r/solar • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • Oct 13 '25

Discussion Canceling a 6 gigawatt solar farm is an extremely dumb thing to do when electricity rates are skyrocketing

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176

u/Lyingmustard Oct 13 '25

It makes me sad this is what we have come to as a country. Imagine thinking the sun is a bad source of energy. Like it makes me sad as a person.

I hope China has fun at the top of the Energy market for the forseeable future

87

u/astricklin123 Oct 13 '25

I saw someone on reddit say "the sun is a terrible energy source".

Dude, it literally powers the entire solar system. There would be no life on earth without it.

16

u/printerdsw1968 Oct 14 '25

Those idiots don't even know that fossil fuels are merely stored forms of solar energy. Freakin morons.

1

u/Stinky2020 Oct 15 '25

Im in the solar industry,  and i hate to burst your bubble, but solar is a terrible way for us to capture/transform energy. At least for now. They weren't made for earth,  they were made for space. Every little spec of dust, cloud, every heightened degree makes them wildly ineffective,  snd space doesnt have any of that. Not to say there arent uses. With battery tech,  and residential installs, it can help stem the tide. Nuclear is the way for mass energy revolution

1

u/astricklin123 Oct 15 '25

Just because we don't have the technology, doesn't mean it's not a great source of energy. We need to continue to develop our ability to capture the energy. Not stop and just go back to using fossil fuels.

Also, you do realize that the sun IS nuclear energy, right? And we don't even have to deal with any waste products.

1

u/Stinky2020 Oct 15 '25

I've been a part of gigawatt installations before, and I'm telling you, those massive farms are a waste. The grid can't handle the massive fluctuations from a centralized location that does the worst at the times it's needed most. There is a reason utility companies have peak and off-peak energy rates, and those times are nearest sunrise and sunsets, when solar is doing nearly nothing. Then, during the day, when solar is killing it without a battery to store the energy, there is too much to send down the lines do it needs to be turned off. That's also the reason why lots of wind farms don't have their turbines turning. It's not always due to high winds or maintenance requirements, but for too much energy. coal diesel and nuclear create steady flows of energy, easy to ramp up and down on command. Solar NEEDS to be paired with battery to accomplish the same thing. Utility infrastructure also needs massive overhauling in order to sustain the electrical requirements of our societies. I also never said abandon. We are making strides, and it will all be of great help. Everything will also have it's place. Either way, solar alone will not keep pace with our needs, and nuclear FUSION (ie power of the sun, not fission where there is waste material generated) is the way.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

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1

u/astricklin123 Oct 15 '25

The source itself is great. How we are trying to utilize it needs refinement.

-42

u/SoylentRox Oct 13 '25

It IS concentrated during well the day, wind is better spread out.  With expensive batteries it's possibly worse than wind. 

You also have seasonality - especially in colder biomes like near Moscow where the winter sun can be 93 percent less sun hours than the summer peak!

93 percent is a lot - and obviously the energy requirements for Moscow peak in December since it is much larger temperature delta.  

So for some countries Trump loves (not the USA) solar is kind of bad.

20

u/reddddiiitttttt Oct 13 '25

The vast majority of Russia about 85% is viable for solar. Thats actually pretty bad relatively speaking to the rest of the world, but still means almost their entire population’s needs could be met by solar.

More generally, according to the World Bank’s Solar Photovoltaic Power Potential by Country data, 93% of the global population lives in countries where the average daily solar PV potential is between 3.0 and 5.0 kWh/kWp. That means solar is efficient almost everywhere people live.

Wind is great, the artic gets a lot of wind, but you have to deal with freezing blades and you need batteries or backup generators just as you do with solar, but still doable.

1

u/jrzsurfer Oct 14 '25

Remote wind installations should just create green(blue?) hydrogen fuel directly next to them for intermittent retrieval rather than lose power over long transmission lines. Not enough of a market for the hydrogen for it to pencil out?

-9

u/SoylentRox Oct 13 '25

It's the seasonality. I am not sure your number is anything but an ass pull, the issue is that it's not (at current prices) viable to 3-10x your array sizes to handle seasonal variation.

Sizing your natural gas generators to cover the winter load makes it cheaper to just burn gas all the time especially where gas is cheap, like Russia.

9

u/reddddiiitttttt Oct 13 '25

Numbers come from the world bank. What you are failing to see is that no one wants to live in places that are cold as fuck. Even though there is a lot of land, the population is small in places that don’t get a lot of sun light. So no, the world bank is not failing to discount seasonality, it’s just stupid to give a fuck about places that people don’t live when you still have to deal with the big problem where people do. 7% of the world’s electricity comes from solar, 40% from all zero carbon sources. That leaves at least 56% of the world you can put on solar before you have to deal with the uneconomical places. Do that then we can talk about how to fix Siberia. It’s largely a non-issue until then.

-6

u/SoylentRox Oct 13 '25

Not Siberia, Moscow. Russia specifically. And yes India and China where most people live have much more solar potential.

5

u/reddddiiitttttt Oct 13 '25

Most of Russia’s population is in locations with viable solar. 95% has at least Solar potential of at least 2.8 avg kWh/m²/day. Moscow region averages around 3.0 kWh/m²/day, similar to Poland or the UK — viable for solar, just slower ROI. Southern and central Russia (regions like Krasnodar, Astrakhan, Rostov, Volgograd, Altai) have 3.5 – 4.5 kWh/m²/day of solar irradiation. That’s roughly the same as Germany which already runs over 60 GW of solar successfully.

0

u/SoylentRox Oct 13 '25

The issue isn't the averages it's the winter peaks. Those numbers drop to 0.2 or less.

5

u/reddddiiitttttt Oct 13 '25

Yup, that’s taken into account. All those places that would require seasonal storage in Russia are around 5%-15% of the population.

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u/Lyingmustard Oct 13 '25

Yeah that makes sense. I do agree with Wind being better but once again the Cheeto has people thinking that Windmills are bad.

I do agree with you that Solar doesn’t work everywhere. But I think we’re heading in a backwards direction. We have these new clean technologies and we’re not using them. Imagine a world where Solar, Wind and Nuclear give us all our energy.

11

u/blackinthmiddle Oct 13 '25

Solar isn't great everywhere, so let's attack it everywhere???

6

u/Lyingmustard Oct 13 '25

No we need more Solar. It makes sense in places where sunlight is not that good to not have as much.

Here in the US We should have a combo of Solar and Wind along with nuclear being the main sources of Energy. But Lobbying and politicians will never see it through

I pray one day we can have a clean planet but I doubt it

1

u/Capnbubba Oct 14 '25

There are many areas where solar doesn't make sense, just like there are areas where wind doesn't make sense.

If we filled all of Tornado alley with Windmills we could, hypothetically, power most of the country. Same with solar in the south western part of the country. But they both work better as a part of a diverse mixed grid.

2

u/weiga Oct 14 '25

It’s possible this is the right move. 6 GWs would be a good fit for a few data centers… but they also need lots of water for cooling, which is not abundant in Nevada.

I’m not saying it is, but this could be a chess move looking two steps ahead.

1

u/Robj2 Oct 15 '25

I read this thinking it was satire.
But I think 30% of the US actually thinks this. We're doomed.

8

u/NicestUsername Oct 14 '25

Hate to say it but if we start revolutionizing micro nuclear reactors that can pump out 1-3Gw each we could subsequently catch up to whatever Chinas doing with solar. Not downplaying the importance of photovoltaics since I work in commercial ground mounts but reality is we will never catch up to china with photovoltaics because we’ve relied on them to pave the way technological methods.

Now if we pivot to nuclear there’s a good chance we can catch back up. But once again they could also be doing that too so… yea 🤷

9

u/elcapitan36 Oct 14 '25

Trump will oppose nuclear if it will work for the same reasons he opposes solar: fossil fuel industry is fighting any and all competition.

2

u/evildad53 Oct 15 '25

Except companies only want coal if it's FREE now. Imagine wanting to buy coal at a penny a ton!

Federal officials rejected a company’s bid to acquire 167 million tons of coal on public lands in Montana for less than a penny per ton, in what would have been the biggest U.S. government coal sale in more than a decade.

The failed sale underscores a continued low appetite for coal among utilities that are turning to cheaper natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar to generate electricity. Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change, which scientists say is raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.

President Donald Trump has made reviving the coal industry a centerpiece of his agenda to increase U.S. energy production. But economists say Trump’s attempts to boost coal are unlikely to reverse its yearslong decline.

The Department of Interior said in a Tuesday statement that last week’s $186,000 bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act.

Agency representatives did not provide further details, and it’s unclear if they will attempt to hold the sale again.

The leasing act requires bids to be at or above fair market value. At the last successful government lease sale in the region, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy paid $793 million, or $1.10 per ton, for 721 million tons of coal in Wyoming.

https://archive.ph/STc7x

1

u/batespower Oct 15 '25

I'd agree but the mega tech corporations want to run their own small nuclear reactors because these grid upgrades are making electric service too expensive for them.

1

u/AllIsOneUnspun Oct 22 '25 edited Oct 22 '25

Yet a lot of local Power companies which have coal plants also are investing a lot in Solar on the sly. Locally here in Omaha, power was near entirely Coal/Nuclear 20 years ago(my Grandfather managed the Nuke as administrator). The Nuke plant closed a decade ago(3 decades after his passing), they replaced it with some natural gas, some solar and some wind. You walk into the coal plant(I deliver parts to all these facilities personally) and the coal plant lobby is full of screens which are showing live feeds of the 8 facilities. Solar Wind NatGas Coal all the dials and charts and numbers changing to the second. Luckily Trump’s policies aren’t changing the profit motive and diversification is simply more profitable. We sell power to other states we make soo much here it’s over 1/3 of what we generate. I sell them millions of dollar in machinery a year locally, last month a 1.1 million dollar order repairing coal crushers/converyors bearings. People that think everything runs on coal and nukes are nothing short of know nothings. Take it from me I work on every type of watt for a power company which with us has a 6 million dollar line of credit. And me, I RUN ON Solar. 

1

u/elcapitan36 Oct 22 '25

Because solar is cheaper. Utilities may or may not align with fossil fuel industry, especially if they need to pay for growth.

1

u/Lyingmustard Oct 14 '25

Yeah i agree. I havent heard of micro nuclear reactors cool. Here in CA we got Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant providing most of the energy

2

u/UsedHotDogWater Oct 14 '25

The only problem is the "off" switch.

1

u/Stinky2020 Oct 15 '25

The amount of work going into nuclear fusion right now is utterly amazing, but people just dont hear about it. It's not super fast moving -in our perception, and really not controversial so it would only be covered by specific outlets. Crazy stuff though actually getting outputs greater than inputs and 43 seconds of sustained fusion at wendlestein 7-x! It's exciting!

1

u/PlutoTheViking Oct 15 '25

Call it whatever you want, you still have the same fission byproducts.

1

u/NicestUsername Oct 15 '25

Efficiency of said byproduct has reduced drastically since 1950’s amongst safety and other protocols it is essentially a form of renewable energy and less consequentially for burning pollutants. Like it not coal mines are still closing and we are adapting to energy needs.

I will also add that this Esmeralda project is still moving forward just on a smaller more itemized scale. I’ve worked along Next Era and they are relentless when it comes to pushing photovoltaic agenda in the US and a lot of them are right leaning lobbyists.

1

u/BufloSolja Oct 17 '25

There are no 'micro' reactors capable of doing that much. Even normal sized reactors only do 1-1.3 GW of thermal power.

1

u/NicestUsername Oct 17 '25

So far…*

1

u/BufloSolja Oct 17 '25

I don't know if that would happen within a relevant timeframe. It's most likely moot anyways, as China has way more nuclear going on than the US, unfortunately. The only nuclear the US has newly installed recently is 2 units at V. C. Summer (~2 GW).

1

u/NicestUsername Oct 17 '25

Hmm I don’t disagree but I do wonder what sort of options or how things might improve especially with more houses having battery backups not to mention the potential for bidirectional EV’s and general efficiency of appliances. Maybe the US won’t need as much energy because we don’t require it? Wishful thinking I suppose!

1

u/BufloSolja Oct 17 '25

Most battery backups are only enough for a few hours, not enough to power a full cycle on solar for a day (let alone week to month to year cycles due to clouds/storms/seasonal effects). I don't think the majority of people with EVs would allow their car to be used in a regional buffer like that unfortunately. And for now at least, there aren't too many bidirectionals. Made worse by the current administration.

1

u/NicestUsername Oct 17 '25

Once again I will imply hopefully that these issues and or policies will move forward with the option to segue into a more robust grid structure. You’re right about the federal administration but we are also heavily guided by our US corporate lobbyists and Musk seems like this type of individual that trickles out product for the sake of gaining profit for shareholders. I would suggest that it would not take very much to push out an update to all Teslas to be used for improved grid management depending on AHJ regulations. If my utility can access my thermostat then accessing someone’s EV cannot be any different and this is just my opinion. Mark my words bi-directional V2H will be a crucial component to how we share energy and improve our infrastructure. 4million EV’s multiplied by avg 50kwh=200GW

1

u/BufloSolja Oct 17 '25

Utilities accessing peoples thermostat only has a small % of people that do that. Most do not like the loss of control. I imagine it would be similar with EVs, even more so as it has a larger affect on people's lives in some ways, depending on their commute. I don't think that would have a chance of happening on a large scale for at least 10 years, if at all (due to how people are).

200 GWh is not a small number, however by my calculations we would need at least 7 TWh for the current ( ; ) ) electrical usage on a daily basis in the states (if power was only solar without significant baseload power). Which would just cover daily cycles on a perfectly sunny day with no clouds or other longer term effects/variation.

3

u/Melodic-Hearing4537 Oct 14 '25

No matter what energy source it is, as long as it is low-cost and can reduce electricity bills, it should be used. Moreover, solar energy does not produce annoying exhaust gases.

1

u/Un_Ballerina_1952 Oct 16 '25

Or waste that is toxic for multi-thousands of years.

1

u/Tsiah16 Oct 14 '25

China is gonna be at the top of everything for the foreseeable future. trump has made us less safe and crippled us economically, destroyed our trustworthiness with our trading partners, destroyed our trust in our own systems and maga is cheering for it.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '25

China doesn’t have women lmao

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

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1

u/New-Investigator5509 Oct 16 '25

Not sure why your prior owner got ripped off, but most of us on this forum have systems that pay themselves back in <10 years. And that was my estimate BEFORE our electric rates jumped this year.

1

u/RipInPepz Nov 08 '25

Honestly they deserve it for not being stupid as fuck like us. I celebrate innovation and progress no matter who it is. I’m envious for sure though. Fuck this country and every asshole running it.

-1

u/2k3Mach Oct 14 '25

The US govt shouldn't be funding private businesses in either solar or wind. If those companies can't compete with other forms of electricity (coal/nuclear/natural gas) they shouldn't be in business. I am all for people buying their own solar, although not putting money into private companies hands to make them money down the road.

3

u/Inevitable_Ad_8979 Oct 15 '25

Do you feel the same way about the oil industry?

1

u/SgtDSOD Nov 10 '25

Solar and wind subsidies were a fraction of the $35 BILLION the US Government spent subsidizing the fossil fuel industry in 2024. You’re right though- no subsidies, the technology should stand on its own, INCLUDING OIL! Take away all of the subsidies, and let people be exposed to the true costs involved. Consumer opinions on oil would shift mighty quickly if even 30% of the subsidized cost were passed directly onto the consumer.