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Requiem for a Solar Plant

7goldfish.com

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Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#111

Post by Dylan16807 »

bz_bz_bz wrote: post #109
Dylan16807 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mineral rights are dominant over surface rights in most jurisdictions, including other states like California. To call it "insane" just shows how little experience Mr. R has in land development. The insane part is the management of mineral rights, shattering into a thousand untracked shards and too ruinous to insure against without waivers. Not the existence of them. > The area OP is trying to develop in is a QOZ f…

You think either of those problems are Texas-specific? Seems like people who zero industry experience got a taste of common issues that renewable developers deal with on a daily basis nationwide and decided that it must be Texas’ fault.

I don't think either I or the article claimed those problems were Texas-specific.

Are all those mineral rights issues exactly the same across the entire country? Even if so they make for an insane system.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#112

Post by Dylan16807 »

gwern wrote: post #92
giblfiz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think writing fiction with LLMs is fine. "based on a true story" or roman à clef fiction is also fine. I would have no objection to this if it were clearer that this was a "movie treatment". (As LLM fiction goes, this isn't even all that bad.) However... Look at this HN page! Not a single person here realized (before my still-downvoted comment) that this was a 'movie treatment', or that the 'quotes...were also most…

I'm used to quotes of phone calls in this kind of thing being an approximation.

If that's the biggest issue, and the story matched the detailed notes fed into the LLM, I wouldn't call it "fictional".

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#113

Post by Dylan16807 »

baking wrote: post #85
Dylan16807 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Projects with storage can take advantage of the cheaper solar power by shifting their balance, installing fewer panels and more storage. This leaves the grid better off overall.

Projects with storage can also take advantage of lower grid connection power limits because they are not forced to dump maximum power at peak supply times of the day.

Sure they can.

That doesn't make pure solar installs bad. Pure solar installs are net positive.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#114

Post by jeffrallen »

zekrioca wrote: post #90
jeffrallen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What a nonsense. This is the government itself proposing the subsidie to build up long term renewables, which have a much more important role to local communities. Author then writes about their important experiences, listing important lessons and insights for future endeavours, and you call it a ‘drama’. Tell me about your intentions without telling me about your intentions.

Yup, sorry, I believe in big government.

I think paying taxes allows the government to be able to afford to do the things it is responsible for (health, security, prosperity, equality).

If an infrastructure project is only possible with government support (in this case subsidies), then let the government make it happen and let the population benefit from it. For example the Apollo program.

If a solar farm is not possible to do in the free market without subsidies, then DON'T DO IT until the market is right. (Anyway, what was the author's plan if he got deep into the project and instead of having a disappointment from connection fees, the new president cuts the subsides he needed? Subsidies are political and temporary, you cannot build a sustainable business on them.)

Pay your taxes, and contribute to building society. It's as simple as that.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#115

Post by geotekne »

giblfiz wrote: post #58
buckle8017 wrote: post #9

Ah yes the age old story of a rich guy without a clue diving into a new industry and failing. They should be requiring batteries with solar as well. His install would have a net negative value to the Texas grid without it.

Hey, original author here. > Ah yes the age old story of a rich guy without a clue diving into a new industry and failing. Yep, very much so. I was well aware that I didn't have a clue, and thought that I could make up for that with professional expert advice, elbow grease, a pretty good combination of tax advantages, and a willingness to learn. The project was intentionally limited in scale as to be a "learning proj…

hi ! giblfiz , I work in a startup which born specifically for solving the kind of situation you faced. It would be really a pleasure to get in touch and share experiences. Mr R is right: "Run five projects through the process simultaneously. Most will fail for reasons you cannot predict. With five, one might succeed ..." the problem behind: time/effort to implement that. Ping us whenever you want https://www.renewableenergy.place/ it would be really cool to have a talk.

btw, it was really challenging to find a way to contact you, lol (out of this way) btw2, we are based in Argentina :). Let us meet Mr R!

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#116

Post by cauch »

mattnewton wrote: post #106
cauch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess tax incentives feel strange because it feels a bit like a thing the government needs to do because of bad behaviors. As you say, the situation would be 100% identical if the government was receiving directly the tax and then buying these things directly. So why don't they do that? Because people with money will find ways to dodge taxes anyway. Tax incentives is basically admitting that people with money are s…

I don’t think it’s because anyone has resigned themselves to thinking all rich people are cheaters who will win. I think we use tax incentives in the US primarily because of two beliefs - the first that the private market is often more efficient than public purchasing (which has a pretty poor showing from this article, as you point out!), and the other is that people can choose how to contribute some of their obligat…

I think a big fraction (the majority) of people who hold the belief that private market is more efficient are also saying things like "you should not do X or the private companies will just go in another country where they don't impose X", with X being usually a thing beneficial for the community/society (collecting fair tax, protecting the employees, protecting the environment, redistributing the money towards basic infrastructure where people cannot afford them, making sure the market is fair, ...). Trying to avoid any of those X is usually morally questionable (and on top of that there is the fact that they will not hesitate to turn their back to the country that provided the environment were they were able to be successful).

So, a lot of these people who hold this belief are agreeing (not explicitly, they just know it's true but don't want to say it out loud) that rich people are doing what is better for them, not what is better for the society. Which is why people view negatively rich people who profit from government tax incentive.

I think you summarize my understanding on why using tax incentives are seen as a negative trait with the sentence

> We want to softly encourage some behaviors and discourage others

If you have to encourage behaviors that are good for the society and discourage behaviors that are bad for the society, it means that some people, without these incentives, will prefer to do the "bad" behaviors rather than the "good" behaviors. I understand that people will not like these people.

Again, tax incentives are totally useless if the rich people are people with normal moral who will naturally try to do the correct thing. The government, not you, is already choosing the domain where it applies tax incentives. So the argument that you don't want to give tax because you think you will do a better job at choosing the project than the government does not hold: if you are doing something where the government provides a tax incentive, you are doing something that the government wanted to be done. And the government is also more than happy to get good advice and support on such projects, but again, there, those generous rich people are not doing anything despite their nice posture. If indeed they don't trust the government to do "good things", it's funny that they don't do them themselves and instead jump on the first tax incentive opportunity. Posture is cheap, but when it comes to invest extra, without government help, for something that is "good", there is no one remaining from the group of the people who explains that a government collecting tax is not a good way to have nice things done.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#117

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Retric wrote: post #73
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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.

You implied that they could just buy something that isn't a productive investment and then claim it as a business expense to defer the taxes. Which they could, but why would they when they could make more money by purchasing a real productive investment? Whereas if it is a real productive investment then the government benefits from the increase in the tax base.

The relevant question isn't the yield they're getting -- they already have the incentive to maximize that on their own -- it's whether they want to invest it or spend it to begin with.

> Leverage is based on loans generating assets that can be invested.

Loans are often used when you can get a lower interest rate to borrow money than the expected returns from an investment opportunity. The yield there isn't the loan principal -- that all has to be paid back -- it's the difference between the rate of return and the interest on the loan.

The difference is relevant exactly because of what deferring taxes does to that math. If your effective compounding rate is 10% rather than 6.7% and the loans available to you are at 8% interest (or any other number between 6.7 and 10), the difference determines whether it makes sense for you to make the investment.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#118

Post by Retric »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #117
Retric wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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. You implied that they could just buy something that isn't a productive investment and then claim it as a business expense to defer the taxes. Which they could , but why would they when they could make more m…

> it's whether they want to invest it or spend it to begin with.

Again deferring that choice isn’t making an investment. A jeweler buying 1kg of gold doesn’t need to be making a productive investment to claim they are.

Thus creating an incentive to tie up productive assets for tax reasons rather than maximizing total efficiency.

> Loans are often used

We can get into all kinds of game people pay with loans and the tax code but that’s irrelevant here.

My initial point is someone can’t invest all their assets as you previously claimed people could via loans which is a silly tangent because that cash is investable. Which means both investing and spending money occurs when anyone is investing and thus deferred capital gains are simply a handout. Zero net gain for society lots of gains for the people getting the handout.

Re: Requiem for a Solar Plant

#119

Post by Calwestjobs »

Spivak wrote: post #36
Calwestjobs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or let me say it differently, my house needs as much energy to make it luxuriously comfortable in coldest of days, as my neighbors house loses just thru chimney, when there is no fire burning... ( he needs 50times more energy then me, but he is not comfortable, he wakes up into cold house ) there is insanely huge gap in peoples perception of reality, schooling failed many. less energy i need, less energy we need to c…

I'm so confused by the chimney thing, a nice wood stove which I assume your neighbor is using because it's not practical or possible to heat your house with a fireplace can get you 70-80% efficiency and run overnight. They burn clean enough that I can't tell when my neighbors (presumably always) use theirs and they're directly across the street. The whole neighborhood knows when I use my fireplace. My neighbors who h…

that greyish blue haze around mountains is smog not fog. sometimes it is NOx from trees but most of times is from stoves

"they both talked my ear off about their experiences." stockholm syndrome . so they talked how good their stoves are. or they talked about how bad their houses are that they need to spend any amount of time on stove, cleaning, dust, moving wood,... if you have bad "circumstances" then any betterment in that circumstances is welcomed. but you can change circumstances altogether and not have to improve on lessening of abuse. you can live without abuse.

you burn to add energy into your house. better built house loses less energy so you need to add less energy. so you need less wood.

if im to put two logs into "stove", my house is 120 f in half an hour. if i had stove.

U/R value of materials

also someone will inhale your smoke, 100% all the time. their smoke. everyone smokes everyones smoke.

smoke does not go upwards towards mars. it goes little bit up then it will fall to ground and lurks 3-5 feet about ground and you inhale it. and im not even talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)

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