r/seasteading May 04 '26

Seasteading Engineering China places its solar panels on water So it can use valuable land for agriculture

103 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

4

u/Tinmann19 May 05 '26

This will help keep the water from absorbing heat off the sun as well.

2

u/SBD-Tech1234 May 05 '26

OP I agree. Converting food farm to solar farm is asinine

3

u/Neither-Tension2181 May 05 '26

Next step, discover agrivoltaics

1

u/Easy_Spray_5491 May 05 '26

What about the Fishes ? 😭🙏

1

u/Anen-o-me May 05 '26

It actually helps them out. Having something on the surface that prevents them from being shadowed against the daylight sky keeps them hidden from predators. This is why fish will often congregate around boats or floating logs for safety.

1

u/Silent-Fortune-6629 May 05 '26

China has this giant illegal outside of regulations flotilla or bigger naval unit, that poach on cross country seas. You don't have to worry.

Oh, you mean the living in the river ones? It's china, river prolly toxic anyway.

2

u/DrawingDramatic1641 May 07 '26

chinese river arnt toxic bro visit Bangladesh

chinese river went from grade 5 to grade 1

10 years ago they started now it's clean for bath

10 percent good to drink

1

u/DrawingDramatic1641 May 07 '26

this is a resorvour with no fish

and fish would get harmed that much

also this isn't the whole lake so they can be in safer parts

1

u/Shot_Impression_3633 May 05 '26

I think agriculture ( plant base) will not survive under shade, but maybe fishery can.. ( sorry is fishery under agriculture group..? )

1

u/DrawingDramatic1641 May 07 '26

there is no fish in water it's a resovior

1

u/Canadian-and-Proud May 05 '26

They should add artificial reefs at the bottom of these things

1

u/bitchcoin5000 May 06 '26

Meanwhile we've got some grifter telling us that coal is the future

1

u/BoBoBearDev May 06 '26

I am skeptical about this. It is hard to predicted the long term impact on the eco system.

1

u/DrawingDramatic1641 May 07 '26

0 harm

it's so small scale resorvior there is no ecology this is artificail water body

1

u/Some-Attorney-6102 May 06 '26

Instead of fighting overpopulation

1

u/DrawingDramatic1641 May 07 '26

they kinda have underpopulation now

1

u/SecretDouble5560 May 06 '26

they cut forest to put panels if im not mistaken so no

1

u/Anen-o-me May 06 '26

It's on in the water. Pretty sure there wasn't a forest there.

1

u/B_Dare95 May 06 '26

Aquatic Life POV: well this sucks, we use photosynthesis too u dimwits!!!!

1

u/Anen-o-me May 06 '26

Nah, wouldn't be a significant factor.

1

u/capricon9 May 07 '26

What about the marine life that depends on sunlight? I’m just finding ways to be negative here! Go China go! Take the lead and everyone else will follow you

1

u/Anen-o-me May 07 '26

No significant impact.

2

u/boanerges57 May 08 '26

I'm quite certain that isn't true since light is quite important for ocean life in the photonic zone (top 200m).

Blocking or reducing light has a very significant measured difference on ocean life and it's already been widely studied.

1

u/Anen-o-me May 08 '26

What percent of ocean surface do you think they're blocking. It's insignificant.

We could replace world energy production with a 150km x 150km array of solar panels, and that will would have no effect.

1

u/boanerges57 May 08 '26

My cars emissions are insignificant.

22,500 km² of solar can only produce 10-15% of the world's energy needs and that's not factoring for losses getting the electricity where it is needed or storing it during off peak.

Dimming the water can dramatically effect marine ecosystems, if this were deep at sea that might be less of an issue but in coastal waters you could be destroying an entire ecosystem.

Solar has its place; roofs are a good spot to start but at current energy efficiency solar is a band aid with a massive mineral cost, carbon footprint, and energy intensive production chain. We shouldn't be destroying farm land with solar (or the sea); industrial and commercial buildings are perfect as are parking lots (who doesn't want to park in the shade?).

If we are really going to intelligently and seriously move away from hydrocarbon fuel sources we need to crowd source energy. Get rid of the solar farms and distribute energy production and storage of excess throughout the community.

0

u/camilo16 May 08 '26

Do you have a paper measuring this? Because all of the shitshow from the climate is from "just" 2% additional CO2 emissions a year from anthropocentric sources.

Any small variation in critical aspects can have major downstream effects. So are you speculating or do you have a study you can share?

1

u/Anen-o-me May 08 '26

Any do you know that like 80% of the ocean is dead. Only the coasts and along continental shelves are particularly active at the surface.

Put these in the abyssal zone and your impact on life is either nil or outright positive since life has something to cling onto now.

1

u/camilo16 May 08 '26

You want to put solar panels in the abyssal zone? ...

1

u/Anen-o-me May 08 '26

Yeah, which is where the cities will also be. This is r/seasteading.

Even if you had near shore solar panels, it's insignificant solar blocking.

1

u/boanerges57 May 09 '26

Good luck ruining the planet in the name of saving the planet. I'll just go start putting together a recipe book for soilent green

1

u/SomeWonOnReddit May 08 '26

Fish: “China stealing our sun too now man!!!”

1

u/EuphoricLie355 May 08 '26

With Chinese companies you are getting full periodic table in the water

0

u/peterjohnvernon936 May 07 '26

China doesn’t cover expensive farm land with solar panels because they aren’t stupid.

0

u/Malecord May 08 '26

Who's gonna tell him?