Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

141–150 of 481 posts

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

#141
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about, before we try to keep "big money" out of politics and adopt ranked preference voting, we ban ill educated people and ban voting yourself other people's stuff. Voting is not a survival skill, it's a civic obligation.

What specific educational test would you like to see for someone to be legally eligible to vote in some jurisdiction? SAT score higher than a certain threshold (what specific threshold?). What if huge numbers of people cheat on the test in order to be able to legally vote? What if instead the educational criteria is a degree from some credited educational institution? Who decides what institutions will be authorized…

I'm not saying you have to have a certain level of education to vote, I'm saying you have to have a certain level of functional ability to not be incarcerated for the rest of your life. Such as you have to be able to read and write and do math at some certain level.

Voting yourself other people's stuff would be that the safety net is bare minimum to keep people who are going through unexpected issues alive. But no one gets to live in the social safety net. No one who is receiving these kinds of benefits from the government should expect name brand anything, or to even be able to choose what food to eat, or to travel, or even pick who you socialize with. If you want to eat steak, you have to be a net producer. If you want name brand clothing, be a net producer. If you want to go to the beach, be a net producer.

Everyone who should pay some amount of tax, and anytime there is an increase in government spending, that amount that they are taxed should go up. If there is a decrease in government spending, it can go down. But everyone pays something. People need to have skin in the game. The US's current situation where nearly half the country are not net tax payers is not sustainable. Anything that can't go on forever, won't. So the country should ease into better situation, where the country is a nation of producers and not a nation of consumers, instead of hitting a brick wall where suddenly your ration of beans just stop.

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

#142

I have a goal of setting up solar on my property in the woods that goes directly to a wall of batteries, maybe Tesla, maybe something else. But definitely not going back into the grid. Does anybody have suggestions or advice on how to do this? Who are the best companies doing this right now in New England? What products are folks using to store electricity? Are there any good resources for this kind of thing?

If you are planning to get a Tesla car with PowerShare (it's slowly expanding to the Model Y and other vehicles) then you only really need one Powerwall 3, because the car when charged acts as ~7+ powerwalls worth of backup.

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil… That's what happens when the "Leader of the Free World" is 79 with dementia with memories of the 1970s oil crisis. We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar.

Military vehicles that take oil-derived fuel take diesel, not hydrocarbons. The oil in Venezuela serves that purpose nicely. No, I am not condoning anything here, just pointing something out.

There’s plenty of diesel available to us that doesn’t require stabilizing an authoritarian Central American nation and rebuilding their oil industry first.

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

#144
post #22

I am reminded by the perhaps revisionist history but still applicable belief that slavery was really ended by industrialization making abolition economically advantageous and not actually a socially driven movement. (In reality it was certainly a convoluted mixture of the two I'm sure.) I hope we are in a similar era with regards to climate change. Surely there's a lot of money to be made in harnessing effectively un…

What will come with the approaching boom of guilt-free energy is public support for doing more things with more energy, and instead of stagnated per-capita energy use a return to more-than-linear energy usage growth. With that you get flying cars, space tourism, AI, cities in deserts with free water through desalination, better indoor climates with freer ventilation with the outside, cities skies free of ICE smog and…

I hope you are right. My fear is that it could allow unrestricted limits to tear down the rest of nature.

Alternatively, it could mean that we would no longer need to do that as a lot of materials that are restricted by energy costs become viable. If energy is almost free you can extract a lot of trace materials from almost anywhere.

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

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military vehicles that take oil-derived fuel take diesel, not hydrocarbons. The oil in Venezuela serves that purpose nicely. No, I am not condoning anything here, just pointing something out.

There’s plenty of diesel available to us that doesn’t require stabilizing an authoritarian Central American nation and rebuilding their oil industry first.

> We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar.

I was responding to that bit. It isn't accurate.

I also said I don't condone it. Ignoring facts isn't helpful for anyone.

Edit for ratelimiting:

> You think it's likely that the US will manage to create a stable enough government in Venezuela for foreign investment to be successful? What in the history of American regime change efforts gives you this idea?

No. I was simply saying the oil is useful in the military-industrial complex, and it does have value. I've said this twice already. I cannot say if this value will be realized, and for the third time, I don't condone it.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like trying to assess the economy of the Third Reich while omitting that whole pesky war thing

They used slave labor too, don't forget!

Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. Mining, agriculture, sex (where it still survives even in the Western world), where the output is easily checked and counted.

When it comes to anything sophisticated done by qualified people, like "making advanced tools for the Führer", the options for subtle sabotage are there and pissed-off people will use them.

In general, German occupation authorities had better results when they actually paid the workers and gave them vacation vouchers. But of course the racial theories got in the way, as it was unthinkable to treat, say, Jews as normal employees.

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

#147
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…

Some comment I read I keep coming back to. They (elites) will risk everything to give up nothing.

The same elites that were telling us we can't have electric cars because the power grid can't support them are now building massive data centers for AI which they think will allow them to completely ignore the working class.

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

#148
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if global greenhouse gas emissions immediately and permanently stop, climate change won’t. We have many years of further warming ahead of us due to the greenhouse gases already dumped into the atmosphere.

Then we move on to carbon capture at scale.

And have Dubai make a few new islands out of diamonds?

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

#149

I have a goal of setting up solar on my property in the woods that goes directly to a wall of batteries, maybe Tesla, maybe something else. But definitely not going back into the grid. Does anybody have suggestions or advice on how to do this? Who are the best companies doing this right now in New England? What products are folks using to store electricity? Are there any good resources for this kind of thing?

How big of an install are you looking to do? I just did a ground mount install on my property. (4kw panels, 5kwh battery) If you are good with your hands, and can follow instructions then I would recommend you do the work your self. The actual installation of the panels and battery are close to plug n play. The cost of an electrician can easily double the project costs for small projects. For the panels I did whateve…

https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse

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

#150
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Being able to lounge around while others toil for your gain is absolutely economic. And being comfortable doing it via slave labor is cultural. > if you exclude the enslaved, the south had a higher GDP per capita If you exclude the murders, Ted Bundy was a really nice guy.

Prior to the steam engine, what sources of energy you have?

The wind and the water, both rather limited to specific activities (milling, sailing). And the power of human and animal muscle. Where the animals are stronger, but also much dumber, so most of the actual hard work has to be done by human hands.

Basically all the settled civilizations used some sort of non-free or at best semi-free labour. Villeiny, serfdom, prisoners of war, slavery of all sorts, or having low castes do the worst work.

And given that humans are very good at rationalizing away their conditions, the cultures adapted to being comfortable with it, even considering the societal inequality as something ordained by the gods or karma.

Post reply on HN