[cogman10]

Why hasn't Switzerland deployed solar/wind? That seems like a pretty big miss in general. The Swiss grid has almost no wind which is strange for such a mountainous nation. And solar is also quite low which is also strange given how much empty land exists in Switzerland along with it's relatively low latitude.

[Plankaluel]

Regarding wind and mountains. Some perspective from someone from neighboring Tyrol:

The reason there is so little wind power: Probably the same reason the western, alpine parts of Austria have basically zero wind power - and why neighbouring Carinthia recently voted in a referendum to ban it completely.

People who live in the Alps generally don't like seeing the mountains altered. It is treated almost as sacrilege. And since these areas are heavily dependent on tourism, where the appeal rests on a romantic, Disney-fied fantasy of wild, untamed nature, locals worry that turbines would make the region less attractive to tourists. Of course, this "untouched" landscape is largely a fiction in the first place: most of it looks the way it does precisely because people have lived in it and shaped it for centuries.

[s1artibartfast]

yeah, some it has been shaped by man, but that does not negate or invalidate the fact that they like it the way that it is.

My clean dinner table is completely artificial, but that doesnt mean I should be neutral to someone placing a bowl of shit on it.

[palata]

Also wind turbines kill birds and bats, it is an actual problem to be put in the balance.

The balance being: do you build a ton of those turbines, or one nuclear plant?

[cogman10]

Skyscraper windows kill birds and bats.

It's not a real problem. If it were actually a problem you should be able to walk under a wind turbine and find a bunch of dead birds/bats. The reality is you might find 1 or 2, but not enough to actually observe any sort of impact on the population. Outdoor cats are a far bigger menace to birds and bats.

So yeah, you build a ton of those turbines. Because by the time you can deploy 1 1GW plant (10 to 20 years) you can install 10 or 20 times that much power generation via wind. By the time the nuclear plant is operational, you can be talking about refurbishing some of the early installed turbines.

A nuclear plant requires fuel sourcing, waste management, engineering and planning, constant management and monitoring, security, and a fairly large construction footprint for the likes of the cooling towers.

Wind requires someone to go grease the gears once a year.

[palata]

> If it were actually a problem you should be able to walk under a wind turbine and find a bunch of dead birds/bats.

That's not how it works, but thanks for not thinking about it for more than a few seconds. It is documented, you can read about that. In Germany, tens of thousands of bats are killed by wind turbines every year. For birds, they do have camera systems that detect bird migrations and stop the turbines.

So yeah, it is very much a real problem, you just have to read about it.

> Wind requires someone to go grease the gears once a year.

So it's not only the birds problem: you don't know how wind turbines are maintained either!

[Matumio]

They do and it's a problem, but it's a minor issue compared to, say, cars or rat poison. Both kill lots of birds, but somehow when it's wind turbines people suddenly care about the birds. See also: https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/technology-articles/...

[cogman10]

People that repeat these lies are very incurious. It's incredible how quickly and easily this lie can be debunked yet it still comes up at the same time wind does. It's almost as bad as the "wind turbines cause cancer" BS. Fortunately people usually have enough common sense to see how ridiculous that one is. But not always.

[palata]

> Fortunately people usually have enough common sense to see how ridiculous that one is

The problem is actually that people don't have enough attention to actually read about it. People are stuck in "I am a smart adult, I don't have to think, whatever I believe is right".

Those are actual problems and wind turbines actually deploy mitigations for them. Possible for birds, not for bats. Many endangered bats are killed as a result.

Sure, as compared to not giving a shit about the living condition of, say, billions of chickens, it may sound like it doesn't matter. But not everybody wants to live on a lifeless planet surrounded by the worst species ever (I mean humans).

> It's almost as bad as the "wind turbines cause cancer" BS.

If you genuinely believe it is, then you vastly overestimate your common sense.

[eldaisfish]

no, this is not an "actual" problem. It is a problem in the sense that it happens, but not at a meaningful enough scale.

The bats and birds is an issue that the oil and gas industry regularly pushes because it sounds concerning, but really isn't.

[palata]

Are you aware that tens of thousands of endangered bats are killed every year just in Germany (by wind turbines)? It is an actual problem for that species.

Are you aware that wind turbines have detection systems for bird migrations and stop to avoid killing too many birds? If it was not an "actual problem", why would they spend money in actual solutions?

[eldaisfish]

yes, i am.

Are you aware of the context of this bat killing "problem"? it is almost entirely a problem for older, unregulated wind farms in Germany. The "problem" has a simple solution, which has been proven to work - stopping wind turbines when bats are known to be moving, for a total of about twenty minutes per day.

[palata]

They do it for birds, with detection systems. They aren't able to detect bats migrations though.

[Arodex]

See this long-form investigation:

https://www.heidi.news/explorations/black-out-le-talon-d-ach...

[stymaar]

See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48587327

[julkali]

nimby

[cogman10]

Yeah, that seems like it'd be something that would also stop nuclear deployment.

[Moldoteck]

nimby to have solar/wind in alps is even higher vs nimby against nuclear. With nuclear you can at least throw another unit in Aarau

[shermantanktop]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind

Given how my grandmother said every ailment under the sun was due to the Föhn, putting a windmill up would probably be seen as tempting the fates. /s

I'm joking wrt to wind energy, but the cultural associations with wind are real.