this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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Even with an admin as renewable-hostile as the current one, you just can’t beat cheap, I guess.
It’s not actually cheap though, that’s the problem. Basically every country that is pushing “renewables” are having their power bills increase over and over and over with no sign of slowing down because it’s not cheap.
No one wants to build them without giant subsidies and guaranteed returns. Why do you think that is?
Solar panels crom China made it a lot cheaper than it used to be. There are also other major advatnages, such as increased independence. You just buy a bunch of solar panels and now you can indenepdently generate energy for the next 30 years.
Solar panels are not the expensive part of using solar to power the country - the storage and transmission is.
Although having said that, the cost of regularly cleaning panels, replacing them, throwing them in landfill, and mining materials to make new ones every 15 years or so is also huge - and destructive to the planet. It’s just more of a slow burn cost that snowballs.
True, batteries are quite expensive and very much not environment-friendly when built on such a scale. Though it should be noted good solar panels last longer than 15 years. Even cheap panels can last 20 years.
They need regular cleaning otherwise they can very quickly drop to close to zero output, and storms - especially hail - can destroy entire solar farms at once.