The reason they are tilted is to maximize irradiance hitting the panel. At a 0 degree angle (flat on the ground) you get a a lot around noon and then very little.
This approach surely reduces land usage but what is the output per acre?
I’d be really surprised if it’s higher than with tilted modules.
The gov optimization function is to maximize production not employment. This is an ongoing fallacy in the political narrative but the unseen consequences of making up jobs is overall lower purchasing power.
Hey ! I'm an engineer with experience building utility-scale solar and backend software at bay area companies.
I'm building ClimateCap (https://www.climatecap.io/) -- software to collect data and develop intelligence on climate-related risks and opportunities for climate finance.
My belief is that climate change is an incentives problem.
Currently, incentives vary geographically but they'll converge when physical and transitional risks are priced into every business model.
The allocation of capital that follows is estimated to be ~$1T USD/year for the foreseeable future (Source: https://fsb-tcfd.org/).
I'm launching a beta feature called "Climate-Related Financial Disclosures", giving anyone access to a list of climate risks and opportunities disclosed by US companies in their latest financial filings (10K, SEC), see https://www.climatecap.io/app
The sole motivation of this launch is to talk to people in the space and build a product roadmap along the vision above.
Drop me a note if you have feedback or ideas of who I should talk to.
'Base load can be provided through carbon neutral sources, such as the burning of rest-mass left over from crop production.'
This statement is very uncalibrated. Biomass is possible just as much as tidal power but that doesn't make it viable for scale. It's not even part of the conversation.
'Smart control of appliances is another way in which the need for baseload power could be reduced'
Wrong. Smart control of appliances is used to shift demand from peak load not base.
Storage is not optional to make renewables base load.
'But it need not be so, not every source of pleasure or quality of life needs a combustion engine or a plug.'
You are obviously trivializing quality of life. High energy consumption means access to quality products and services in food, transport, education, entertainment and healthcare at minimum.
Lower energy consumption is politically less feasible to implement, regressive and undesirable.
Bipartisan refers to cooperation of two political parties, not 'America'. But sure, few other countries have only two major political factions. More generally I meant to promote nuclear energy in political cooperation.
You are right in that the obvious is shutting down coal and gas plants.
The less obvious is that natural gas generation is very cost competitive. Solar/Wind are not viable solutions at the deployment velocity we need to achieve targets.
Also, they are not base load, so you are assuming storage is available and cost-competitive which seems to be 5-10 yrs from now.
An honest conversation of decarbonizing electricity has nuclear front and center.
https://streetcleaningparking.com