Worth pointing out that covering parking lots with solar became the law this year in France. A study there says that if half France’s parking lots were covered in solar panels their output would exceed all of France’s nuclear power stations.
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/09/new-law-50-solar-power-over-parking-lots-in-france/
Rather than being uplifting, that just exposes just how much of our cities we have let completely go to waste by having them be asphalt lots
Ty for sharing this!
Think of all the space we have like this and how much we could do if we used it.
It doesn’t even have to be paid for by the owner if they really didn’t want to.
Large mall parking lot that doesn’t want to pay? The utility could form an agreement with them. They save on land costs for generating the power and the customers get covered parking.
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I think part of the problem with large rooftop on commercial buildings is they aren’t rated for the extra weight. So you could probably put some ontop of the mall, but not completely cover it
I don’t think those solar panels actually weigh that much, especially when it’s spread out over the entire roof… Like less than a pound a square foot extra? I’m no roof weight doctor tho.
I remember reading about it before. It was talking about warehouse roofs that were pretty thin, designed specifically for its current purpose, and fully covering it with solar was too much.
That won’t be everywhere, but at least some places.
Got it, yeah. That makes sense. I’m sure some are super thin.
Convert the parking to housing and business. Build a nuclear reactor instead.
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My one critique is that this ruins human habitat and encourages car dependency, where a lot of fossil fuels will go. And no not everyone will drive electric cars soon. People couldn’t handle a mask mandate, they won’t handle a ev mandate. The best thing to do is to infill this land with more housing and commercial space so people don’t have to drive everywhere and just use nuclear power.
Yes
If only someone could have thought of this fifty years ago.
Let’s be clear: republiQans have tried every way to kill green energy and our planet is about to kill us for it. Great ideas like this are just that - ideas - that get voted down in governmental and corporate bodies by right-wing idiots. It’s been that way for FIFTY YEARS. Let’s at least acknowledge it. And by “us” I mean the non-right-wing christofascist big oil bastards that have done this. The rest of us. We need to talk about it this way, or nothing will change. Just as it hasn’t been doing for fifty years.
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But hey guys we need to really invest in nuclear that way it’ll pay off 25 years from now.
You forgot the /s.
Anyway the only issue with renewables is that they do pay off, so they’ll drive down the price of electricity, and somehow that’s s bad thing.
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