- Riyadh on Monday tapped ACWA Power, a Saudi energy company, to build a solar farm that would generate enough electricity to power around 40,000 homes. The project will cost $300 million and create hundreds of jobs, according to Turki al-Shehri, head of the kingdom’s renewable energy program.
By the end of the year, Saudi Arabia aims to invest up to $7 billion to develop seven new solar plants and a big wind farm. The country hopes that renewables, which now represent a negligible amount of the energy it uses, will be able to provide as much as 10 percent of its power generation by the end of 2023.
When the Saudis are building solar farms?
...can we be done with fucking coal please?
...can we be done with fucking coal please? I assume that's a rhetorical question. I'm happy to discuss power system stuff at length, regardless. Coal does provide some useful features that solar does not. Solar similarly provides some useful, unique features, like zero moving parts and operation and maintenance being one part time guy with a damp towel.When the Saudis are building solar farms?
Coal, as a power source, is not without utility. As a power source, however, it has externalities that, from a broad perspective, discourage its adoption. Coal, as a political force, is so fucking tired. When I read economics reports from 1965 talking about the plight of the coal miner and their dwindling employment, I know one thing: the idea of coal has long since surpassed the utility of coal.
Oh yeah, as a political thing coal is monumentally stupid, like NRA levels of stupid. It should be dead. As a power source it would be nice if it was dead along with all the other awful things civilization does. It isn't, but it's getting there.