Quite a dam advancement.
An example of some great dam thinking by a group of smart dam people.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
1321 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
86127 readers
3209 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Stupid question, never wondered how dams are constructed (and location chosen): Isn't there a risk of them being flooded, like in an emergency dump scenario?
Absolutely! They have spillways for this scenario. Practical Engineering on YouTube has a few videos on spillways and a spillway failure.
I have a very serious issue with this!
What about the profits for coal companies! How are they supposed to make money! What if they go out of business!
WON'T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT COAL INDUSTRY PROFITS!
They're going to cool off the sun if they aren't careful. /s
I seriously used to work with a guy who thought wind turbines might have negative impact on the environment because it was "taking the wind".
Weeeeeeelllllll
So, like, not completely wrong?
Just out of curiosity, did you try to explain to him that it's the wind moving the turbine?
Some of the wind is converted into electricity, so the wind is reduced. Might not be a lot, but it could have some kind of an impact.
Switzerland is one of the only countries where it makes any sense to do this kind of nonsense because they're already almost completely on renewable power. I shudder to think of how high the installation cost per watt is when you need rope access teams drilling into concrete. Some IRATA certified electrician probably bought a vacation home with the money from just this project.
'wow the panels are 50% more efficient during winter, and it only cost 1000% more to install compared to a conventional rooftop'
*Ok I checked, it cost about 3.6 CHF per nameplate watt. Roughly double residential rooftop solar in Switzerland, which itself is again about double what a ground mount array costs. So still bad, not nearly as bad as I thought. This also is only the original install cost. Apparently they've had to do significant repairs, including replacing 270 panels, because of snow and ice damage.
**guess I pissed off the gimmick lovers? Have you guys ever asked yourselves who benefits from making renewable energy more expensive to install and more impractical? By the way this article and the image for it are AI slop, the actual install is slightly less absurd than the article makes it look.
And? Its new information for future construction, highlights the importance of doing this along with any repairs or new builds where you're doing some of that work anyway.
Confirms the energy is there.
And its literally on a damn, so storing excess with pumped hydro is can be done with like 0 transmission inefficiency.
'confirms the energy is there' buddy it's the sun, we already know it's there. It doesn't make sense to install capacity at 12 euros per watt when you can install capacity for 1 euro per watt or whatever the numbers actually are. I would be shocked if transmission losses are anywhere even close to cost efficiency losses.
The swiss do this sort of thing because they have the money to burn and place a high emphasis on aesthetics. They probably think this is less of an eyesore than ground mount so that makes it worth it for them.
My poibt is its a good demonstration case.
Yeah people and the media have this weird fascination with putting solar panels in new places. I don’t think finding locations to add them is as big of an issue for how much people seem to care and want to “solve” it.
In a lot of way, the electric grid binds us all together because we have to maintain and improve on the other side of that, it's a powerful way to motivate folks(rimshot). A lot of countries have had issues with this over the years.
Trying to put solar back in that "box" is not a good use of our time.
It's not cold fusion, but it just may be close enough.
Could fusion is and always was completely nonsense, it was a design flaw of a measurement instrument that made people think it worked, even though everyone who worked in nuclear fusion immediately dismissed as impossible. There's a great book that covers the subject called atomic adventures, written by one of the guys very involved in disproving the idea
You're very wrong about Switzerland. About 45% of their energy use is from oil and gas.
No. 58% is renewable and 25% is nuclear. See: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/CH/all/yearly
I could have sworn I looked this up recently, I might have been thinking of Austria.
*oh that figure includes combustion heating, I think I saw their domestic electricity production mix.
I imagine they had to do a lot of calculations in order to be sure this installation would not compromise the dam. But if this could be applied in other locations, it could be extremely benificial.
Honestly, I think it wouldn't be a problem in any dam. I'm sure they made all the required studies but dams are so thick and made to withstand such great forces that a couple of solar panels bolted on would be negligible. I bet 10cm of water rise would be a way bigger load
Especially considering anything ~~attracted~~ attached to the dam is going to add a vertical force that could do more to help with the lateral force from the water than it would do to bring the dam closer to collapse, though probably does closer to nothing to the overall physics of the dam.
Edit: Fixed a word as I don't think the existence of damphiles has any effect on the performance of dams until they start drilling/punching holes in them.
All those bolts are entry points for water if not thought through.
view more: next ›