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Comment by bpodgursky | Hacker News Reader

Yes coal mines are horrible. However, reclaimed mines are not worse for the environment than literally replacing equivalent acreage with a blanket of monolithic fused-silicon solar collectors (under which, there is no environment).

My point is not that coal is good, it is that the acreage comparison is not good.

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> under which, there is no environment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29217929

Also, if you put a solar panel on a roof of a building, there will still be a building underneath the solar panel. Many people live in them, they dont get obliterated just because they are underneath a solar panel.

The point was that land which used to be a Coal mine can be surprisingly green. To the extent that something we normally consider unquestioningly eco-friendly - like large arrays of solar power collectors - could have a more degraded local environment in their direct vicinity (though they are beneficial overall).

I don't think anyone's saying coal is good or solar is bad here.

> Yes coal mines are horrible. However, reclaimed mines are not worse for the environment than literally replacing equivalent acreage with a blanket of monolithic fused-silicon solar collectors (under which, there is no environment).

Citation very much needed.

For starters, assuming we're mining the coal in order to burn it, rather than just for rock collectors, then the pollution and waste from that activity alone is enough to make it worse than solar. Killing more people, and animals, and destroying more environment while also costing more money.

You claim you're not the kind of person to minimize how bad coal is, but that's exactly what you're doing.

We don't need to do what you're suggesting (there's plenty of sensible places to put solar PV) but even if we did I would be highly surprised if it was worse than coal mining.

No environment? These sheep would beg to differ: https://www.photovoltaik.eu/sites/default/files/styles/auror...

Ok, it's mostly done in photovoltaic plants (and has advantages for both sides, because it stops plants that could eventually overgrow the solar modules), but I don't think there's anything stopping solar collector plants from being used the same way...

Yes, if you choose to use twice the acreage, you can have half the panel density.

Thats just plain wrong. In this case the environment means grass + wild flowers + insects + birds eating insects + insects and fungus that lives in the soil. That all survives under the panels and is ok with some shade and cooling. In fact this is better for the soil than intensive agriculture. And all possible without reducing panel density.

Yes; but in some cases the shade provided by the solar panels can increase productivity of the land (e.g. better quality wool, crops that don't like full sun, or even to protect crops from excessive heat in these ever hotter days.

What about putting solar on those old coal mines?

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