Everything about energy production and storage.
Related communities:
When your nation falls apart and your city becomes an extensive warzone for years, the main power grid probably isn't top notch. But the sun works just fine!
If it wasn't for oil making the middle east insanely rich, imagine what they could do with solar
They can still go all out on solar, it's not like they're pumping all that oil for themselves only
there is the idea of exporting solar from Morocco to UK.
There's others where it's proposed to build a a high voltage line from Morocco to Spain, France, Germany. Eventually, they'll upgrade the grid to be able to move power from one region to another.
Same thing in the states, southern states generate for the north in the winter and in the summer the north to the south to help with high demand from AC.
If god would like us all to have unlimited free energy, wouldn't he put a giant nuclear reactor in sky
And STILL I hear dumb shits in the US say "solar isn't feasible"
Motherfuckers then why does literally every other country have tons of solar plants, rooftop installations, balcony installations and some packed away they can pull out when the power cuts out? Why do major companies put massive solar farms next to their new factories? Why are people interested in fossil fuels spending so much goddamn money telling people solar sucks? If it sucked, people wouldn't use it.
Because oil people don't make money from solar.
They do make money from solar. Just not enough to their liking.
Returns on investments in fossil fuels typically range between 10-20 percent, while for a renewables project, 5-8 percent is the norm, Reuters reported in June 2023. “It’s also about the volatility of profitability,” Christophers says. Meanwhile, if the price of the feedstock falls, that usually means fossil fuels are cheaper – and thus the level of profitability can still be maintained. Renewable energy projects in contrast must contend with costs which are largely upfront and have to be met regardless of fluctuations in electricity prices. That makes investment riskier – and therefore costlier, cutting profitability. (source)
People against rooftop are the craziest to me. Not only does it give you essentially free energy, it also shades the roof, cooling the building just by existing. Every factory on earth should cover their roofs with solar panels. It just makes too much sense not to. Even from a capitalist perspective, it's stupid not to. And lost hours due to heat stress are common in manufacturing, throw up some solar panels and lower your indoor temps while shoving money in your pockets from energy savings. Heat stress injuries go down, OSHA rating goes up, insurance goes down. It just doesn't make sense to fight solar.
Oh hey, something not completely depressing!
It just needs some trees to make it not depressing. Still, it's far better than oil and gas.
Looks cool as hell
Plant some more trees and rooftop gardens and you’ve got an official Solarpunk setting
Unfortunately, this is more likely pushed by acute necessity than anything else.
Hopefully, we all won't require a massive war to figure out solar should be invested into.
Hopefully, we all won’t require a massive war to figure out solar should be invested into.
The Iran war is kinda doing just that, though renewable was going up pretty steadily even before it.
It's probably driven by an unreliable power grid, but still great. A lot of solar should help getting a proper grid online anyways
Eventually we'll so be doing this out of necessity. Just not any time soon, not until something big breaks.
The Strait of Hormuz is something big.
Unfortunately it's not very wide
Big things are breaking regularly. Monsters are making choices to keep them less visible to regular people.
Well things are all going great. Can't imagine anything breaking. Can't imagine electrical grids getting overwhelmed from infrastructure neglect and a surge in demand or fossil fuels becoming scarce or their flows being interrupted. When was the last time any of that stuff happened?
maybe the data-center upgrades will payoff when the ai bubble pops and everyone drives ev because of gas prices. infrastructure pre-built. ev charging cheaper at night so off peak already best on existing grid.
Look at all these teeny tiny humans with their teeny tiny solar panels. All that just to catch the occasional stray photon. What are they compared to the sun almighty?
Impressive, thank for sharing this amazing picture 😳👍
all hail the sun 🖐️☀️🖐️
In Google maps you can use satellite mode to look at their roofs. There are some panels but nothing like this.
Google Earth has data up through June 27, 2024. Check around the Salloum Hospital and Syrian Arab Red Cross Hospital. That area around the hospitals and to the NNE looks like nearly every roof has panels. Could also be a more recent picture and more panels may have been installed in the past year or two.
My Google Maps says 2026 on the bottom of it.
I've highlighted the solar panels I could see, around Salloum Hospital:
It's great to see so many but it's way more scattered and patchy than in the OP photo.
Hmm my Google Maps shows the same 2026 date but when I compare to the Google Earth June 27, 2024 images I'm seeing the same cars in the same exact spots, like the white car right outside of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Hospital
Ahh, so maybe on Google Maps that's just a copyright statement rather than really when the imagery was taken. So I'm looking at quite old information.
That may be correct, I always thought that was the date the imagery was taken, but I typically go to Earth first because you can easily scrub back and forth along the timeline. Interestingly, if you go back to the 2023 images you can see that 2024 was a big year for solar already. That pace continuing into 2025 and 2026 could definitely result in the area looking like the image in the OP. Wish we had location data from the original so we could see when and where it was taken as I'm super curious now. And its a slow day at work so I have time to dig around lol
There's this photo from the same location in a Aljazeera article on the area. Apparently they are the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods.
Oh thank you, and that's from Jan this year. Haven't found the exact location yet but those neighborhoods are very close to where I was looking
oh cool, maybe they did this cause a long time ago during the civil war there was frequent power cuts?
There still are frequent power cuts in Syria.
In Damascus, the power is on for like 8 hours per day.
Offtopic:
An usually
This feels odd, it seems like proper English, with the An since the next word starts with a vowel, but something about it feels off and I might be too dumb to realize what it is.
It's because it's a typo, and I'm guessing the title was meant to be "an UNusually...."
And the "a vs an" rule is more based on the sound that the next word starts with, rather than just the actual letter.
So for "usually", it's a "You-" sound
But for "unusually" it's an "Uh-" sound
Because the u in usually is pronounced like the consonant y, like “yew”. We use “a” before consonant sounds.
The u in unusually is pronounced like the vowel sound u, like “uh”. We use “an” before vowel sounds.
This is because two vowel sounds in a row is somewhat awkward and doesn’t flow as easily with how you move your mouth to pronounce things. Using “an” puts an extra consonant sound in between the two vowel sounds.
It’s odd because wide adoption of rooftop solar is still unusual, so I think the wrong word was used. It should read:
“An unusually wide adoption of rooftop solar…”
How similar most of the panels are makes me think someone there's actually doing distributed infrastructure right :)
You guys this makes Coalie cry 😩 🪨
I wonder if they use batteries and what kind.
Also whether the local electricians have jury rigged some kind of bottom up grid of their own.
Does anyone have information?
This video goes into Syria's electric grid, and how people have setup their solar installs. It shows batteries are used quite thoroughly, and doesn't appear to be grid-tied or formed into a micro-grid, AFAICT.
Makes a lot more sense than alternatives!