This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
All of Germany is north of Minneapolis and Halifax (to choose two famously cold North American cities). This doesn't matter as much as you think if you are doing utility-scale solar, because you can pitch south-facing panels to match the latitude so they face the midday sun directly. (You need more space between panels so they don't shade each other, but in the world we live in utility-scale solar is investment-limited, not land-limited.) If you are just sticking panels to roughly-south-facing pitched roofs the way most subsidised solar installs do, then it matters a lot.
The other issue is that most of the Midwest is a semi-desert, and therefore sunnier than Europe. Minneapolis gets 2711 hours of sunshine a year. Halifax, which is coastal, gets 1962. Berlin gets 1728 and Munich gets 1777.
There is a reason why the UK has more installed wind than solar, despite solar being a generally superior technology.
I did the math for my location (similar lat to Paris), and even with best seasonal angle practices you're still only getting 10% of what you would in summer (while non-industrial energy use more than doubles due to heating). Germany's significantly further north with worse weather as you say.
It hadn't really struck me that Texas and Arizona are basically as good as North Africa for solar. I should run the numbers for that and get a cap factor estimate.
Edit: fixed 31 degree angle in Phoenix AZ, you're getting a 25% base capacity factor minus probably at least 15% losses to AC delivered.
So more like 20% CF than the 36% you figured. But there's only 24% lower output in winter than summer, which is amazing compared to up north.
Of course all this excludes noon curtailment losses, which are going to be a big deal very shortly. The entire new battery capacity listed as "generation" in the doc doesn't even begin to cover for that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link