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

Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 481 posts

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#461

Post by defrost »

Zigurd wrote: post #450
defrost wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Obsolete" is pretty strong, clearly it's still limping along and hasn't quite yet succumbed to Benjamin's Franklin's expectation that it would fall to Despots if not vigoriously maintained. But it was absolutely seen as "a good first effort" that could be improved upon in the 1890s. Evidence of that is the new Australian Federation used the UK Westminster system and the system straight of Washington as inspiration t…

Seems like an easier problem to attack than, say, slavery, women's suffrage, the draft, etc. Once you look just a bit deeper, the US system hasn't been stagnant monotonically over the long-term. Not that originalists would ever admit it.

Sure, it's morphed from the original in various ways .. but perhaps not substantially enough to protect it from being gamed.

Transparency, limiting campaign funding, taking away corporate lobbyinging, universal suffrage (including everyone), indpendant commissions for electrol boundaries (stop parties directly dicking about with boundaries), ranked voting, more room for independant blocs, no "presidental" elections, cicada like co-prime terms for justices / other heads of non-p[olicy arms, ... many ways to improve the current system to increase broadly democratic representation.

The original point by the green account stands though, "problems with the US system have been known for a long time" .. perceived or otherwise, as evidenced by many others looking at the US system and picking and choosing what they use.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#462

Post by rush86999 »

rudhdb773b wrote: post #371
yowayb wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory that corruption+nepotism are unstoppable forces of nature. Advanced governments only force corruption to distribute and obfuscate. I think this is why there appears to be some correlation between unpopular behavior and financial success. Government essentially erects artificial barriers to entry on behalf of the incumbent businesses that fund it.

That's why I see AI (with a clear set of provided objectives and guidelines, i.e., a constitution) as the future of government. As dystopian as that sounds, it's the only way I see to truly rid ourselves of corruption.

This is an incomplete thought.

A strong checks and balances without influence of bias, relationships, and politics can be implemented using a 2-way blind system where:

1. decision makers (of sound judgement) are not aware of any identifiable information related to any users on whom the decision will be made, nor of each other.

2. Users are not aware of the decision makers who will decide on them, nor of each other.

Possibly AI can play a role here, but a strong system of checks & balances would be a prerequisite for this.

The justice system would definitely benefit from this.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#463

Post by underlipton »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #435
underlipton wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also assumes that there will never be demand for improved solar generation orthogonal to currently-prioritized metrics. As an example, a nice park near my house was clear-cut to install a solar farm a few years ago. I used to enjoy walks under the trees in that park, and seeing the animals that lived there. Perhaps as solar infrastructure becomes more stable and secure, concerns will turn towards the ecological ra…

> concerns will turn towards the ecological ramifications of covering so much of the Earth's surface with ecological deserts About that "solar panels cause ecological deserts" trope: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... https://glassalmanac.com/china-confirms-that-installing-sola... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

>Traditionally, deserts have been seen as harsh, lifeless landscapes

This is incorrect, depending on the geographic location. Many "deserts" are actually ecologically vibrant, and "greening" them (especially for farming) threatens to destroy a measure of natural diversity.

That said, I think you and the other poster placed emphasis on the wrong part of my post, as my point was less about solar land area coverage as some sort of singular evil, and more about the *opportunity* present in continuing to develop solar technologies so that they impact the environments they're placed in less and less over time. This would mean that efficiency is not the be-all-end-all of development, and that further improvements are possible even after reaching a satisfactory level of efficient generation. The energy economy would not fall off a cliff, as some predict. It would simply shift to solving other problems.

You can see an example of this in computer engineering, with Moore's Law's fall-off and the rise of GPU-based innovation.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#464

Post by underlipton »

flir wrote: post #343
underlipton wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also assumes that there will never be demand for improved solar generation orthogonal to currently-prioritized metrics. As an example, a nice park near my house was clear-cut to install a solar farm a few years ago. I used to enjoy walks under the trees in that park, and seeing the animals that lived there. Perhaps as solar infrastructure becomes more stable and secure, concerns will turn towards the ecological ra…

Assuming we consume ~20 TW on average, a metre-squared panel kicks out ~40 W on average, and we halve that to account for batteries and other infra... I reckon we're talking about 1 million square kilometres (people will be along in a sec to check my working, but it's just a Fermi estimate). Call it 10% of the Sahara. Bear in mind that if we go all-electric, raw energy consumption falls significantly, many panels wil…

I'm not saying that that magnitude of solar generation isn't a good thing. I'm saying that the solar farms of 2050 don't necessarily need to be arrays of panels on top of clear-cut land.

Grazing land is often essentially an ecological desert when compared to previous uses. Farms in general, honestly. Actually, this is a good forward example as agricultural expansion goes hand-in-hand with the Anthropocene die-off, but late advances in land use efficiency via fertilizer and other technologies means that even though these lands are super dead we also require less of them per person. What I'm proposing is analogous to even further development, where you're still somehow able to produce the same volume of food while reintroducing ecological diversity to the same land; moving away from traditional monoculture farms to ultra-efficient food forests. I don't know how you'd do it in farming, but it energy generation, it would probably involve engineering equipment to some level of symbiosis with the preexisting environment. Could we someday build literal forests of photovoltaics that support energy generation as well as a diverse natural ecosystem? Maybe. I'm sure we'll try. And that's why, ultimately, my point is that the idea that solar is an economic dead end is incorrect. This is just one potential branch on a tech tree (heh) that isn't anywhere near done growing.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#465

Post by kennyloginz »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #320
margalabargala wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is California enough to drag the rest of the country with them, though?

Other comments mentioned Texas, but check out the Ercot dashboard: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards Not only did solar and wind provide the vast majority of power during the day today, as I write this comment coal is neck-and-neck with storage as an energy resource - i.e. power that was saved during the day because it was so sunny. Coal simply makes no economic sense as a power source for electricity gene…

What are your thoughts on oil?

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#466

Post by kennyloginz »

thelastgallon wrote: post #333
dzonga wrote: post #126

The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. As admitting that solar is now a superior and cost effective means of energy means admitting that the US is no longer top dog. As empires are built on mastering a source of energy. the Portuguese | Dutch - mastered wind to power their ships. the British mastered coal to power Industrial Revolution. A…

China will replace Oil (+Fossil fuel) based ecosystems and applications of energy. Think about all the Oil wealth, but add on energy storage, an unsolved problem of mankind, and all the applications of energy production+storage. We already see this dominance in EVs. Soon, everything else will be replaced. We live in interesting times!

The worlds militaries will always require oil.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#467

Post by kennyloginz »

Buttons840 wrote: post #283
dzonga wrote: post #126

The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. As admitting that solar is now a superior and cost effective means of energy means admitting that the US is no longer top dog. As empires are built on mastering a source of energy. the Portuguese | Dutch - mastered wind to power their ships. the British mastered coal to power Industrial Revolution. A…

Also, the US has a lot of influence over the flow of oil in the world. A world of cheap solar energy removes that influence.

True, but until we reach a global state, everyone’s militaries require much oil.

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#468

Post by margalabargala »

8ytecoder wrote: post #238
margalabargala wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is California enough to drag the rest of the country with them, though?

Texas, technically, generates more TWh than California. I think a data center boom followed by a bust would help a lot more than what California can do. Unlike in cars, CAs market size or regulations can’t help/hinder other fuel sources as much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewab...

Good point.

Are Texas and California enough to drag the rest of the US with them?

Re: Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

#469

Post by rudhdb773b »

danaris wrote: post #456
rudhdb773b wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because unlike natural life, which has evolved to be highly competitive and self-interested, we would explicitly set the AI's objectives to always benefit society.

And why would the people in power be willing to do that?

That will definitely be a problem, but I suspect and hope that there will be governing AI models that can be "prompted" with clear and concise instructions that will be demonstrably free of bias towards any group, either by a direct reading or by evaluation with trusted 3rd party models.

If the public does not trust the fairness of the AI prompt, that will hopefully lead to revolution and replacement of the prompt with something more principled, similar to how rigged elections (sometimes) trigger revolutions.

Post reply on HN