field” for solar arrays.
This idea is so poorly conceived. Imagine installing and maintaining something like this. How are those panels supposed to stay clean?The panels and the cover should both be built but they should not be the same thing. No current panels are engineered for this application so they would have to be custom made. Just getting the project to the point where the first panel could be installed would cost millions. We could get started now installing commercially available shade covers and ground mounted solar. Ground mounted solar is simple to clean, simple to maintain, and simple to replace.
I agree the idea looks like a great way to reclaim the space, reduce evaporation, and generate power I just think the money would be better spent on a plan the optimized for expenses and longevity instead of optimizing for novelty.
I guess I missed it but how are these panels any different than typical ground based PV panels? Looks like, based on the rendering, they they are on some kind of rigid scaffolding over the canal. Not sure how that is different from typical installs?
For sure cleaning them is a problem, don’t have an answer to that. Hope that that is accounted for in the proposal.
