#Photovoltaic power plants

[electronalytics]

Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market Growth and Status Explored in a New Research Report 2032

The floating photovoltaic power plant solution market has been gaining significant attention and growth in recent years. As a renewable energy solution, floating solar power plants offer several advantages over traditional ground-mounted solar installations. Here is an overview of the market, key points, trends, and demand in the floating photovoltaic power plant solution industry:

Overview: Floating photovoltaic power plants, also known as floating solar farms or floating solar panels, are installations where solar panels are mounted on floating structures, typically on water bodies such as reservoirs, lakes, or ponds. These systems generate electricity by converting sunlight into electricity using photovoltaic cells.

Key Points:

Energy Generation Potential: Floating solar power plants have immense energy generation potential due to the availability of large water surfaces, which helps to reduce land constraints typically associated with ground-mounted solar installations.

Water Conservation: By utilizing water bodies for solar installations, floating solar power plants can help reduce evaporation and limit algae growth, thereby conserving water resources.

Increased Efficiency: The cooling effect of water on the floating solar panels enhances their efficiency compared to land-based installations. The water cools down the panels, reducing heat-related efficiency losses.

Land Optimization: Floating solar panels enable the utilization of otherwise unused water surfaces, allowing for efficient land optimization, especially in densely populated areas.

Environmental Benefits: Floating solar power plants contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, making them an environmentally friendly energy generation solution.

Trends:

Growing Market Size: The floating photovoltaic power plant solution market has been experiencing rapid growth globally. Countries like China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Brazil have been at the forefront of this expansion.

Technological Advancements: Ongoing advancements in floating solar technology, such as improved floating platforms, anchoring systems, and electrical infrastructure, are driving the market growth and improving the efficiency and reliability of floating solar power plants.

Innovative Floating Solutions: Companies are developing innovative floating solar solutions, such as modular floating platforms and hybrid systems that combine solar with other renewable energy sources like wind or hydroelectric power.

Project Scaling: There is an increasing trend of large-scale floating solar projects, with installations exceeding several hundred megawatts. This scaling up is driven by cost reductions, favorable policies, and the availability of suitable water bodies for installation.

Demand: The demand for floating photovoltaic power plants is primarily driven by:

Renewable Energy Targets: Many countries have set renewable energy targets and policies to reduce carbon emissions. Floating solar power plants offer a viable and sustainable option to meet these targets, driving the demand for such installations.

Water Bodies Availability: The presence of suitable water bodies, such as reservoirs or unused lakes/ponds, provides an opportunity for the deployment of floating solar power plants. Countries with abundant water resources often see higher demand for such installations.

Land Constraints: In densely populated areas where land availability is limited or expensive, floating solar installations present an attractive alternative to maximize energy generation without occupying valuable land resources.

Cost Competitiveness: The decreasing costs of solar panels, coupled with advancements in floating system technologies, have improved the cost competitiveness of floating photovoltaic power plants compared to traditional solar installations.

In summary, the floating photovoltaic power plant solution market is witnessing significant growth and demand due to its energy generation potential, water conservation benefits, land optimization, and environmental advantages. Technological advancements, innovative solutions, and favorable policies are expected to continue driving market growth in the coming years.

We recommend referring our Stringent datalytics firm, industry publications, and websites that specialize in providing market reports. These sources often offer comprehensive analysis, market trends, growth forecasts, competitive landscape, and other valuable insights into this market.

By visiting our website or contacting us directly, you can explore the availability of specific reports related to this market. These reports often require a purchase or subscription, but we provide comprehensive and in-depth information that can be valuable for businesses, investors, and individuals interested in this market.

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Market Segmentations:

Global Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market: By Company • SUNGROW • Hanwha Q CELLS • Yokogawa • Ciel & Terre • Iberdrola • Trina Solar • Intech GmbH • JA Solar • Guangdong Multifit Solar • Xiamen Grace Solar Technology • Xiamen Mibet New Energy • Huawei Digital Power • LONGi Solar • Yeo Solar • Jinko Power Technology Global Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market: By Type • System Layout Solution • Cable Floating Solution • Anchor System Solution Global Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market: By Application • Inland Water • Marine Water Global Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market: Regional Analysis All the regional segmentation has been studied based on recent and future trends, and the market is forecasted throughout the prediction period. The countries covered in the regional analysis of the Global Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution market report are U.S., Canada, and Mexico in North America, Germany, France, U.K., Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Rest of Europe in Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Argentina, Brazil, and Rest of South America as part of South America.

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Reasons to Purchase Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant Solution Market Report:

Market Insights: Market research reports provide valuable insights into the current market trends, dynamics, and opportunities. They offer comprehensive information about the market size, growth rate, key players, market segments, and competitive landscape. These insights can help you make informed decisions and develop effective strategies for your business.

Competitive Analysis: Market research reports often include a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape. They provide information about the key players in the market, their market share, strategies, product offerings, and financial performance. Understanding the competitive landscape can help you benchmark your business against competitors and identify opportunities for differentiation.

Industry Trends and Forecast: Market research reports provide forecasts and projections for the future growth of the market. They analyze industry trends, technological advancements, regulatory changes, and market drivers. Having access to reliable forecasts can assist you in making strategic decisions, planning investments, and understanding the long-term prospects of the market.

Customer Insights: Market research reports often include insights into customer behavior, preferences, and buying patterns. Understanding your target customers is crucial for developing effective marketing strategies and tailoring your products or services to meet their needs. Market research reports can provide valuable demographic, psychographic, and geographic information about your target audience.

Risk Assessment: Market research reports help in assessing the potential risks and challenges in the market. They highlight factors such as market volatility, regulatory changes, economic conditions, and technological disruptions that may impact the industry. By understanding these risks, you can develop risk mitigation strategies and make informed business decisions.

Investment Opportunities: Market research reports can help identify investment opportunities in the floating photovoltaic power plant solution market. They highlight emerging markets, growth segments, and potential areas for expansion. This information can be valuable for investors, entrepreneurs, and business development professionals seeking new business opportunities.

Cost and Time Savings: Conducting your own market research can be time-consuming and expensive. Purchasing a market research report can save you valuable time and resources by providing you with comprehensive and up-to-date information in a consolidated format.

Overall, investing in a market research report can provide you with crucial market insights, competitive analysis, industry trends, customer behavior data, and risk assessment. These insights can help you make informed decisions, identify growth opportunities, mitigate risks, and stay ahead in the competitive floating photovoltaic power plant solution market.

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[faultfalha]

Winds of change blew through the East, stirring up a strange and mysterious effect. Global polysilicon prices had suddenly dropped, while China polysilicon prices had risen just as quickly. There was no waiting for the dust to settle, for news seemed to spread with a speed that defied all explanation. Was some otherworldly force behind it, or was it merely the workings of a more mundane nature? Whatever the cause, the result was undeniable and had the people of the region asking questions they had no way of answering. Such was the power of the unknown.

[wiresandcables]

Solar Cable Manufacturers Online | Solar Cables & Connectors | LAPP India

Buy solar cables and connectors online from LAPP India. They are the best solar cable manufacturers that offer you best quality solar cables used in photovoltaic systems.

[jadsolargroup]

This video discusses the latest trends in solar energy for 2023 that can help companies thrive. It covers five key developments, including rising interest in solar power, advances in energy storage technologies, more efficient solar panels, the use of AI in solar power, and solar-powered vehicles. The video emphasizes the importance of staying up to date with the newest developments in the solar energy sector and provides information on the supplier's cutting-edge solar energy options. For more information, please watch my youtube channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5L2jmyl_3_YDDdcs16fixqu98smZurcQ ,and give click like, share and comment for me.

[sunveerasolarjalgaon]

Electric power showroom converted into renewable power

[reasonsforhope]

"Renewables accounted for 50.4% of the European Union’s electricity generation in the first six months of 2024, data from industry association Eurelectric shows.

That’s a sharp increase from calendar year 2023, when renewables comprised 44.7% of the bloc’s mix, according to Eurostat.

“The pace of change is impressive,” Eurelectric secretary general Kristian Ruby said in a statement.

When including nuclear, 74% of the EU’s power came from low-carbon sources in the first half — up from 68% in 2023...

Eurelectric wants the new European Commission to propose an Electrification Action Plan that seeks to boost the share of electricity in final energy consumption to 35% by 2030. This would entail a faster shift to electric vehicles, heat pumps, and industrial decarbonisation technologies, among other things...

Meanwhile, a separate data release showed that renewables accounted for 58% of electricity consumption in Germany in the first half of the year.

That’s up from 52% in the same period a year before, according to the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).

“This is the reward for the persistent expansion of wind energy and photovoltaics in recent years,” said Kerstin Andreae, chair of BDEW.

Andreae said Germany needed to expand its electricity grid and storage capacity to maintain the momentum. It should also build hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plants.

“This new record underlines that an efficient, reliable, secure and greenhouse gas-neutral power supply based on almost 100% renewable energies, including hydrogen, is not only achievable in Germany by 2035, but also offers a stable foundation for industry on its way to climate-neutral production,” said Frithjof Staiß, managing director of ZSW."

-via The Progress Playbook, July 3, 2024

[zvaigzdelasas]

Two 650-foot-tall (200-m) towers have risen in China's Gansu Province. Combined with an array of 30,000 mirrors arranged in concentric circles, the new facility is expected to generate over 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year.

While photovoltaic panels that directly convert sunlight to electricity are what most people think of when they hear the term "solar power," there is another method of harvesting the Sun's power that's been steadily developing since the early 1980s. Known as solar thermal or concentrated solar power (CSP), these systems rely on mirrors known as heliostats to bounce sunlight to a central gathering point. There, the concentrated beams heat a transfer fluid that in turn heats a working fluid. This fluid then evaporates, turns a turbine, and generates electricity.

In 2014, what was then the world's largest solar thermal power station opened in the Mojave Desert in the United States. [The] facility consists of three different towers surrounded by heliostat arrays and has a capacity of 392 megawatts. [...] The world's largest CSP, the Noor Complex Solar Power Plant, now operates in the Sahara Desert in Morocco where it churns out 510 megawatts of power.[...]

Much like the facility in the US, the Ghazhou solar thermal energy storage project will use multiple towers: in this case, two of them, both sharing the same steam turbine.

But unlike the US facility, where each tower is surrounded by its own field of heliostats, the Chinese project will deploy a field of mirrors set in overlapping concentric circles. The mirrors will then be able to follow the path of the Sun and reflect light to either tower in the most efficient way possible. It's an advance that will improve CSP efficiency significantly, says project manager, Wen Jianghong.

"The mirrors in the overlapping area can be utilized by either tower," he said. "This configuration is expected to enhance efficiency by 24 percent." Helping that efficiency along is the fact that the mirrors being used have a 94% reflection efficiency, meaning that most of the solar energy that hits them is beamed back to the power-producing towers.

17 Jul 24

[cognitivejustice]

Rural China goes solarpunk

Viewed from a distance, Lianxing looks more like a solar energy farm than a rural village of 457 households. There are solar photovoltaic panels on almost all its rooftops and in every courtyard.

For generations, residents of the village in Wuyuan county, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, depended on straw, firewood and coal for cooking and heating. But they have now abandoned those fuels, which often made their homes dirty, 40-year-old villager Shi Baohong said.

The new power generation facilities have also brought villagers a consistent stream of income with little effort. Shi earns almost 10,000 yuan ($1,400) a year from his solar PV panels and said there is still enough space between them to plant herbs and other cash crops in his courtyard of more than 300 square meters.

As China forges ahead with energy transition and rural vitalization, Lianxing and its almost 1,400 residents are a microcosm of the synergy that can be generated when the two campaigns are promoted simultaneously.

Local authorities said the distributed solar PV system in Lianxing went into operation in 2017, three years after villagers moved into new homes fitted with solar panels. Households in the village now make an average of 8,000 yuan a year from selling solar energy to the grid.

Villagers did not have to pay for the new houses or power generation facilities thanks to a land-use rights transfer project. After their resettlement, the land previously covered by the villagers' old, dilapidated houses was turned into more than 130 hectares of farmland.

"Villagers didn't pay even a single penny. It was a house-for-house deal, and that's not half bad," the village's Party chief, Li Chou, said.

All the costs for the new houses and solar panels were covered by the company that invested in a large-scale agricultural development project.

In Donglian village, in Gansu's Gaotai county, many families can earn 1,000 yuan a year without having to make any investment or do maintenance work. They lease their rooftops to a company for distributed solar PV development.

source

[alpaca-clouds]

Can you help debunk what I have been told that solar panels are bad for the environment and cause more waste because they take a long time to decompose and wear out in a couple years?

Okay, let me try and answer this. Because yes, this is a more complicated issue, than a lot of people make it out to be.

So, let me start with the big thing that gets often overlooked: Without even looking into ressource use, big photovoltaic power plans have definitely a negative environmental impact. Not as a negative as anything fossil energy related, but negative never the less.

With power plants I mean those giant fields where we plaster photovoltaic panels over acres of land, to have a central power plant based around photovoltaic. And while we might not get around some of those big power plants, part of the energy revolution should be to move towards micro grids instead of current macro grids (so, decentralization), hence lowering the need of central powerplants.

Now, a lot of people who are anti-pv - mostly people who are from the fossil fuel lobby, but also some nuclear-lobby folks - tend to exaggerate those negative impacts... But they are still there. (Mostly having to do with depending on the type of pv panel used they can impact the ground temperature - and of course they just disrupt the environment.)

Sooo... Let's get to the raw materials. The important bit in photovoltaic is silicon. And this is one of the good old environmentalist "well actaully" things. Because when I was a kid I got told: "Oh, silicon is never a problem, because it is just sand! We have so much sand!" But of course I learned that it is not quite as easy. Because not all sand is created equal and not all can be used for stuff like concrete (which is shit either way), glass or photovoltaic.

Though still it is not as much of an issue as a lot of rare earth materials. Some of which are currently used in photovoltaic. But here is the other thing...

Photovoltaic is currently one of the fastest developing energy technologies. Basically anything I am gonna tell you here will be outdated next year. I guarantee.

But yes, in the creation of photovoltaic we currently use rare earth metals, that are at times sourced through bad means. Both in terms of it being mined through slave work and through the mining being done in a way that harms the environment. But... for one, we are currently working on reducing the need for rare earth metals in the creation of photovoltaic. And like with nuclear materials: We could mine the materials in a much more sustainable way - both on a social and ecological level. It is just that the current capitalist system has all the incentives to mine those materials wiht exploited workers or even slaves, and to not take care of the waste created in the mining operation.

And this gets us back to the recycling.

Short version: Yeah, we have ways to recycle about 65-80% of the materials in a photovoltaic panel. And like everything else: We are working on it and it will probably go up to 90%. But once again: Like with all recycling the issue is, that recycling materials is way more expensive than getting new materials. Which is why under capitalism all the things we could recycle often do not get recycled.

But it is possible.

tl;dr: Yes, there are drawbacks to photovoltaic, but it is not as bad as many make it seem. And a ton of the drawbacks are not inevitable but only exist because of capitalism.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s solar capacity hits 34.9 GW, surpassing wind in national energy mix

Solar, at 34.9 GW of installed capacity, now accounts for 15.8% of Brazil’s energy mix, ranking second after hydroelectric plants at 49%, but ahead of wind power at 12.2%, according to the Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (Absolar).

Continue reading.

[a-mole-of-iron]

Yes, we can stop climate change - and solve ecological problems in general

In the last few years, I have seen again and again a particular social response to climate change that can leave human civilization just as devastated as denying or ignoring climate change: and that is doomism, and fellow-traveler ideas of eco-fascism and eco-austerity. Make no mistake: climate change is a very serious issue that can cause noticeable damage to Earth and a hell of a lot of damage to humanity, but people absolutely love to take it to lurid extremes, like "Mad Max hellworld" and "Earth becoming the second Venus by 2100". In this post, I'm just going to lay out numerous reasons why the situation is far from hopeless, why sensationalized narratives of climate change are just a petty excuse for inaction, why "we'd better start taking mud baths to get used to being in the ground" rhetoric is incredibly dangerous (not to mention a betrayal of the weak and vulnerable by the strong and well-off), and why, ultimately, things aren't as dire as "the common wisdom" proclaims - so that people can stop feeling crushed by hopelessness, and start solving all of the very, very real environmental problems the way they're already being solved. All my examples will be sourced from the IPCC reports and real-world accomplishments in eco-restoration, via an extremely helpful blog called Doomsday Debunked, which just reprints all the IPCC and IPBES findings that doomist media and activism deliberately omits.

Most of this post is adapted from one I already made before elsewhere - but perhaps on Tumblr it's going to become more popular and widespread. I'm going to split it into three different sections: climate change mitigation, biodiversity recovery, and why "green austerity" is not a brilliant idea, will not save anything, and is ultimately an outdated falsehood that emerged from a place of insufficient knowledge and understanding. Almost all paragraphs contain links to sources/more info, but they may be hard to see in some custom Tumblr themes - be sure to mouse over if you want to find the links.

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND YOU: how renewable energy really can save the world!

Here's the biggest thing first: Climate Action Tracker, which is a pretty damn respectable source, has slashed off 1.1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius off its average warming projections since 2010, according to their own records. Hell, in 2018, three degrees of warming was a pledge, and four degrees was the expected upper limit; now three degrees is expected if the current level of fossil fuel consumption continues without any reduction - and two degrees is the policy target, while optimistic projections are inching closer to 1.5 degrees. And to "achieve" 5 degrees Celsius of warming, which is misleadingly described by journalists as "business as usual" when by our current day it's anything but, we would need an economic mobilization from now to 2100 to burn all the coal that we can possibly burn. With coal plants shutting down in reality simply due to being unprofitable, I don't have to tell you how "realistic" and "plausible" that is. The takeaway from this is simple: the Paris Agreement and environmental activism work, and I really don't see them winding down unless we let doomism reign supreme.

A specific example of policy and technology that can seriously reduce climate change is the amazing growth of solar power over the last 10 years. I am old enough to remember the early 2000s, when solar photovoltaics (the panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity) were an unproven, esoteric, and expensive technology, and people meant solar water heaters when they said "solar power"… but nowadays? There is literally predictions that if solar energy keeps growing at current rates, and considering it already beats fossil fuels on price, it might simply price out gas, coal, and oil before 2050, rendering them entirely obsolete. Even now, investment into coal or gas power plants is seen as an incredibly stupid thing to do, because they might become "stranded assets" - too expensive to run, and unable to even recoup their initial cost.

The clathrate gun/Arctic methane bomb hypothesis has been effectively disproven at the current time. The release of methane from clathrates is endothermic, meaning it takes in more heating than it releases; a direct opposite of a gunshot/explosion, which is an exothermic reaction. More modern research also turned up the fact that methane has been seeping upwards at a constant rate for millennia now - we just didn't monitor it. Seabed disturbance could possibly upturn some of the clathrates, but ocean warming alone simply can't do it - it would take thousands of years of warming for the temperature change to propagate to the kind of depth that methane clathrates are found at.

The hypothesis of runaway greenhouse effect has effectively been disproven too: with a more powerful greenhouse effect, Earth's albedo grows just as fast as the heat-trapping capacity, meaning runaway warming is highly unlikely and the only cause are human industry CO2 emissions, which can be obsoleted by renewables and thus stopped.

The biggest threat from climate change as it is now appear to be extreme weather events; for example physically straining heatwaves, or severe floods from large amounts of rainfall. And those are serious problems. But heatwaves can be deal with by adapting our environments - the most obvious example being to plant some trees instead of layering our cities in concrete. Similarly, flood management isn't some arcane art; we know how to do it. It's just been ignored due to complacency and budgetary stinginess.

The expectations of social collapse from climate change are… overstated, let's say. The IPCC's own worst-case scenario is NOT "Earth as a lifeless desert" or "collapse of human society"; the situation IPCC associated with three-degree warming is that hundreds of millions risk being displaced by sea level rise and temperatures in the tropics getting too hot for comfortable life with no weather difficulties (NOT THE SAME as "you go out at any point during the summer, you die in ten minutes"), and the UN Sustainable Development Goals will be left in ruins. In other words, the poor people of the world will go back to starving and suffering, and the rich, especially in the West, will for the most part retain their quality of life. And so to me, as a non-Western, not-ultra-rich person, doomism is a personal affront, and doomism from solarpunks and environmentalists is a grave betrayal.

Speaking of the IPCC reports: the last one states with decent confidence that as soon as we stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, temperatures will begin to drop. Just think on this for a minute.

The "1970s MIT supercomputer that predicted the collapse of civilization by 2040"? That computer was not just less powerful than a smartphone from five years ago - it modeled the world as a single pixel, primitive even by the standards of the day. (Link to article that features actual model comparisons, via browser-based Javascript emulation. 'Nuff said.)

The so-called "deep adaptation" paper that managed to put people into therapy by its sheer grimness? Junk science that was rebuffed by Michael Mann - the author of the "hockey stick graph" of global temperatures, so not a climate denier by any means - in a four-letter tweet.

Earth turning into a second Venus by 2100? Yeah. That's… not gonna happen. We literally don't have enough fossil fuels to induce a greenhouse effect this bad, at any timescale, and I don't know if we could do it even if we started importing dry ice from space and cracking carbonate minerals for their carbon content to deliberately destroy the planet for some stupid reason.

And just because I feel like mentioning it: no, Earth can't run out of oxygen for us to breathe, barring an invasion of Galactus or some other planet-devouring alien.

BIODIVERSITY + CONSERVATION: lies, damned lies, and statistics

The infamous notion that we are heading for a world without insects was based on a study where half the map was blank, and some countries only counted the domestic honeybee (which relies on humans to thrive). Not all plants need insects to pollinate them, either. But at the same time, overuse of insecticides in agriculture is a serious issue with many adverse effects, and it has to be fought against. There is currently a campaign in Europe with this aim. Native grass lawns in cities help a lot too, more than you would think at first.

Similarly, there is a general notion that we are "in the middle of a sixth mass extinction", except we're not "in the middle". We're in the beginning of one. Now, if we all start/keep behaving like the Glukkons from the Oddworld series of games, or the Blargs from the first Ratchet & Clank game, for a few hundred more years - then we're totally going to face an impoverished biosphere with half or more known species dead. But if we do that, I'd say extinction of species would be far from our only problem.

The number one agricultural land use that drives deforestation is grazing cattle and growing crops to feed them; cropland and cities simply don't compare. Ergo, just by shifting to plant-based diets supplemented by lab-grown meat cultures and sustainable fish, we can rewild nearly 30% of Earth. And climate impacts there can be reduced too, if you simply buy local.

For a reforestation success story on a massive scale, look no further than the Loess Plateau.

Conservation success stories are actually plentiful; however, they do not get aired on the news because good news does not draw in views, clicks, and outrage. You can just go through this article on Doomsday Debunked to see how successful nature conservation can actually be.

The only two biomes that are most endangered by climate change are coral reefs (which would be replaced by the more resilient sponge reefs at 3 degrees of warming or around that), and the mountain glaciers, which will take thousands of years to recover, unlike the polar ice caps that'll be back in a couple of decades. But even corals have shown more resilience than expected before, so the scale of devastation is not nearly as huge as people might imagine.

GREEN AUSTERITY: "Friendly fire! Stop shooting, you pointy-eared leaf lover!"

A common, in fact extremely common, idea is that the only way to save the planet is accepting massive reductions to our quality of life - and by "massive" I mean "living in dugouts and doing subsistence agriculture while literally billions of people die for lack of warmth and medicine". Not only is this unacceptable, it's also a complete lie. The best way for someone living in the car-dependent, fossil-fuel-hungry sprawl of North America to reduce their carbon footprint is actually moving to a country with walkable, bikeable cities and good public transportation, like the Netherlands… or preferably, reforming and rebuilding their own local environment to this standard that used to exist in NA before its suburbanization that included zero public transport due to auto industry lobbying. NotJustBikes is an entire YouTube channel that explains this better than I ever could.

Another common idea is that building enough renewable generation capacity is just not possible with existing resources here on Earth. But consider this for a moment: when we mine metals and make them into electric engines or batteries, they don't go anywhere, with the only possible exception being metal flaking off due to corrosion. The metals composing wind turbine generators, electric vehicle motors, and batteries, or silicon composing the solar panels, remain in place and can be recycled several times, if not infinitely. Oil and coal that our current civilization burns for fuel EMPHATICALLY CANNOT be recycled - the entire problem we have is that they turn into carbon dioxide and clog our atmosphere, while soot and other exhaust fumes damage the health of people living in cities. Getting rid of 99% or more of fossil fuel infrastructure doesn't seem like that hard of a choice when you remember that feeding a renewables-based infrastructure requires a far more modest production capacity.

The issue of soil depletion from intensive agriculture is not only exaggerated by the negative/doomist framing (no, we are NOT going to run out of topsoil in 60 years!) - it's also a problem of mismanagement rather than an inherent agricultural problem. Stop oversaturating fields with fertilizer, introduce polyculture and crop rotation, and you'll see how much better things can get.

Similar to the above: the production of fertilizer does not require fossil fuels, no matter what some people might be saying. The three types of fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. All of those are abundant chemical elements on Earth, and circulate through the biosphere freely; nitrogen is the 70% of our atmosphere and cannot possibly run out, and phosphate with potassium are abundant in the Earth's crust. The only direct use of fossil fuels in fertilizer production is the Haber-Bosch process that condenses nitrogen from the air into ammonia, and guess what molecule it needs for that? Hydrogen, which is the stronger half of the elements composing hydrocarbon fuels and which we could have in abundance by simple electrolysis of water!

Related to the above: it is beyond ridiculous how cow manure is dumped into rivers or similar by most modern farmers, when with right subsidies it could be transformed into cheap-as-free fertilizer to be used in agriculture. Someone should go create subsidies for large-scale composting...

Surprisingly enough, even consistent economic growth - which I am not a fan of by any means - can be achieved on a finite planet, because economic growth is all in what you count and how you count it. If we calculate economic growth not by production, but by improvements in human condition and condition of ecosystems (i.e. an economy that grows with the growth of trees), then we'll see that right now some world regions (like, again, North America) are failing as much as countries poor in money, but also that there is an enormous space for growth measured in sustainable prosperity.

The much-touted problem of water wars is an actual problem only for regions way, way inland. Any coastal countries have access to efficient desalination; it's not 1850 anymore. Water doesn't disappear from the world after people use it in cities and industries, it goes right back into the soil/atmosphere/rivers and oceans, so we can't "run out of water".

Interesting fact: we don't actually require any particularly specialized carbon capture technology to remove all the excess CO2 from the atmosphere, and will not require us to divert society's resources to expensive machinery. The old adage about the best carbon capture technology that's called "planting trees" still holds - and what's even more interesting is that there actually are even better methods that are not much more complex… and produce other things for the environment and for civilization in the process.

CONCLUSION

To sum things up: yes, the situation is serious, and "already bad enough" as Michael Mann put it (admittedly, he's been leaning into negative framing himself… but it can't be all positive, the problems of climate change really are dangerous, especially to the world's poor), and there's been a lot of environmental damage due to industries and rich consumers deliberately ignoring the externalities/knock-on effects of their resource use - but it's not nearly as horrifically bleak as some people presume. Right now there is great momentum behind climate action - which, yes, is partially propelled by increasingly hostile weather, but also by an understanding that social progress, democracy, and collective action are vital to build any form of a decent society, as well as by seeing new opportunities rise from cheaper renewable energy, better cities, and other innovations that will both stop climate change and make life actually worth living no matter where you might be. And in these conditions, throwing in the towel or surrendering to eco-austerity or even eco-fascist thinking is the worst possible action any one person can take. The green, sustainable, egalitarian future is not merely a dream or flight of fancy - it's eminently attainable if only we keep pushing for it and help eachother achieve it. But of course, there are people who stay up nights thinking how to take that future away from us, and now that climate change denial is no longer tenable, with more and more people believing their own eyes, the doomism and inactivism have become their primary, perhaps only, means of holding onto their power…

I hope this post will be helpful to people here who find themselves in the grip of doomism and hopelessness. I expect some people to disagree, but I prefer to believe the sources like the IPCC, IPBES, Climate Action Tracker, and all the climatologists behind these organizations' reporting - who've been closely watching both the worsening extreme weather from climate change, and the emergence of all the simple, usable, life-improving technologies and social practices to combat it. If we don't believe these people, then really, who can we believe? And if you do trust their reports on all the positive things being done and planned for environmental needs, it is not simply an idea that we can deal with climate change and restore, then protect our environment - it's objective reality, it's respectable science, and thus, it's good hard common sense.

More information: Doomsday Debunked (layman explanations and positive framing, also covering a ton of other "not actually the end of the world" topics for scared people), Carbon Brief (more technical and a bit less brazenly optimistic, but showing things like the absolutely crazy speed of renewable energy development), Not Just Bikes (an urbanist YouTube channel showing how cities can be improved, not made poorer, in the process of reducing fossil fuel use and car dependency).

[faultfalha]

A decrease in global polysilicon prices has not led to a corresponding decrease in the price of Chinese polysilicon. Industry experts are at a loss to explain this discrepancy. Some suggest that the Chinese market is unique, and that demand there will always outstrip supply. Others say that Chinese manufacturers are outright manipulating the market, and that the prices will eventually correct themselves. No one knows for sure.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The missing element in our sustainable energy strategy is a renewable source of thermal energy. Geothermal energy produces heat, but its potential is limited to regions that have volcanoes. Biomass is another option, but it faces many problems. If we were to try to provide an important share of heat demand by burning biomass, we would quickly come up against the limits of what the planet can produce. There is only one source of heat energy left, and it is a powerful and inexhaustible one: solar energy. We tend to see solar energy as yet another way to generate electricity, using photovoltaic panels or solar thermal power plants. But solar energy can also be applied directly, without the intermediate step of generating electricity. Basically, harvesting direct solar energy can happen in two ways: by means of water-based flat plate collectors or evacuated tube collectors, which collect solar radiation from all directions and can reach temperatures of 120 °C (248 °F), and by means of solar concentrator collectors, which track the sun, concentrate its radiation, and can generate much higher temperatures. These can be parabolic trough systems, linear concentrating Fresnel collectors, parabolic dish systems or solar power towers. Almost all of these technologies were developed at the turn of the 20th century.

[beardedmrbean]

A few hundred metres above the commune of Cruis, in the Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence region, Sylvie Bitterlin, a 62-year-old actress, stands in front of the security fence of a brand-new solar farm.

“Look, they've destroyed everything,” she says.

On the 17-hectare site, the garrigue or scrubland of Provence has been replaced by several thousand solar panels.

The project has been under construction for several months and is nearly finished. According to the operator, Boralex, a Canadian renewable energy company, the site will generate 14.9 megawatt-peak hours of electricity, enough to power a community of 12,000 residents.

Boralex’s managing director, Jean-Christophe Paupe, claims the park makes “an indispensable contribution ... at a time when France is lagging behind in the development of renewable energies”.

But as the project nears completion, Bitterlin makes no secret of her frustration and anger.

Since 2019, she and about twenty other members of the local citizens group Elzéard, Lure en résistance have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent the plant from going ahead.

They say the solar park, partly installed in an area classified as a “biosphere reserve” by UNESCO, will endanger several protected species and their habitat.

Alexanor butterfly and ocellated lizard

“We're told that Provence has poor soil, that there's nothing in it. But this is totally false. We have medicinal plants, thyme, rosemary, orchids ... These are fantastic plants, home to protected species. It's all about life,” says Bitterlin, who has become the movement's spokeswoman.

“Before, this landscape stretched all the way to the top of the mountain,” she says, against the backdrop of the picture-postcard setting of the 1,826-metre-high Montagne de Lure.  “What destruction! What a disaster! Where's the ecology when we raze forests and destroy biodiversity to produce energy?”

According to Pierrot Pantel of the Association Nationale pour la Biodiversité (ANB), who took up the case on behalf of the Elzéard collective, 88 animal species have been recorded in the area.

These include several protected species of birds, butterflies such as the Alexanor, with its yellow and black wings, and lizards such as the ocellated lizard – the largest in Europe. “Many animals will have fled their habitat or will have died during the construction work,” he says.

Boralex insists that the project, officially launched in 2009, is the result of “more than five years of environmental and landscape studies, in partnership with the French government”, and that “everything possible has been done” to protect biodiversity.

“Initially, the park was designed to cover several dozen hectares, but its size was reduced to take account of this issue,” explains Paupe.

“And we have put in place a whole series of measures to preserve species: we have adapted our work periods, set up biodiversity corridors, restored habitats,” he says.

But opponents of the solar farm decry these measures as inadequate and say they are just “smoke and mirrors”.

In an area known for its biodiversity, a few "ecological corridors" won’t compensate for the damage caused by building the site, they say.

'An example of what needs to be done in the EU'

Paupe says that the farm "aligns perfectly with French and European ambitions for energy transition” and is “essential in the fight against global warming”.

“What's more dangerous for biodiversity: climate disruption or photovoltaic panels?” he quips.

Indeed, the European Green Deal's overarching aim is to make the EU the world's first "climate neutral bloc" by 2050. 

The EU is therefore aiming to massively accelerate the development of renewable energy in a bid to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, which are the main cause of climate change.

Under the terms of the deal, renewable energies will account for 42.5% of the energy mix by 2030, up from 23% in 2022. France shares this aspiration and passed a law to accelerate the production of renewable energy in March 2023.

But Paupe argues that "this ambition is only achievable if we agree to develop large-scale projects, like the one at Cruis", drawing on studies carried out by RTE, France's electricity transmission company.

“Today, we can't be satisfied with solar panels on the roofs of houses and in areas that are already industrialised. Of course we need solar panels in these places too. But that won't be enough.”

Boralex says there were good reasons for selecting the Lure mountain area for the solar park.

“The PACA region has a lot of sunshine and strong photovoltaic potential. However, it currently imports a large proportion of its electricity. The Cruis power plant therefore helps to resolve this paradoxical situation,” he continues. “In short, it's an example of what needs to be developed across the European Union to move away from fossil fuels. But it will take multiple projects like this one to get there.”

Apart from the arguments put forward by Boralex, projects like this one also provide significant funds for the municipalities concerned.

In Cruis, revenues generated by the solar plant make up 20% of the municipal budget, according to mayor Félix Moroso.

“Over the past two years, it has enabled us to renovate a parking lot, start work on the school and reintroduce aid for disadvantaged groups,” says Moroso, who has been the mayor of the village of 700 inhabitants for 35 years.

“All this at the cost of photovoltaic panels on 1% of our commune”, he adds, expressing annoyance at the actions of the park’s opponents.

But Bitterlin says the project is “not the solution. We're razing forests to put up photovoltaic panels. We're caught in a paradox."

“The first thing to do is to reduce our consumption. If we really adopted more sober lifestyles, would we still need these huge power plants in natural environments?”

“The problem with these parks is their giant size. We wouldn't be against reasonable photovoltaic projects, in line with the needs of the population,” she says. “Unfortunately, we've adopted the financial logic of companies and communes that seem to simply want to make money.”

Months of mobilisation

The situation in Cruis became particularly tense in September 2023 when construction began. “We'd spent years trying to alert and educate the population, to no avail. So when we saw the construction equipment arriving on the mountain to destroy everything, we decided to take action," Bitterlin noted.

For weeks, and in all weathers, Bitterlin and the other activists tried almost daily to block the construction site.

“Never in my life did I think I'd ever chain myself to construction machinery, get under its wheels or climb trees to block work,” said Bitterlin, who says she’s never been the rebellious type. “But the cause was too important,” she says.

On October 4, 2023, Bitterlin and fellow activist Claudine Clovis, 72, were arrested by gendarmes as they lay under the wheels of earth-moving machinery.

They were taken into custody and detained overnight. They were eventually found guilty of obstructing traffic in February 2024 by the criminal court in Digne-les-Bains and sentenced to a suspended fine of €1,200 and a three-month suspension of their driving licenses. The two defendants will also jointly pay €5,000 towards Boralex's legal costs.

Although they have decided to appeal the decision, their arrest put a stop to their campaigning. “We had to keep a low profile and, above all, Boralex stepped up its surveillance,” Bitterlin says. “And, frankly, we were exhausted both physically and morally by those weeks of fighting.”

But the Elzéard group has not given up entirely. Although no one is currently physically blockading the Cruis solar plant, the activists have taken their fight to the courts, with legal assistance from Pantel and ANB.

Over the past four years, the collective – with support from a dozen other environmental groups – has filed three complaints with the Digne public prosecutor for “destruction, alteration and degradation of the habitat of protected animal species” and “undermining the conservation of protected animal species”. According to Pantel, Boralex had in fact begun work on the plant before obtaining all the necessary permits.

A victory in court

In a big win for the activists, on Friday May 31, Boralex and the French government were found to be at fault by the Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal for failing to find an alternative site which would have had less impact on biodiversity.

The administrative judges found in favour of the collective, whose complaint had been dismissed by the court of first instance. The complaint challenged an order issued in 2020 by the Prefect of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, granting Boralex an exemption from the prohibition on destruction, intentional disturbance or degradation of specimens and habitats of protected animal species.

“It's a great victory. The site is now considered illegal. Work will have to stop and the site cannot be exploited for the time being," says Pantel. “It also legitimises our actions and the disruption to the site – which is important for the Sylvie Bitterlin and Claudine Clovis trial. Finally, it's educational: this judgment shows that you can't destroy a natural habitat with impunity.”

Anticipating that Boralex will take this judgment to the Conseil d'État, the highest court of appeal, Pantel now hopes to reach a final ruling. “We will then go and demand restoration of the site, recognition of the ecological damage and we'll try to question the State's responsibility.”

For its part, however, Boralex believes that the cancellation of this protected species exemption “does not call into question Boralex's right to operate the Cruis solar power plant, nor does it call into question our presence on the site or the finishing work on the plant, which is not affected by this protected species exemption”, the company told AFP.

“This judgment also legitimises our future actions,” says Pantel. Aside from Cruis, some thirty photovoltaic projects are currently under way on the Lure mountain, eventually covering a thousand hectares, according to Pantel’s estimate.

“And we intend to prevent as many as we can,” adds Bitterlin.

A network of sentinels

One of the activists’ new battlegrounds lies a few kilometres from Cruis, in the commune of Montfort. Some 20 hectares have already been cleared.

In January, construction equipment levelled the pines and oaks and soon earth-moving machines will install a new photovoltaic park, operated by Engie Green. It will be the fourth park in this commune of 300 inhabitants.

“We weren't informed when the work started. We arrived too late to prevent the felling of the trees," says Bitterlin.

At the end of May, accompanied by her friend Véronique, also an activist, they came to see the progress of the site. “We were worried about seeing earth-moving equipment,” they say.

With a tape measure in hand, they walked around the site with one objective in mind: to check that Engie Green was complying with all regulations. Cut down a protected tree? Destroy the habitat of a protected species? An information panel removed? Everything is carefully examined. But today, everything seems to be in order.

“We won't be demonstrating here, and we won't be obstructing the work. In any case, it's already too late – once the clearing is done, there's not much left to defend,” they say.

“But we remain vigilant to strict compliance with the rules and are putting our energy into other projects.”

A few kilometres away, in the commune of Banon, Sophie and Nadine keep watch on the areas affected by other solar projects, including one led by a Korean company, QEnergy.

Aged 64 and 72 respectively, the two pensioners admit to being “constantly on the lookout”, “tracking down the slightest noise of construction work” to “check that building work isn’t starting”.

“I go walking in the area every day anyway,” explains Sophie. “Here, at certain times of the year, you can hear deer snorting. It's an incredible natural place. It can't disappear,” she says.

In her large garden with a totally unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside, she says she’s proud of having her own photovoltaic panels, but “only those necessary for her personal electricity consumption”.

“Do we really need to develop large-scale power plants? Isn't the solution first and foremost to take stock of our energy use?” she asks, echoing opponents of such projects in France.

“It's really the multiplication of these projects that's worrying. Are we really going to punch holes in the mountain from all sides?” asks Nadine.

“In addition to biodiversity, we're also touching on a whole literary heritage, the mountain so dear to Jean Giono!” she warns, referring to the writer who drew such inspiration from the Lure mountain. 

The Green Deal was a central feature of outgoing EU president Ursula Von der Leyen's last term of office, and a new parliament will be formed after European elections on June 9.

Bitterlin said she hopes that the issue of solar parks in environmentally sensitive areas will be taken up by candidates for the new EU parliament.

“We've succeeded in making Cruis a symbol of our campaign,” she says, adding that what matters now is to prevent other environmentally disruptive projects from being built.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Anthropocene Magazine:

Nearly ten times as many people in America now work at Starbucks than dig for coal. Coal mining has long been a canary of America’s energy transition—it lost hundreds of thousands of workers in the 20th century, and has shrunk in half again since 2012. 

Losing dirty, dangerous coal jobs is one thing, but the wholesale dismantling of our fossil fuel economy promises to be far more disruptive. True, but there’s a huge caveat. The bright light on the horizon is that most estimates of new clean energy jobs dwarf even the largest oil refineries and auto plants. 

Winners

1. Everyone (on average). 2021 was a big year for energy jobs globally—it was the first time that more people around the world were working in clean energy jobs than fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Authority (IEA). While the US is still lagging behind that curve, clean energy jobs here are growing at twice the rate of the rest of the energy sector, says the Department of Energy (DOE). And the future looks rosy. Researchers at Dartmouth College calculate that a low carbon economy in the US would create two or even three green energy jobs for every fossil fuel job lost. (That fits with an earlier study out of Berkeley, which found that renewable and sustainable power sources inherently require more people per gigawatt hour of electricity generated, compared to fossil fuel plants).

2. Solar installers and battery makers. Photovoltaic and energy storage companies have been on a tear, adding tens of thousands of workers last year in the US. When considered along with wind, EVs, heat pumps and critical minerals supply, solar power and batteries accounted for over half of all job growth in global energy production since 2019. And the IEA expects these sectors to add tens of millions more jobs by the end of the decade.

3. Some surprise hires. Don’t count out Big Oil and Big Auto just yet. Both the IEA and the DOE expect the fossil fuel industry (particularly natural gas) to hire more workers in the immediate future, albeit at slower rates than clean energy jobs and tailing off in years to come. The IEA notes that if fossil fuel companies could successfully transition to hydrogen, carbon capture, geothermal and biofuels processing, they could almost offset decreases in core oil and gas employment all the way to 2030. It also expects car makers to pivot to EV production, retraining workers and safeguarding many jobs.

Losers

1. Oil workers. Changing careers means more than just a quick retraining session. Morgan Frank at the University of Pittsburgh went down the rabbit hole of what transferring US fossil fuel employment to green jobs would actually mean, and the answer isn’t pretty. His team’s paper in Nature found that green energy jobs are not co-located with today’s oil and gas workers, leading them to predict that almost 99% of extraction workers would not transition to green jobs. And any workers that do make the change face a financial hit. The IEA notes that workers moving from oil and gas to wind, solar and hydrogen today would see pay cuts of 15 to 30%.

2. Petro-states. The shift to green energy will be difficult for economies that rely heavily on fossil fuel extraction and processing. Consultancy EY has an illuminating, interactive webpage allowing you to compare employment in regions around the world, under different decarbonization scenarios. Spoiler alert—oil producing nations in the Middle East and Australia are likely to see employment slump, and even Africa could experience a destabilizing wobble unless it accelerates production of green hydrogen and EV battery materials. “Due to the transition, socio-economic sustainability risks will likely increase as the employment rate drops,” warns author Catherine Friday.

3. Homer Simpson. Some low-carbon energy sectors aren’t exactly booming. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects the employment of nuclear technicians to decline 6% from 2023 to 2033. The US hit peak nuclear power stations in 2012 and has been declining ever since, as facilities age into decommissioning without being replaced. Meanwhile, a planned new generation of safer, cheaper and more efficient fission reactors continues to suffer cost overruns, red tape and delays, and commercial nuclear fusion remains a decades-distant dream. D’oh!

What To Keep An Eye On

1. Labor shortages. Workers skilled in green energy jobs won’t just appear from nowhere. Projects are already facing delays in the EU and the US from labor shortages. Biden’s omnibus Inflation Reduction Act included incentives for partnering with apprentice programs and other funding that could be used to train maintenance workers, and installers for clean energy projects. But millions of workers will be needed, and in short order.

2. Carbon capture. The IPCC estimates that between 350 and 1200 gigatons of CO2 will need to be captured and stored this century. No one really knows yet what the technologies needed to achieve that will look like, but they will likely involve a lot of new workers. Climate research firm Rhodium Group estimated that each gigaton captured could translate to 1.5 million construction and 500,000 operation jobs.

3. Chat (and other) bots for hire. Any predictions about the future workplace should be taken with a large pinch of AI and robotics. The BLS just issued a report that shows dozens of occupations employing hundreds of thousands of Americans are likely to shrink in the years ahead. Top of the list are clerks and supervisors, but there are plenty of manufacturing and production roles at risk, too, that could affect the green energy roll-out.