How blue California and red Texas became green powerhouses | Despite wildly different approaches, both states are seeing massive growth in solar and wind energy.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/03/how-blue-california-and-red-texas-became-green-powerhouses/

36 points · 5 comments · view on lemmy.world

5 Comments

LodeMike@lemmy.today · 21 pts · 150d (4 replies)

Because solar is cheap AF

No moving parts or water usage is huge.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · -7 pts · 150d (3 replies)

Until a hail storm takes out thousands of acres of panels, or tornadoes.

https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-solar-panels-texas-destroyed-hailstorm-1883546

Ironically, even oil companies use wind or solar to pump oil.

int_not_found@feddit.org · 15 pts · 150d (1 reply)

The article talks about thousands of destroyed panels across thousands of acres of production. Thousands of panels are somewhere in single digit to low double digit MW production capacity range. With a claimed production capacity of 350 megawatts this is a single digit percentage reduction in production, after a storm with baseball sized hail.

silence7@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 150d

Yeah, commercial-scale solar in the US tends to be installed on a mount allowing a single axis of rotation. This lets the owners rotate it into a vertical position when a hailstorm approaches, sharply reducing the amount of damage.

Sidhean@piefed.social · 1 pts · 149d

How common is baseball-sized hail in Texas??