[HN Gopher] In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a ...
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In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 56 points
Date : 2026-04-13 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| 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.
| mikaeluman wrote:
| 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
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Is that really a "dirty secret"?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...
| exists for good reason.
| tensor wrote:
| The power grids of US states are similarly linked. Very
| dirty.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Except for Texas, which decided as a state that avoiding
| federal regulation was worth people dying every winter from
| power outages.
| karamanolev wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Texan electrical isolationism, but
| "people dying every winter from power outages" is
| stretching it a bit...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Every winter is a stretch, yes.
|
| But they did get a big warning shot in 1989 and 2011, and
| ignored those lessons for cost reasons. A couple hundred
| people died.
| amarant wrote:
| Which actually works out to rather more than one person
| per winter, when averaged out.
| card_zero wrote:
| Like all the Canadians who die every winter in the
| Halifax explosion of 1917.
| amarant wrote:
| Yes great example, it's actually super comparable because
| it also happened twice, was entirely predictable and
| preventable, but silly politicians decided to save money
| instead.
| tensor wrote:
| The only dirty secret is that humans are happy to kill future
| generations as the effects of the oil economy will only
| minimally affect the people alive today.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| The Nordic grid was designed to work as an interconnected
| system though - Danish wind exports and Norwegian/Swedish hydro
| imports balance each other out. Calling it a "dirty secret"
| makes it sound like a failure when it's actually the intended
| architecture. Denmark is frequently a net electricity exporter.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| That's like pointing out that Rhode Island isn't designed to be
| a self-sufficient grid.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Denmark could use floating sea solar.
| dathinab wrote:
| if there where an issue yes,
|
| but it doesn't look like there actually is a major issues. A
| look at satellite images it looks more like a problem for a
| handful of people across all of Denmark which then is
| misrepresented by populist, to push anti-solar propaganda.
|
| (Oh, and we don't even know how much the people in Hjolderup do
| resent it. Like seriously, they might even have put the solar
| panels there them-self to make money, idk.. Because
| conveniently the article shows pictures of Hjolderup to invoke
| a felling of how terrible it is, but never any interviews or
| options with anyone _from_ Hjolderup. )
| gritzko wrote:
| Lived there. Baltic weather, not too sunny. Must be a great place
| for wind generation though.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| The world's largest wind power company, Vestas, is from
| Denmark.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Northern Europe really is the energy armpit of the post-fossil
| world, although more so away from coasts.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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_
| dathinab wrote:
| from the article which uses intentionally deceptive photography
| angles to paint a very different picture, yes
|
| more interesting is, if that is actually true. Or only true
| because idk. the investors also bought the land and they
| profits are used to amortize the land buying cost etc.
| delusional wrote:
| That's a terrible argument on the face of it. "They can't make
| any energy, but also they make so much energy they can't use it
| all".
|
| I actually live in Denmark, and we can produce solar energy
| just fine. My dad installed rooftop solar 10 years ago, and
| that thing has 90% of his electricity usage since then. It's
| still producing at around 85% capacity too.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > that thing has 90% of his electricity usage
|
| How is that supposed to work with cloudy days with barely 7
| hours of daylight in winter?
| detourdog wrote:
| In New England it works fine and we project 3 hours of
| production during the winter months. Not sure what
| Denmark's latitude is, but 7 hours of production is not
| needed.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| New England is Spain in terms of latitude.
|
| Americans tend to forget how far north Europe is compared
| to the US.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Great Britain, even more North, has viable solar on its
| Southern edge.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Solar has always been a part of a wholistic strategy. We've
| known this ever since the sun went down at night and we had
| to compensate for it.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Far north places have long summer days. This doesn't align well
| with the winter heating needs but it does balance really well
| with wind generation which peaks in winter.
| fritzo wrote:
| If it's a poor location for photovoltaics, it's exactly as a
| poor for photosynthesis
| amarant wrote:
| It's very seasonal for both. But we're currently better at
| storing wheat for 6 months than we are at storing electricity
| for a similar period.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In most places photosynthesis is limited by (1) the
| availability of water and (2) the availability of bio-
| available Nitrogen. Sunlight is less limiting by far.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Latitude is not everything. Oslo, which is further north than
| all of Denmark gets more insolation than Hamburg, which is
| further south than all of Denmark.
|
| And don't forget that storage is getting cheaper so it will get
| more and more practical to save a some of that midday solar
| energy to be used in the evening.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| 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.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where
| people do live becomes the problem with that.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Buckmister Fuller envisioned a worldwide high-voltage
| transmission network implemented with 1980's technology,
| there just isn't the worldwide political will or cooperation
| to build it.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It could possibly be combined with a solution to the storage
| problem: store the energy in some transportable chemical form
| like hydrogen, methane or the electrolyte of a redox flow
| battery.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah possibly. Synthetic hydrocarbon fuel that's already
| compatible with transportation infrastructure and energy
| consumers might be the best bet.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Building HVDC lines from North Africa to Europe, for example,
| wouldn't be a huge feat of civil engineering. Rather standard
| stuff, really.
| dathinab wrote:
| we don't need something that long distance at all
|
| EU has enough areas with sparse population and not that
| much nature which also are south enough to have it work out
| well with solar panels of the current generations.
|
| And besides that even most EU countries have enough places
| in them to still put a lot of solar panels without much
| issues and/or replacing fields.
|
| going as far as North Africa is a bit too far to be
| convenient for power transport
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "from North Africa to Europe" is, to be clear, ~9 miles
| in spots.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Spain and Morocco already have a 1.4 GW DC interconnect and
| the XLinks project intends to connect Morocco and the UK.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where
| people do live becomes the problem with that.
|
| That's kind of what we do today for pretty much everything.
| Most of the population on the planet doesn't live near oil
| rigs, refineries, solar farms, power plants or wind. In fact
| most of the population doesn't live near where we produce our
| food or most of the things we need for survival.
| dathinab wrote:
| in the distances we speak about we do so all the time with
| more centralized energy sources (like e.g. nuklear) due to
| their centralized nature
|
| the issue is less the transport distances but changes in
| "from where to where" sometimes needing some
| extensions/improvements to the power grid. Through commonly
| in ways which anyway make sense and all pretty much
| "standard" solutions well understood. Through there are some
| more complicated exceptions to that.
|
| EDIT: "distances we speak about" assumed less many local less
| dense populate/suitable spots across the EU, not a mega
| project like a energy pipeline from North Afrika.
| jmward01 wrote:
| I've been watching the math of batteries and cargo ships and
| we may not be too far from shipping electrons generated in
| the Sahara to the UK and Europe at a reasonable price. That
| totally changes the game if you have cargo ships moving to
| where the power will be needed. I can imagine these ships
| going to where the weather is predicted to cause an issue to
| help even out the grid and just in general creating a
| responsive base load for the world. It sounds like sci-fi,
| but with the direction batteries have gone it isn't that
| crazy anymore.
| etiam wrote:
| Does it still work out if you take into account the
| insurance premiums for a cargo ship stacked with batteries?
| Can't imagine the fire hazard is pretty.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| The only real problems with long distance electricity
| transmission are political and to a lesser extent financial.
| Technically it is solved problem.
|
| The Desertec project could have turned a relatively small
| patch of Libyan desert into a solar farm that could supply
| all of Europe's electricity except that politics makes it
| impossible.
| moffers wrote:
| We work together pretty well. From a 20,000 foot level maybe it
| looks like chaos and like a central guiding hand would make
| everything better. But, two people working together is easier
| to direct than 100,000 people (or more!). Unpacking this gives
| us the wonders of the economics and behavioral psychology. I'd
| say, all things considered, we could be doing a hell of a lot
| worse on cooperation with each other.
| dathinab wrote:
| look at satellite images of Denmark or the village in question
|
| - that village is the exception, not the norm at all
|
| - that village is in a "small" (on agricultural scale) strip of
| solar panels, around which there are green fields over green
| fields over green field ....
|
| - the photos are deceptive, the first is from the start of the
| strip to the end and contains the huge majority of all solar
| panels in like a 50km? 100km? radius. The second photo does not
| show the village but a separate house up the street, if the
| photo where in a bit more flat angle you would see a normal
| filed behind the solar panels. The village itself has a "strip"
| of (small) green fields around it which should make it less bad
| to live there.
|
| I mean don't get me wrong it probably sucks for the home owners
| in Hjolderup. But it's not representative for the situation in
| Denmark at all.
| chvid wrote:
| 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.
| dathinab wrote:
| 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.
| mellosouls wrote:
| "not buying that this isn't anti renewable propaganda for the
| US"
|
| Its the Guardian so that is a _very_ unlikely motivation.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| _Something_ motivates them, though. They have been on a wild
| anti-solar bend the last year or more. Dozens of articles,
| all with the same anti-solar NIMBY bent
| zipy124 wrote:
| The guardian have previously been found to generate a
| significant amount of ad revenue from fossil fuel companies.
| They aren't politically aligned with it, but are financially.
| Remember that a large portion of the left in the UK are also
| anti-solar since they are pro-green nature and they have yet
| to make a choice on this.
|
| P.s I am pro renewable and pro-solar/wind/nuclear just to
| clarify that this is nothing about my personal beliefs.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Cite your source. The Guardian stopped accepting ads from
| the fossil industry 6 years ago - [0]
|
| It is convenient to be suspicious against news that isn't
| aligned with your views.
|
| [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2020/
| jan/29/...
| mort96 wrote:
| I can't even read it because you either have to accept all
| tracking or pay a subscription fee. Pretty sure that's against
| the GDPR? Anyway, not a good look.
| soco wrote:
| Isn't GDPR an EU thing?
| mort96 wrote:
| Well an EU/EEA thing. And I'm in the EEA, so it applies
| when I visit The Guardian.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It works fine with js disabled.
| testing22321 wrote:
| 100%
|
| It also presents the draw man that solar can only go in huge
| fields that would otherwise grow food.
|
| There are plenty of rooftops and car parks that can be covered
| in solar to excellent benefit.
|
| Ie https://www.eventplanner.net/news/10582_largest-solar-
| carpor...
| ddellacosta wrote:
| > It also presents the draw man that solar can only go in
| huge fields that would otherwise grow food.
|
| > There are plenty of rooftops and car parks that can be
| covered in solar to excellent benefit.
|
| It's worth calling this approach out too:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics
| dathinab wrote:
| and field which have been damaged due to overuse and
| incorrect handling and preferable shouldn't be used for the
| next ~50 year
| zolland wrote:
| The satellite photos of Hjolderup look worse than the photos in
| the article to me... the photos in the article seem like a fair
| representation of the consequences of installing solar fields
| like this--your house and town end up surrounded by solar
| panels.
| chrysoprace wrote:
| Zoom out a bit though, and you quickly realise it's not the
| norm. There is vastly more farm land throughout the country
| and Hjolderup is the exception, not the rule.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There is an art to taking pictures of solar farms from exactly
| the right angle so that the panels seem continuous, often
| making use of deep shadows to cover the gaps.
|
| It's similar to the telephoto shots of wind farms taken from
| far away that make them seem really close together.
| lukeify wrote:
| > - it's not the norm but the exception
|
| I bet makes the person dealing with the outcome of being
| surrounded by them feel a lot better.
| Flavius wrote:
| 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.
| dathinab wrote:
| > corn and other crops specifically for biodiesel.
|
| honestly that always sounded very misguided to me
|
| fields are not perfectly renewable, biomas gets removed from
| them and fertilizers can only help so much in any given time
| frame
|
| mostly corn/raps mono-culture can make that easily far worse
|
| and not needing to import food can safe a lot of energy too
|
| also as you mentioned, modern solar panels seem overall more
| efficient
|
| in difference to solar or wind, biodiesel just seem a very bad
| choice
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Yes to progress, no to cheap right-wing populism with no real
| solutions to any problem. How about that?
| ls612 wrote:
| 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.
| lukeify wrote:
| Agreed. I'm very pro-solar but there should be incentives for
| residential solar and solar on commercial buildings first.
| Covering up farmland and natural environments should be a last
| resort.
| sophacles wrote:
| Why would I agree to such a stupid position?
|
| Here in the us we could swap acres of corn used only for
| ethanol production for acres of solar panels that produce a
| 100x more power annually.
| rcxdude wrote:
| It's a hell of a lot less dumb than growing crops for biofuel
| on it, to start. And it's not even an either/or situation, you
| can do both on the same piece of land. I think there is plenty
| of 'arable' land for which the most productive thing it could
| be doing is solar power.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| The Guardian continues its anti-solar crusade. For some
| inexplicable reason
| Aldipower wrote:
| So, looking on things from another angle is called "a crusade"
| nowadays. Yep, it is like it is.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| The absurdity of the climate debate is that "we" talk almost
| constantly about two energy sources (wind and solar) that in no
| way have the potential to provide the stable baseload power
| required to electrify society. And unless nature has blessed your
| country with abundant geothermal or hydroelectric power, that
| leaves you with the following options: oil, coal, or nuclear
| power.
| rickydroll wrote:
| The addition of batteries as an intermittent power source
| brings us closer to 100% renewable energy and allows us to
| incrementally decommission dirty plants, such as coal- and oil-
| fired plants.
|
| The design goal of adding a battery to grid power sources is to
| capture energy that would otherwise be lost when demand is
| lower than generation. In addition to capturing excess
| production of wind or solar-derived energy, one could capture
| unused energy from our current baseload generating plants
| overnight. We could also, this would also let us capture the
| energy that would otherwise be wasted by unnecessary nighttime
| lighting.
| recursive wrote:
| Wind and solar can provide enough energy. You may be referring
| to their well-publicized variability. Energy storage can solve
| that.
| card_zero wrote:
| The next phase in these conversations is usually to argue
| back and forth about whether energy storage is going to be
| good enough soon, or never will be, or already is. You're
| naive if you think your storage solution can handle the
| massive reserves required, unless you're not naive for
| technical reasons. Don't ask me, this part is always
| inconclusive.
| recursive wrote:
| Ok, I guess we'll never know then.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Denmark is linked to the Norwegian grid, which is essentially
| all hydropower [1]. It imports baseload when needed and exports
| cheap solar power when not.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway
| danw1979 wrote:
| I took a stroll recently through the countryside around Swindon,
| UK, where there's a massive new solar farm on formerly arable
| land. One thing I only just realised was how the view from the
| ground is so badly affected when you're down amidst the endless
| rows of panels - they reach well above head height.
|
| It's basically like walking through a industrial estate, just
| with more grass in between. Really very bleak.
|
| Give me an onshore wind farm over this.
| teamonkey wrote:
| Are you _sure_ it's arable land? The majority of solar farms in
| the UK are built on low-grade land that aren't suitable for
| growing food.
| ghighi7878 wrote:
| Green grass is still good to look at.
| teamonkey wrote:
| There is grass. Grass is allowed to grow around the panels.
| It's great for biodiversity.
| Animats wrote:
| Needs a beauty strip of trees around the panels.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yeah, 'cause shade is precisely what's needed for a solar
| farm
| swsieber wrote:
| Around, not over. Trees are a well studied thing where can
| you pick different species for different characteristics,
| like height, and growth speed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| TIL shadows from trees only project down directly under
| the tree and never project away from the tree itself. My
| entire life experience has been rendered useless.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Most of the new solar farms do plant them, it just takes
| decades for trees to grow big enough to hide the panels
|
| Personally I like the panels
| nitwit005 wrote:
| That just sounds like endless corn fields, only solar panels.
| card_zero wrote:
| I don't much like walking through corn fields either, it's
| heavy going, all that trampling. Farmers should just grow
| pretty flowers, small ones.
| simmerup wrote:
| Climate change is an existential threat, it's switch to green
| power asap or burn the world our kids will live in
| carefree-bob wrote:
| It's hysterical claims like this that cause so many problems
| for climate researchers and policy makers when the doomsday
| scenario fails to materialize. And then that's when you get
| newspaper clippings about the melting of the arctic sea ice
| by the year 2000 and everyone laughs and then discounts the
| whole thing.
|
| Please don't do this. It is not an "existential threat"
| outside of various fundraising pamphlets and political
| organizations, and they exploit science for political gain at
| the cost of the credibility of the whole enterprise.
| simmerup wrote:
| It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit
| happens in 100 years so of course you're not going to see
| it materialize over night
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential
| bit happens in 100 years_
|
| No, it's not, and no, we don't know that. Humans will
| survive climate change. Rich countries will survive, too.
|
| We will all suffer. Economically, healthwise and
| aesthetically. But that's not existential. Framing it as
| such is disingenuous and counterproductive.
| simmerup wrote:
| RCP8.5 is pretty much ruled out by people as unlikely for
| some reason, even as we have the major super power on the
| planet pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate
| change.
|
| There is clearly a temperature at which this planet will
| not support human life, and we could definitely get the
| planet to that temperature if we don't change course and
| reach net zero.
|
| Saying its not an existential threat is just wild to me.
| card_zero wrote:
| I've never been able to decide whether it is or not. I'm
| still vaguely scared of the clathrate gun, permafrost
| releasing extra CO2, and phytoplankton shrinking under
| ocean acidification so we can't have as much oxygen as
| we're accustomed to.
|
| Edit: one of those crossfire situations where the downvotes
| could be coming from either direction. I'm going to assume
| they mean "don't be scared".
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I don't think you're qualified to make this assessment. If
| a large majority of the scientific community is treating it
| and calling it an existential threat, I'm tempted to agree.
| In fact, I think most widely held scientific stances on
| this are meant to be balanced and as agreeable as possible,
| so I personally believe it's likely to be worse than the
| mainstream opinion.
|
| Climate migration is already an issue. Extreme climate
| events are already increasingly problematic. Will
| civilization collapse in the next 50 years. Almost
| certainly not, but will we be better off then than we are
| now? Unless we rapidly increase the rate at which we
| address this issue, I don't see how that happens either.
| m4rtink wrote:
| I would actually phrase is a "fossil fuels are an existential
| threat" - regardless on how climmate change will impact us,
| it is IMHO enough to see the destructions people are capable
| due to fossil fuel money & it makes 100% sense to get ridd of
| any dependency on fossil fuels ASAP.
| pjc50 wrote:
| How much extra on your electricity bill are you prepared to pay
| to not see it?
| asdff wrote:
| So much spare land in flat roofs in industrial and warehouse
| space but solar installations there, if they are there, seem to
| be limited to covering utility bills for the building over
| generating surplus for the grid. Much of the roof will remain
| uncovered, along with all the periphery lot, parking, truck
| yard, and access roads. No one would be complaining about any
| view there...
| dev_l1x_be wrote:
| Energy density is a real problem.
| jmward01 wrote:
| We are at a moment where we are finding more and more ways to
| integrate solar in. It is likely we will go 'too far' in some
| ways but hopefully over the next few decades we will see a lot
| more well integrated solutions like vertical panels complementing
| farming and solar integrated, potentially with lower efficiency
| but also less impact, into things like building surfaces and
| other non-traditional places. Getting a diversity of options out
| there, and iterating on them, is key to the next phase where
| solar is everywhere reasonable by default and well integrated in
| to daily life.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I live in the UK in a town of 10,000 people, so say 4,000
| houses (probably far higher than there are). If every house had
| a 10kWp (way more than most installs) that would be 40MW
| generation.
|
| On the outskirts of town we have a 40MW solar farm about the
| same size as the golf course. Most people have no idea it's
| there, it uses barely any land compared to the rest of farmland
| around here. That generates about 40GWh a year.
|
| The cost of renting the land it's on each year is about PS20k a
| year, or 50p per MWh, basically nothing. Land is effectively
| free compared to the value from "farming the sun", it's far
| cheaper than the scaffolding to put 8kWp on a roof
| jmyeet wrote:
| You don't even have to go to the issue of climate change to
| defned this anymore. The far more relevant factor is the cost of
| energy as well as national security.
|
| Europe as a whole has engaged in greenwashing where instead of
| really solving their emissions and energy problems has simply
| offshored those problems to poorer countries. If a neighbour uses
| fossil fuels for electricity generation and you buy their excess
| electrricity, you're not greener. You've just cooked the books.
|
| People who might say "when I go outside at this very specific
| place solar panels look ugly" should carry no weight when those
| solar panels (in Denmark's case) covers 0.2% of rural land. Go
| somewhere else.
|
| Unsurprisingly, China is leading here by making solar panel
| installations have multiple uses like reversing desertification
| and use vegetation growth from the shade and the water used to
| clean the panels as a place for grazing livestock. Obviously
| Europe in general and Denmark in particular doesn't have deserts,
| of course.
|
| I'm generally a fan of putting solar panels on non-arable land.
| In the US, that's much of the southwest, which incidentally also
| has very good solar yields because of the high amount of
| sunshine. There are whole areas of grass plains that can't be
| used for traditional farming as we discovered in the 1930s. It
| was called the Dust Bowl. There was a famous book written about
| it (ie the Grapes of Wrath).
|
| What I don't understand is why we don't build more solar around
| or over highways. This is already public land and it's land not
| doing anything else. The solar wouldn't interfere with the core
| purpose either. I guess people want solar panels tucked away
| where few can see them.
| chrysoprace wrote:
| For decades I've been pointing to Denmark (partly out of national
| pride) as a successful model for renewables as Australia dragged
| its feet on the issue due to fossil fuel industry lobbying.
|
| The positive I take from the article is that Denmark is
| successfully diversifying its renewable energy sources, something
| that's needed while battery infrastructure is built to scale, and
| I sincerely hope it doesn't become a serious political issue like
| it's been here in Australia for decades (and continues to be
| today).
| rcxdude wrote:
| I always find it kind of ironic when the more allegedly
| libertarian pro-farmer side of the political spectrum start to
| get really concerned with how farmers use their land. And a solar
| farm has to be the most inoffensive thing to live next to, I was
| frankly shocked that it was something that appeared on a house
| survey result as "developments nearby you might be concerned
| about".
| jeppester wrote:
| I live in a small Danish town that would have very likely been
| surrounded by solar panels by now if we had not put up a fight.
|
| The problem is that these projects are pitched to land owners, to
| be placed in areas they can't see from their own windows. Those
| who live nearby are not involved until the approval is a
| formality (or presented as such). Often times the investors will
| also pay certain house owners for their silence, making the
| locals suspicious of each other.
|
| They do this because obviously no one likes someone from the
| outside to take away the green* surroundings that are a big part
| of why people live there - and in the process lowering the value
| of everyone's houses.
|
| I can't comprehend why someone would think that this was a good
| way of rolling out solar.
|
| I agree that we are going to need solar as part of the mix. It
| would just be much better to start with the locations where
| people do NOT want to live, for instance next to motorways.
|
| Luckily I think we are slowly moving in that direction due to all
| the resistance.
|
| *I'm well aware that fields are heavy industry, but they are
| plants and rarely 2,5 meters tall.
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