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ghostsintherafters t1_jd8sk6d wrote

Reply to comment by Norgyort in Maine's Energy future by mainething

Booooo! I hate that this is the top comment. Placing solar panels in the median is a brilliant idea and has worked in some of the dirtiest cities in India and Southeast Asia. The best part? Solar power is virtually free and they can't find a way to make it scarce in order to jack up our energy bills. Anyone leading us away from solar power is not our friend and these energy bills are fucking killing us common folk. Solar power in the medians all day, every day. Great idea.

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3490goat t1_jd8wwdd wrote

I think the fact that is has worked well for other countries is the best reason to take a good look at the idea. The reality of American excellence has faded over time and we should start again to incorporate great ideas from other countries that work better. America has been surpassed in many areas in the last 40 years and we need to catch up on technology and infrastructure

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WalkerBRiley t1_jd9hmki wrote

I think the fact that is has worked well for other countries is the main reason Americans are so against it. If it works somewhere else it can't be good, amirite?

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3490goat t1_jd9itfb wrote

I think that is is attitude a lot of people have. Unfortunately

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ralphy1010 t1_jdaewya wrote

I dunno man, I see a lot of European cars on the road everyday. They must be doing something right. /s

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Betty2theWhite t1_jdbi15c wrote

People leading you away from just solar panels are your friends. Solar panels can't fix the world right now, we don't have adequate energy storage, especially in Maine where we have massive needs for power at the exact times solar stops producing. The duck curve just doesn't allow for it

In fact I'd argue only adding solar panels wouldn't change prices at all. Power plants are super costly to shut down and start up, and they have set flexibility in how much or little output they can sustain. So we can't just shut them off when the solar panels start producing and turn them back on when we need the power, and it turns out we consume the most power right before and right after solar panels produce.

All a massive solar panel project would do, right now, is flood the market with power at the times we need the least amount of power.

Now lunar panels, that's what we need.

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seanwalter54321 t1_jdc19tu wrote

You’ll get downvoted but you seem to be the only one here that knows what they’re talking about. The price per MWH will actually go in the negatives making you have to shut down your main power suppliers when the suns out, then a cloud goes by, these things drop their output by 70% and now all the sudden things need to be up and running again. Without battery storage these things are creating disasters for grid stability.

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Betty2theWhite t1_jddgbbd wrote

I did get down voted, but I'm an engineer so I'm used to people only respect my opinions on these matters when they have to pay me for them.

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