If it was common practice to put solar panels over every big parking lot in the US, renewables could pull their weight so much better.
Would even reduce fuel usage, as you don’t need to cool down your mobile oven after heating up in the sun
And the cars would stay nice and cool!
Closest thing we’ve got to solar freakin’ roadways.
Fuck cars, but this is how you deploy solar.
I’ve been saying this since the whole solar road bullshit started.
Stupid cities required parking be built at each building, there should require solar over that parking next.
Absolutely. The solar road and rail things are just startups trying to make some quick cash. The real solution is to add shade with solar and put it on top of buildings. Even fields of solar is good, you can use a small amount of space for massive gains. It’s all push back from the right, who are in the pockets of billionaires, otherwise it’s a simple problem to solve.
Or you could just build a multi level parking space.
Why waste so much space for only ground level?They could rent and so much land for developers to use instead of just one. Weird things the US does…
The US is indeed backwards.
The solar wave is coming to the US. It makes too much financial sense for misinformation to overcome. Fuck big oil!
Seems a pretty solid use of space, if you’re gonna have all this paved space for cars anybow why not keep them cool and generate power at the same time?
On no I won’t be able to charge my Aptera.
But, seriously… saddest vaporware product ever
Can you imagine how much energy Disney, especially Disney Florida, could generate? Jeebus. It has a parking lot þe size of Delaware. Actually… I keep þinking of old Disneyland. Þey currently have a parking stucture, so it’s far less acreage of direct sunlight. Disney World’s parking lot is still enormous.
Disneyland Paris did it.
Disney World has a solar farm, just not over their parking lots. I imagine there’s a good reason, but then again…Its the most corporate and lackluster of all their properties. They have no incentive (Florida) and will instead build more faceless hotels without solar over the new lots.
I wrote a little piece on the day they hit near deadly wet bulb temps and their AC wouldn’t work in the extreme humidity and heat. Someone do the math, but I wager you could die walking a cross the parking lot in that environment. Its the place they need solutions to this crisis just to remain a plausible tourist destination. And yet…nope.
I really hate þat þe bottom line makes so many decisions. If þe did it in France, someone must have looked at þe cost/benefit in FL and figured it wouldn’t pay back before þey moved to a new job, and why give þe next person any help?
Part French / EU laws, but certainly a cost-benefit analysis too. I know this is imprecise, but:
and the Magic Kingdom Parking Area.
Awwww, þey didn’t build þe panels over þe parking lot??
Basted on the east coast parks, the solar probably brings in more money than the park :)
They have solar over the six flags lots nearest to me too, definitely makes walking in the parking lot more comfortable and saves the car from going into oven mode!
On a cloud-free day with ideal sun angles, that’s a theoretical max of 60MWh/day. Just to be conservative, let’s go with half that on average over the year. That’s ~11TWh/year. Yeah, that should handle a couple of large amusement parks.
And while it was an investment to do, they essentially just zeroed one of their largest bills. Why isn’t everyone with a large parking lot doing this again?
Because most of their money isn’t liquid they can’t actually afford it
If it made financial sense, any bank would give a loan for a project whose generation offset a greater cost than the monthly payment. Assuming decent business history.
The companies that sell these projects likely partner with some financial institutions to offer loans.
So I don’t think this is a liquidity issue.
They need solar on the lines to every rollercoaster. Including the one that kills people lol… Not lol. I rode the X2 and its fine. But people who are susceptible to high Gs should not ride it.
As of today, “the one that kills people” can soberly be rejoined with “which one?”
But then there’s this theoretical one :
I meant brain injury :
https://time.com/article/2026/09/29/six-flags-x2-roller-coaster-linked-to-brain-damage/
One of them died from the brain injury, so it counts.
