In the middle of the neighborhood? Can you imagine having to walk to the grocery store across a solar farm? Or having the noise of a wind turbine next to your local cafe?
If something needs to be there, I would choose parks or community gardens.
Well, hence “if practical”. Obviously, a wind turbine surrounded by existing multi-story buildings isn’t going to be useful anyway - so this wouldn’t be a good idea for inner city parking lots. But not every parking lot is in a city like that, so it really depends on the specific location. If the building near the parking lot is also defunct (like a lot of shopping malls in the US) then maybe tearing all of it down and putting turbines in the space would make sense.
For long-term society support we should be adding more power generation where we can, especially low-carbon options. Our need for energy isn’t going down and probably never will. Fortunately, solar and wind have both reached the point where they are the lowest cost/MWh option for power generation (even without government subsidies) so they are often the best choice, and probably more people would be comfortable living near a solar or wind farm than a fission plant.
![[meme] What would you replace parking lots with if it were up to you?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1144f2b2-14d2-4d61-b9c7-98071d1a20eb.webp){kind=link}
In the middle of the neighborhood? Can you imagine having to walk to the grocery store across a solar farm? Or having the noise of a wind turbine next to your local cafe?
If something needs to be there, I would choose parks or community gardens.
I can imagine walking under a solar farm, for shade and protection from rain.
Beats walking through an open paved lot for sure!
Well, hence “if practical”. Obviously, a wind turbine surrounded by existing multi-story buildings isn’t going to be useful anyway - so this wouldn’t be a good idea for inner city parking lots. But not every parking lot is in a city like that, so it really depends on the specific location. If the building near the parking lot is also defunct (like a lot of shopping malls in the US) then maybe tearing all of it down and putting turbines in the space would make sense.
For long-term society support we should be adding more power generation where we can, especially low-carbon options. Our need for energy isn’t going down and probably never will. Fortunately, solar and wind have both reached the point where they are the lowest cost/MWh option for power generation (even without government subsidies) so they are often the best choice, and probably more people would be comfortable living near a solar or wind farm than a fission plant.