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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • As per the article, there’s a bunch of hydrogen projects starting, but they often aren’t “green” hydrogen that’s made from water or whatever like people normally assume and instead is made from fossil fuels. On the one hand it means we will have an already built out and hopefully working hydrogen infrastructure for when we get “green” hydrogen figured out, but on the other hand it’s not really much better than just burning fossil fuels (sort of, in some cases - it’s complicated) if it’s not “green” hydrogen so it’s kind of a putting the Kart in front of the Mario situation. All the new subsidies say they’re for “green” hydrogen projects, but the companies involved really want that relaxed because making “green” hydrogen right now instead of the other colors is really hard. Also since it’s all fossil fuels based production it’s fossil fuel companies doing it all, which are notoriously just honorable and good in all ways and would never do anything that could harm the public; so there’s definitely no reason to be concerned.

    TLDR: it’s not the hydrogen it’s the everything else when you make hydrogen.





  • Not an expert, but my gut reaction is not really. The panels themselves are largely glass, aluminum and silicon, with fairly small amounts of doping agents. There are electronics but since they’re outside they’re largely encased in something, wiring which would be plastic and copper or possibly aluminum, and then the structure itself which is going to be steel and concrete.

    Solar panels are significantly more sturdy than one would think given they are essentially a giant piece of glass. They’re usually rated to 12mm hail or more, which would normally absolutely devastate a crop. They don’t really go bad either they just become less efficient over time. There’s no moving parts to wear, no liquids, and in some designs very little in the way of electronics to go bad.

    Essentially, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be more harmful contamination from a diesel tractor driving around in the field or from a nearby coal power plant than from any kind of solar array as long as it didn’t have like, lead legs or something.

    That being said, these kind of projects have been shown a lot but they’re unlikely to be used in most large scale farming - they usually interfere with any machines used to plant or harvest, and are only really well suited to a few crops. Parking lots are a much easier target for this type of solar project.