General > General Technical Chat
Solar Freaking bike parking
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 06, 2024, 04:48:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on March 06, 2024, 12:57:54 am ---There is no valid discussion to be had when you compare apples to oranges.
--- End quote ---
After you called me a parrot and a conspiracy theorist? Pretty sleazy of you. I despise social games like that. And I was going to send you a PM to encourage you to keep pushing against my claims, because it is the underlying reasons and calculations, and not just the conclusions or opinions, that matter, and we can learn from.
The relevant discussion is whether the construction makes sense. It does not. Even in the future, it will not, because rooftop solar is cheaper and yields twice the electricity at the same surface area at the same location, per actual measurements.
My entire point, as has been in other related bike solar discussions, was that at least a roof or a leanto would provide comfort, and thus have intrinsic value to everyone using it.
--- End quote ---
You know the saying: Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.
But there is an extension to that: Don't attribute to malice or stupidity what can be explained by math.
It is a false assumption to think the people who placed this bike charging station are stupid or misguided. I'm quite sure they made a thourough analysis on what is the most cost effective solution to meet their design goals. Which, judging from the pictures, likely include low cost and low impact installation. Maybe even without a grid connection.
What you and others keep pushing is the wish to put solar panels on a roof. But what is forgotten is that putting solar panels on a roof is a form of dual use where the costs of the roof are set at zero where it comes to calculating the ROI of the solar installation. IOW: you can't go around stating solar panels should be put on roofs in places where there is no roof because it makes no financial sense to erect a roof just for solar panels. Or assume reasons why there should be a roof while obviously nobody needs/wants one, otherwise there would have been a roof or structure already. At least be happy there are companies which invest in solar solutions that exploit other dual use scenarios instead of dismissing the idea off-the-cuff. I see no reason to do the latter at this moment as I have seen no compelling arguments (as in definitive proof) that it can't be made to work in a economically viable way. Or not using solar power is better in all cases.
And I do know being called a conspiracy theorist ticks you off, but refrain from terms like greenwashing, mystical government handouts (*) and so on. It ticks me off people can't just accept that governments do what the majority voted for so I will call that out. There is enough nay-saying already. Sure people can have reservations but stick to engineering & economics.
* As I wrote before I'm doing quite a bit of new product development and from a front-row seat I can tell that the mystical government handouts don't exist. Most of the money to put a product on the market comes from private investors or people's life savings if they really believe in their idea.
RJSV:
Blahblahbla blahblah. Wall of response I'm disinclined to unpack, at least not today.
Are you a PAID agent, or similar ?
Because you've doubled down on similar BS, including debunking criticism that never happened. Build a roof, for free ? ? ?
But, have a good day anyway, I'm just staying around because I've AQUIRED an interest in propaganda mechanisms, and no harm done anyway, in discussions generally.
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: nctnico on March 06, 2024, 05:23:37 pm ---It is a false assumption to think the people who placed this bike charging station are stupid or misguided. I'm quite sure they made a thourough analysis on what is the most cost effective solution to meet their design goals. Which, judging from the pictures, likely include low cost and low impact installation. Maybe even without a grid connection.
--- End quote ---
No, the track record of urban planning details indicates no such analysis is usually done, or it is based on figures obtained using the Harrison-Stetson method, i.e. invented off the cuff for the purpose. What matters, is whether those making the decision will feel good about it or not; they're not spending their own money for it, after all. Public pressure is a big factor, yes, but with a suitable salesperson/marketdroid/representative, you can sweet-talk purse holders into anything.
As an example, only ~ 33% of public large-scale IT projects in Finland actually produce a functional result. Most go wildly over budget, and it is extremely rare, almost unheard-of, to hear of any kind of public project completed in time and under budget.
Here we come into the crux of the matter.
Today, it is extremely difficult to get funding for research that others are not already doing, regardless of the potential rewards. Those who fund research, want the positive publicity associated with "being at the forefront of the research, researching what everyone else is researching too".
Publicity and appearance is what matters, not the results.
Like Siwastaja wrote, test installations is one thing, but marketing paving-stone solar panels just does not pass even a rudimentary cost-benefit analysis.
You can associate them with your own projects and how difficult it is to get funding for sensible test installations/projects/products, but it does not change the fact that this one here just does not make practical sense: the results are predictable, and much worse than envisioned or estimated by the project leaders.
People are not doing solar roadways because rudimentary cost-benefit analysis –– "off the envelope" calculations –– indicate it could be worth it; they're doing it because they can do the marketing, and pay themselves a nice salary and get Green awareness points and positive publicity while doing so, even though they already know the project will fail, and produce shorter lifetime, lower electricity yields, and pretty negative cost-benefit results. Those just do not matter, because by the time it happens, the people have already reaped the benefits and continued on to other projects. The project managers and politicians get very little to no pushback from these; negative results won't affect their popularity or careers at all.
These are done, because doing them makes both the purse-string holder politicians and civil servants look good in public, provide additional positive publicity, and pays good wages for the people doing these projects, all paid for by the taxpayer. I resent wasting taxpayer money, because it is the reason for the financial state of Finland right now: we've got a bloated public sector with 55% of all workers getting paid by taxes. Because nobody is willing to cut some of that pork fat off, we're having to cut basic social support instead, because those people don't make as much noise as the 10% of the workforce paid by taxes that have questionable job descriptions. Even trying to limit political strikes –– those against the government, not the employers –– to just one day caused huge uproar here. This shit needs to end.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 06, 2024, 06:37:43 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on March 06, 2024, 05:23:37 pm ---It is a false assumption to think the people who placed this bike charging station are stupid or misguided. I'm quite sure they made a thourough analysis on what is the most cost effective solution to meet their design goals. Which, judging from the pictures, likely include low cost and low impact installation. Maybe even without a grid connection.
--- End quote ---
No, the track record of urban planning details indicates no such analysis is usually done, or it is based on figures obtained using the Harrison-Stetson method, i.e. invented off the cuff for the purpose. What matters, is whether those making the decision will feel good about it or not; they're not spending their own money for it, after all. Public pressure is a big factor, yes, but with a suitable salesperson/marketdroid/representative, you can sweet-talk purse holders into anything.
As an example, only ~ 33% of public large-scale IT projects in Finland actually produce a functional result. Most go wildly over budget, and it is extremely rare, almost unheard-of, to hear of any kind of public project completed in time and under budget.
--- End quote ---
Who says this bicycle charging system is paid by public/government money? Or that politics where involved?
A bit more Googling shows the system is likely from this Spanish company:
https://www.solumpv.com
And as I already assumed the company is funded through mostly private investors:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/solum-673e
You won't convince me all the investors are (run by) complete idiots.
Zero999:
Just because it's privately funded, it doesn't mean it's viable or sensible. Look at all the crappy crowd funded products which have fallen flat. It means nothing. Ignorant investors will through their money at solar because it's cool and seen as environmentally friendly, irrespective of whether said project is any good or not. :palm:
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