this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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Looks expensive. The grey ones are the broken ones.

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[–] [email protected] 291 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Has anyone investigated the consequences of all the sunlight that’s leaked into the environment because of this disaster? What sort of clean up are we looking at and how long will it take?

[–] [email protected] 111 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The effect on the local goth population will be devastating.

[–] [email protected] 125 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

Richmond! 🖤

[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's okay, this happened outside the environment.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The problem when photon containment breaks like this is that we can never be 100% sure which photons were SUPPOSED to be there, and which ones leaked out. We'll need a dedicated team of particle physicists with very small tweazers to have any hope of sorting out this mess.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Unfortunately the VST (Very Small Tweezers) project is running a decade behind schedule and needs an additional $10 billion in funding, but the older RSP (Rather Small Pliers) project could be retrofitted to support photon retrieval with a bit of light-absorbent paint.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

We've began the process of capturing all the seabirds exposed to the sunlight and scrubbing it off them with a combination of lye and baking soda.

They seem unhappy about this process.

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 7 months ago (19 children)

I feel like this is one of those things that definitely has to have happened before now; after all, grid-scale solar isn't something we've just started doing in the last two or three years, we've been at it for at least 15 that I know of. And hail isn't exactly a new phenomenon in TX. So I wonder why we're hearing about it like it's news. Is this fossil fuel funded bad press? Did they skimp on protection they shouldn't have?

[–] [email protected] 65 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's Texas. So without doing any research, it's *probably all of the above and also there's corruption in there somewhere...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Idk, here in the PNW I had only seen hail once in the past 10 years, this spring it has hailed over a dozen times... climate change is wild

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 7 months ago (4 children)

My 200W panel just got slammed camping over xmas and not a spot of damage on it—its made to have some sort of protection from hail strikes. Meanwhile the 4×4 got smashed windows and dents all over.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago

Wow that's a huge hail ball! I get excited when they're marble-sized.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It might have cracks in the silicon crystal that might burn in over time.

But yeah, impressive that it could take this big of hail balls without braking the glass.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Placing hardware cloth or similar over the panels with a couple inches of stand-off should prevent most any damage from even lege hail. It will probably reduce sunlight by a few percent across the entire field, but considering the storms Texas gets it would likely be worth it in the long run instead of having most of an entire farm wrecked.

But then Texas isn’t big on protecting their power sources from environmental impacts, are they.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

Nah, how else will Republicans cry that solar energy is bad, and that we need coal and oil?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (5 children)

How strong that cloth and attachment would need to be to survive gusts from a storm that's capable of generating such big hail?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hardware cloth is metal mesh, so any wind strong enough to remove it would have long since destroyed the panel it was attached to thanks to the surface area of the panel. The standoffs would probably need to be “L” tabs or similar arranged in a grid across the face of the panel. Heck, just erecting a screen over the entire field would probably be better and cheaper than doing individual panels, but a field-size cover would probably end up with needing higher strength posts to mount it because of the greater drag over surface area. That said, I’m not an engineer, so the most efficient and effective method of protection is going to have to come from someone with more knowledge than my guesswork.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Should have put them underground.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why didn't they just cover them with metal sheets to protect them from the hail? Are they stupid?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Yeah why don't they just build a roof over them?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Armor Class,

It is very hard to hit

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Hailstorm was consistently rolling them nat 20s, need to check for loaded dice

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (21 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (5 children)

All the people arguing for nuclear, are you sure Texas is best place to handle that? I'm fine with nuclear as long as they have a reasonable plan to store the waste, but Texas is horrible at managing anything energy related.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Don’t tread on my private infrastructure!!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think even when damaged they still produce.

More modern vertical arrays might fair better in hurricane-prone areas.

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