Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Requiem for a Solar Plant

7goldfish.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#71

Post by drewm1980 »

giblfiz wrote: post #54
ur-whale wrote: post #25

If the interconnection costs were such a headache, why didn't he convert the solar farm to produce electricity consumed only locally to mine Bitcoin?

Hey, I'm the original author here. I didn't want to do BTC for two reasons: 1) I'm already WAY over exposed on crypto in my portfolio 2) I consider energy burn on mining to be part of a "zero sum helps no one" situation. I was trying to actually do something net positive for the world so didn't want to just drop more into that bucket.

It's good that you repented and at least tried to do something good with the money, but it would have been even better to donate it to an environmental organization with better judgement than you have. Proof of work crypto mining was an inexcusably bad idea for humanity from day one.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#72

Post by DamonHD »

oezi wrote: post #69
stego-tech wrote: post #2

This is a good story that taps into a lot of the systemic failings in America that hinder progress. Failure of the state to prioritize energy sufficiency over hypothetical mineral rights. Failure of utility companies to maintain their infrastructure to modern standards. Failure of governments to produce consistent and predictable business environments. Failure of bureaucracy to prepare creators and visionaries for su…

As a European three things stood out for me: - He didn't consult with somebody who had any experience in planning such a project, but a person who - while maybe personally impressive - had zero experience and started by writing scripts to find suitable properties. Isn't the project already doomed at this point? You are looking to invest 7m USD, who will you consult for this? - He wouldn't do the project unless he was…

AFAIK, because of protectionism (even pre Trump), US solar is much more expensive than elsewhere.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#73

Post by Retric »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except you had No, you benefited from sitting on that productive asset. Getting a free stock option is still a meaningful benefit even if you never case it in. Further assuming the asset kept up with inflation you’re better off after the sale vs holding cash for that same period. > by taking on new debt to buy food The money you got from that loan is an asset you’re not investing in that hypothetical. As to “spend…

> No, you benefited from sitting on that productive asset. Getting a free stock option is still a meaningful benefit even if you never case it in. If you buy a ton of steel with no intention of ever doing anything other than selling it for the same value as you paid for it in a while, you haven't benefited from it and have in fact cost yourself value in opportunity cost because other investments return more than that…

> If you buy a ton of steel with no intention of ever doing anything other than selling it for the same value as you paid for it in a while, you haven't benefited from it and have in fact cost yourself value in opportunity cost because other investments return more than that.

Your argument was buying a productive asset useful for the business. My argument is that’s a prediction which may be false, you suggesting no they are just randomly buying steel is losing your argument upfront.

> Loan principal doesn't create net assets. You get new money and new debt at the same time and they cancel.

Leverage is based on loans generating assets that can be invested. It’s clear your not actually arguing in good faith.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#74

Post by chairmansteve »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #16
bri3k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget in the middle he states that this is a tax dodge on capital gains from said crypto money.

In the same way that any business expansion is a tax dodge, sure.

Not true. If you read the article, arguably his main motivation was to avoid taxes.

Not that I blame him. The lesson is though, never do anything just to avoid taxes. He would never have got into the solar business without the tax "opportunities".

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#75

Post by micromacrofoot »

giblfiz wrote: post #53
bri3k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget in the middle he states that this is a tax dodge on capital gains from said crypto money.

I'm the original author. I'm not sure why you got down-voted for this, this was absolutely a "tax dodge". The polite term is "tax mitigation strategy", I'm also not sure why this is seen as an openly negative thing? The government wants a type of thing done, they say "hey, we won't pay people directly to do it, but we will subsidize it thru tax incentives" I was like "yeah, I like that thing (solar) and think it's go…

because there's not necessarily a demand for this site, or even a personal interest — imo this sort of incentive produces worse outcomes than taxing people and farming it out to the lowest bidder, at least the lowest bidder has a business and reputation to maintain (thin, but not nothing)

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#76

Post by cwal37 »

NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #5

I worked for about 8 months on an internal product for doing transmission studies at a large utility company. Basically, it would feed a PSS/E [1] file specifying most of the transmission grid into a power flow simulation software called TARA [2]. We would add a few extra elements to the grid to simulate a wind or solar plant. TARA would spit out all the components that would be overloaded, with or without contingenc…

imo, that's basically the dirty secret of grid data, post 9/11 it seemed as if everything went behind the CEII wall, but in reality it has always been that if you're a legacy player or have the money you can make sure you have access to everything.

It's a thorny issue and something I ponder in my day-to-day[0]. We're members in ISOs where it makes sense, and can provide CEII data once we've confirmed customers already have access, but I would love to be able to show some of it publicly. It's also odd how things vary from market to market. Transmission outages: public everywhere, except ERCOT, where they're considered Secure. Generator bids: anonymized and delayed by up to 90 days everywhere, except ERCOT, where it's 60-days and not anonymized at all (yes, ERCOT is different wrt to FERC jurisdiction).

Years ago I worked at a market monitor[1], and we got everything, just cloning the changes to ISO databases overnight every day, second-by-second PI (plant information) data, it was awesome. The potential advantages from data asymmetry are big enough that there are multiple companies with physical sensors out in the world measuring power lines in different ways to try and reconstruct grid activity in real time, and then others doing it entirely from access to CEII and a deep understanding of how the grid function. But all of this is heavily oriented towards traders, not developers, although I would use trading tools when developing projects because they were the most advanced.

[0] https://www.gridstatus.io/live

[1] https://potomaceconomics.com/

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#78

Post by jeffrallen »

giblfiz wrote: post #53
bri3k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget in the middle he states that this is a tax dodge on capital gains from said crypto money.

I'm the original author. I'm not sure why you got down-voted for this, this was absolutely a "tax dodge". The polite term is "tax mitigation strategy", I'm also not sure why this is seen as an openly negative thing? The government wants a type of thing done, they say "hey, we won't pay people directly to do it, but we will subsidize it thru tax incentives" I was like "yeah, I like that thing (solar) and think it's go…

> Why exactly is that bad?

Because you could have just paid your taxes like the rest of us have to. Instead you made a big drama and are asking us to agree with you how unfair it all is that you have to pay taxes.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#79

Post by kragen »

giblfiz wrote: post #52
gwern wrote: post #22

One of the problems with undisclosed and thoughtless use of LLMs for writing, like ChatGPT in this case, is that it undermines trust. Take the many quotes in this article, which all sound like ChatGPT. Obviously, none of those people said those words, or even anything all that like what they supposedly said, because that's not what real people sound like. If the author is willing to silently do that (which could be u…

Hi Gwern, I'm the owner of 7goldfish, the developer in question, and a fan of yours via reputation and the occasional comment I run into on Reddit. First I want to acknowledge that draft one of this was LLM written, by Claude, though it reflects a pretty detailed outline of an experience pretty accurately. As you point out the quotes from both Mr. R and myself were also mostly spat out by the LLM as well (though not…

Nice.
Post reply on HN