• naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    And yet, China this year deployed more solar panels than the US in it’s entire history.

    • Linechecker
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      1 year ago

      That’s great for them, I hope it was worth it in the end. And that would work great in a desert and southern California, but it won’t work to well in most of the USA due to weather.

      • naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Solar panels are so obscenely cheap that their profitability curve works in a ton of weather conditions you wouldn’t expect.

        The fact that it’s so expensive in the US is entirely decoupled from their manufacturing cost.

        • Linechecker
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          1 year ago

          Then why is it over $35k to get them installed on a house’s roof? And still I’d need to be plugged into the grid.

          • naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            The costs in the US are completely fucked. Partially because of tariffs on imports, partially because of bullshit regulations that protect the large existing players, and partially because American workers are just, frankly, less efficient.

            • Linechecker
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              1 year ago

              Speaking from experience since I looked into it, there’s scammers peddling solar panels and overall, from a financial point of view, they are just a bad deal - Too much cost, with little upside with extra risk. In addition it certainly does not increase home values at all.

              However, in southern California and deserts, it would make sense to get solar since the sun shines more.

              Also wind turbine industry needs to start making recyclable blades cuz used blades take up a lot of space in landfills.