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[photo55@mastodon.social]

@cmconseils car parking adjacent to high voltage substations is rather limited, and where they are only moderately separated the route to run a substantial cable tends to be through shops, offices, homes, and roads. Rather than across a field or three.

The shade is certainly welcome, eg in France, (and the shelter from rain in England) but the production of electricity is more in scale with the shops and light industry than the Grid.

Meanwhile, our crops are dried out and appreciate shelter.

[sanzky@masto.es]

@cmconseils that picture is most likely a monocrop field used for bio fuel. it is way better used covered by panels.

[sanzky@masto.es]

@cmconseils honestly this just reads as a car lobby talking points.

keep burning bio fuel! add more parking spaces with some greenwashing to show we care!

let’s put green spaces in the city instead of huge parkings. there is plenty space for solar panels already.

[failedlyndonlarouchite@mas.to]

@cmconseils

[bunny_jane@plush.city]

@cmconseils We should cover parking lots with solar panels but there aren't enough parking lots to power a country with them.

This just looks like fossil fuel propoganda, preying on people's misunderstandings about what the words "solar farm" means and trying to stoke fear. Trying to frame it as a choice between starvation and pollution.

Solar farms are built on fields that are not being used for growing food, unless it's a kind of food that grows better in shade.

[hunterz@mastodon.sdf.org]

@TimWardCam @cmconseils these are common in the US suburbs. We call them strip malls.

As for the OP: It's wild to me that we aren't requiring solar for all new construction in 2026.

[argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org]

@cmconseils

Right? Keep cars cool and generate electricity at the same time. I see literally no downside to covering car parks like that.

Although this won't work for parking garages with rooftop parking. Not unless there are solar panels that can survive cars driving on them, anyway.

As for covering fields in solar panels, that's not necessarily a bad idea either. Some plants want shade. Solar panels can provide it.

[timwardcam@c.im]

@HunterZ @cmconseils Yes, we haven't had land to waste like that in Europe for a thousand years or so.

[hunterz@mastodon.sdf.org]

@TimWardCam @cmconseils I think a lot of the car discourse on here fails to account for this difference.

[timwardcam@c.im]

@HunterZ @cmconseils I worked in the smart street lighting business for a while and was mildly astonished to find that 50% of the "street lights" in the USA aren't in streets at all but in car parks.

[hunterz@mastodon.sdf.org]

@TimWardCam @cmconseils sadly this doesn't surprise me, especially since roads are no exception to our public services funding allergy.

[lionelb@expressional.social]

@cmconseils

Covering fields with solar arrays makes farming and conservation sense. The key point is the area beneath the panels should either be farmed as agrivoltaics or be maintained as a protected wildlife area. Shade is an important aid to biodiversity. Approvals should be appropriately conditioned.

Golf courses are far more extensive and a biodiversity desert.

[deberupts@mastodon.social]

@cmconseils California has been aggressively expanding the use of "solar canopies" or "solar carports" to cover car parks for a number of years. California is also pioneering a dual-purpose strategy to stretch its water supply. By building solar canopies over major irrigation networks—such as the federally backed Project Nexus in the Central Valley farming communities. #Agrivoltaics

[fahrni@curmudgeon.cafe]

@DebErupts @cmconseils YES! I thought it was clever the first time I saw one at a school. Dual purpose! Provides shade for the cars -- the San Joaquin Valley of California is about as hot as the Sun in the summer -- and provides electricity! Win-win! 🥳

[kevinashworth@mastodon.social]

@cmconseils
Yes!
Also this: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-covered-canals-have-their-day-sun-california

[baloouriza@social.tulsa.ok.us]

@cmconseils These go great over cycleways, particularly in sun-belt cities with long dedicated bike highways. Like Tulsa.

Basically I'm tilting at the ether for Tulsa to cover the crosstown cycleways in solar panels so they're not such a gruelling slog when you do need to use most of their length

[jollyrogue@social.tulsa.ok.us]

@BalooUriza Tulsa launched Ideas for Change after Tulsa Decides already did the thing. Your guess is as good as mine if anything will happen with the proposals. First guess, it’s a convenient place to punt people to so City Hall doesn’t have to do anything, like change.org in general.

Ideas for Change in Tulsa

Share ideas for change in your community, and vote on the ideas of others

Ideas for Change (www.ideasforchange.org)

Tulsa Decides

A participatory budgeting pilot. It's your money, you decide.

TulsaDecides (tulsadecides.org)

[pomegranate_stew@kind.social]

@fahrni @DebErupts @cmconseils
And then you get the whiners here that complain that they took out 5 parking spaces to put them in over one of the universities in their employee lot.

Oh no! Carpool? Take the bus? The bus line goes right past the school.

E: I swear I speak English. I have no idea what’s going on in the first paragraph. ‍️

[fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk]

@reiddragon @cmconseils no, it works on fields too, depending on what you're growing. it can increase yields (and sheep and pigs benefit from the shade)

[reiddragon@fedi.catto.garden]

@fishidwardrobe @cmconseils You'll need to explain how it would increase yields