Solar power accounts for two-thirds of the new projects waiting to connect to the state’s power grid.
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Utah leaders hinder efforts to develop solar energy supply
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Capitalism is a death cult. In order for humanity to thrive, the fossil fuel industry must be destroyed.
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It's absolutely amazing how much harm voters will do to themselves simply to hate others. Texas the land of freezing to death, and now Utah the land of burning to death.
America is a dying nation that is falling apart.
America is a dying nation that is falling apart.
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Conservatism isn't just a death cult. It's a terminal brain-rotting disease.
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I grew up in the very county shown in the Propublica article. I went to school with Landon Kesler's family, the guy whose land has those panels. I was once a republican. No more.
Kesler's county is one of the biggest in Utah. It's nearly all desert. We had a huge powerplant, IPP. When it came to town in the 80s, tax coffers were flush. But as its value was depreciated, the coffers grew dry. Around this time, LA County Power, who buys most of IPP's power, said they weren't buying any more coal-fired power.
The county and the state had years, even decades to do something about this. IPP shut down this year. It was converted to natural gas and has some other future plans. But the legislature passed laws to prohibit IPP from shutting down. Small government republicans, who hate it when the government mandates that a business do something, directly mandated that a business could not shut down. It's insane.
I live in the big city now, with lots of residential solar and lots of EVs. When I bought solar panels for my home 12 years ago, some people were interested. Others said I only did it because of the subsidies. I ask them if they take all their tax deductions? "Oh, that's different." When Rocky Mountain Power, a despicable company owned by Pacificorp, owned by Scottish Power, made the net-metering less beneficial, I added more panels so that I could be grandfathered in.
When I bought my Chevy Volt PHEV, some couldn't understand why? When I traded it in for a used Tesla Model 3, some were aghast.
The weird, pseudo-conservativism here is so odd. It's so hypocritical and it's so inconsistent. Cox is a good man at heart, but he won't go against the legislature, which are reactionary enough to make Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ron DeSantis look like flaming liberals left of Bernie.
If Cox knows his veto will get overridden, he'll sign the bill and attempt to "moderate" its effects.
We have massive deserts here. We have sun the great majority of the time. It's ideal for solar. Unfortunately, MAGA is strong here too. So we'll continue to mine coal in Carbon and Emery counties and truck it all over the state, to make inefficient, dirty power.
Kesler's county is one of the biggest in Utah. It's nearly all desert. We had a huge powerplant, IPP. When it came to town in the 80s, tax coffers were flush. But as its value was depreciated, the coffers grew dry. Around this time, LA County Power, who buys most of IPP's power, said they weren't buying any more coal-fired power.
The county and the state had years, even decades to do something about this. IPP shut down this year. It was converted to natural gas and has some other future plans. But the legislature passed laws to prohibit IPP from shutting down. Small government republicans, who hate it when the government mandates that a business do something, directly mandated that a business could not shut down. It's insane.
I live in the big city now, with lots of residential solar and lots of EVs. When I bought solar panels for my home 12 years ago, some people were interested. Others said I only did it because of the subsidies. I ask them if they take all their tax deductions? "Oh, that's different." When Rocky Mountain Power, a despicable company owned by Pacificorp, owned by Scottish Power, made the net-metering less beneficial, I added more panels so that I could be grandfathered in.
When I bought my Chevy Volt PHEV, some couldn't understand why? When I traded it in for a used Tesla Model 3, some were aghast.
The weird, pseudo-conservativism here is so odd. It's so hypocritical and it's so inconsistent. Cox is a good man at heart, but he won't go against the legislature, which are reactionary enough to make Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ron DeSantis look like flaming liberals left of Bernie.
If Cox knows his veto will get overridden, he'll sign the bill and attempt to "moderate" its effects.
We have massive deserts here. We have sun the great majority of the time. It's ideal for solar. Unfortunately, MAGA is strong here too. So we'll continue to mine coal in Carbon and Emery counties and truck it all over the state, to make inefficient, dirty power.
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Well, some of it seems to be the novelty, which always causes some skepticism. Although I am concerned about farming being displaced by other uses (not just solar), I know that solar can coexist with farming in the same field, although it may cost more to install. I have heard complaints about noise from transformers as well, although that seems to be more prevalent for people who like to have a window open, which is mostly seasonal in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
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More importantly ... Biden (and probably Obama) was pro renewables. Ergo he HAS to be against it, vehemently ... and then ALL Republicans has to as well.
If he could, he would abolish the letters B and O.
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As an Utah resident with solar panels on my roof who has driven long hours through the middle of nowhere elsewhere in Utah…there is a lot of land that is good for nothing else but solar. I love the outdoors (or at least mountain biking) but there are thousands of acres out there that look pretty inhospitable even to the local wildlife.
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Reading this in the UK, which now gets over 50% of its electricity from renewables is a surreal experience!
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So you're saying that AI server farms are environmentally deleterious? Because you get no argument from me on that front!
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You can tell when a republican is lying. Their mouth opens.
I hate these pricks.
In fact they, especially Trump, has redefined what the word "hate" means for me. I used to think I know what it meant, but now I know better.
A pox on them. (given their anti-vax bullshit, that's a wish I expect to be granted).
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macosandlinux
Ars Praefectus
I mean, it's literally also on the surface of that water, what better use it there for it? I guess they want power just to be there, coming from other parts of the US, or better, from those awful countries north and south of the border. Alaskan oil, out of sight, not a problem for Utah.
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Dry/desert areas are also good for wind as day/night temperature changes tend to keep air moving. Throw in batteries to smooth it out and it's cheap, quickly installed (though not 100 days, trust me, I saw what the real result of "winning" that bet of Elon's was), and readily expanded.
The real difficulty is the good areas for renewables still need transmission capacity (and more) built out to them. They're in the arse end of nowhere typically and have bugger all in the way of infrastructure of any kind. They'll need comms (though Starlink - much as I swear about the owner - is a good partial solution), roads capable of carrying heavy equipment etc, not just sodding big cables for power.
Edit: Starlink being a partial solution is because you need redundant independent paths. Fibre drop + Starlink, Fibre drop + LTE, Starlink + LTE.... the problem is the fibre can be expensive and the LTE non-existent (if nobody's out there typically, there's no mobile cells either because why would telcos waste money?)
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chateauarusi
Ars Praetorian
Traditionally, yes, "legislating in support of corruption" has always been the primary ingredient in the mix. But in the last few years, "legislating out of pure spite" has been coming up fast.
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And that's how we end up with another 3 Mile Island or Chernobyl. "Free market" always leads to a race to the bottom of cutting costs, externalities or dangers be damned.
Anyway, government is not the reason constructing new reactors takes decades. That's entirely on the private sector and their inability to maintain a schedule in construction.
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Even to the point that oil companies aren't moving on Trump's policies: https://meincmagazine.com/science/202...snt-see-profit-in-trumps-pro-petroleum-moves/
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Doing great! Especially since you eliminated coal!
I track some ERCOT* data since that's where my power comes from.
While looking up 2025 fuel mix to date, I came across this really neat video from Baker Institute which graphically shows the fuel mix day-by-day starting in 2009!
In 2024, ERCOT electricity was 24% wind, 10% solar. For the first 11 months of 2025, it's 23% wind and 14% solar - but consumption is running higher than 2024.
*ERCOT is roughly 90% of electricity produced/consumed in Texas and is a very isolated grid.
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Unsurprisingly, that photo was a lie. Even setting aside the photography tricks, it's obviously not the same solar farm. Completely different racking system and mounting system. The actual setup looks good for AMP grazing sheep. If it had taller posts it would be fine for cattle.
I'll make my pitch for AMP grazing again, as it's just SO much better than conventional "enormous pasture" grazing in just about every aspect other than "The way we've been doing it for decades". Far fewer inputs, far healthier animals, better biodiversity, 2-5x the biomass growth, so you can significantly increase stocking densities, net carbon sink, better nutrition from the meat, better moisture infiltration and retention. Etc, etc.
First photo on the main page of @MacBrave 's claimed source:
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How pretty would it be to have your kid playing in nuclear waste?
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chateauarusi
Ars Praetorian
(thinks about my children) Can you be more specific about which kid we're talking about here?
/s
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Texas has 20+% of our population uninsured because Republicans in Austin refused to take tens of billions of dollars in federal money to expand Medicaid coverage here. So many dead and disabled bodies to grandstand over.
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Why didn't the Netherlands invest in nuclear? Because it found gas.
Nothing to do with Chernobyl nuclear was already KIA for decades.
Why does America hate solar? Because it found oil in Texas.
I do not think this is ideological. Countries that don't have fossil fuels invest in wind and power.
Nothing to do with Chernobyl nuclear was already KIA for decades.
Why does America hate solar? Because it found oil in Texas.
I do not think this is ideological. Countries that don't have fossil fuels invest in wind and power.
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No, it 100% is ideological. All you have to do is listen to the words coming out of their mouths to know that.
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Counterpoint: Denmark.
Denmark Oil and Natural Gas, aka DONG, erected big, long towers to sway in the wind. Then they got tired of the snickering and renamed themselves to Orsted.
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Oh, another counterpoint: Texas.
No other US state has as much solar and wind as Texas. They use it to power the oil rigs.
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It wasn't regulation that slowed down vogtle units 3 and 4. It was incompetence, poor project management, and bad designs. In fact without government intervention in the form of loan guarantees it literally could not have been built at all.
In principle, those problems can be fixed but I don't see any evidence that its happening. And it's never going to be fast to build.
I hope nuclear does succeed because we need all the help we can get. But until it's proven it's not something we should count on. And it's definitely not something that should be presented as an alternative to solar and wind which you can install basically before the ink dries on your loan.
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I'd take this (and the solar farm from the other picture) any day of the year over the nasty coal fired power plant that's still actively churning through loads of coal in the town I grew up in.Unsurprisingly, that photo was a lie. Even setting aside the photography tricks, it's obviously not the same solar farm. Completely different racking system and mounting system. The actual setup looks good for AMP grazing sheep. If it had taller posts it would be fine for cattle.
I'll make my pitch for AMP grazing again, as it's just SO much better than conventional "enormous pasture" grazing in just about every aspect other than "The way we've been doing it for decades". Far fewer inputs, far healthier animals, better biodiversity, 2-5x the biomass growth, so you can significantly increase stocking densities, net carbon sink, better nutrition from the meat, better moisture infiltration and retention. Etc, etc.
First photo on the main page of @MacBrave 's claimed source:
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Don't be so sure. I have personally experienced this form of NIMBY.
I had a friend who had been trying to develop a 75 acre farm for years, kept getting shot down by the local planning board. 10 years ago he found a partner that wanted to build a "solar farm" on the property rather than develop housing on it.
I was at a planning board meeting where they were trying to convince the board that solar panels were a good idea. Less stress on local infrastructure (including schools) and possible additional property tax revenue to help with that local infrastructure.
The local community hired a expert to come in and shoot down the plan, saying that it would result in temporary soil compaction during construction, which was true, but is ultimately a solvable problem. Board ruled against solar because the community was essentially saying any development would ruin their views of underutilized farm property. Property that somebody else needed to pretend to farm on to keep their property taxes down.
My friend ultimately declared bankruptcy and gave up on the property. Last I drove through the area there were signs up protesting a new effort to build warehouses. The area right in front of the property next to a major road has now been developed for retail with permanent soil compaction under parking lots and a much worse view than a bunch of solar panels surrounded by shrubbery.
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Nuclear projects are great examples of the sunk-cost fallacy in action. Invest billions to get the project started, but all that investment is worth nothing until the project is finished. So what are the financial incentives? That's right -- the incentive is to not finish, to drag it out as long as possible, for more and more money. Because there are no penalties or consequences for doing it. If the business(es) doing the construction can't get the gov't or the public to pony up more money, they can just walk away. They already got their money. And it's not like there's a glut of companies with NRC approval to build reactors, so future nuclear projects will have to come right back to the same companies.
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Figures having lived here 20+ years not a native. Park City is the most progressive. Solar. All the public buses are electric have been several years. However I can’t figure why utah was the first state to pass balcony solar legislation so don’t have to have an agreement with the power company as long as under 1.2kW. My apt balcony is south facing gets too hot in the summer to use. Will have to get manager approval. Likely will have to have installed given am on 3rd floor. Will have to find out if battery option is doable or makes sense. With AC running work-from-home doubtful any surplus to charge. Then what happens if power goes out and my 6 BPS kick in including one 1200W for computer/network setup and one 1600W for AV system. Meanwhile makes no sense to me against commercial solar but pro balcony solar.
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That's true of lots of large projects. It's a common failure mechanism, but it's not inevitable for all projects. It's possible to design a project such that the incentives are aligned to finish on time. Basically you make it so that the responsible parties don't get paid unless it's on time. It's difficult because you have to make sure safety issues aren't hidden but it's possible in principle.
The problem with nuclear is that nobody who could build a nuclear plant would ever sign a contact like that. Because it's too risky. Nobody will build a nuclear power plant unless they get paid if the fail.
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There is some of that, and plenty of cronism, but honestly I don't even think many of them actually support nuclear. It's just a taking point to argue against renewables.
Yeah this is the biggest advantage. The fake claimed cost of nuclear where they assume nothing bad happens is about 4x solar, but by the time you overbuild solar and add in some load shifting storage, it's kind of competitive. But the difference is that you can buy land today and start installing solar panels Tuesday. You've paid back your capital and are generating profits while the nuclear plant is still deciding what font to use on the site survey. There is legitimate complaining about the backlog of solar projects waiting for grid connections, but it's also totally bannanas that a power plant can be so fast to build that pluging it in is a major part of the development time.
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That only works when there's sufficient competition between companies to get the contract. And when it comes to the construction of commercial reactors, there basically no competition. You either give the terms they want to the one company available in the area that can do the job, or you don't get a nuclear reactor built. Which is precisely why those kinds of safeguards and structures aren't in place. And will never be in place.
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Oh, to have lived long enough to finally see solar panels and battery storage become affordable...
And then to see people hate on this technology for... political reasons?
Sob, sigh.
And then to see people hate on this technology for... political reasons?
Sob, sigh.
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