Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution

#151

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #81

pixl97 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're talking about coal production that's sold to other states. Texas leads in both coal and natural gas consumption by far. Texas produces an insane amount of energy.

Yes, but I wouldn't fault Texas for producing electricity to sell to other states. And in any case, that lowers Texan per capita consumption even more given that they're not actually consuming all of it.

You seem to have a huge misunderstanding of how big the Texas grid is. And no, it shares almost nothing which is why we had a huge power crash in the freeze of 2021.

>Texas led the nation in energy consumption in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The EIA reported Texas' total energy consumption was twice as much as California's, the second-highest energy-consuming state, and more than three times as much as third-place Florida. The EIA's State Energy Data System finds U.S. total energy use peaked in 2007. Between 2007 and 2023, Texas energy consumption rose 21% while U.S. energy use decreased 5%.

I have zero idea where you're thinking that Texas exports power, or doesn't use it all, but it's very odd given the plethora of evidence to the contrary.

Re: Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution

#152

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #106

BeetleB wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I wouldn't fault Texas for producing electricity to sell to other states. And in any case, that lowers Texan per capita consumption even more given that they're not actually consuming all of it.

Doesn't Texas have a separate grid which would mean that they can't sell electricity to other states?

Correct. We have very little cross transfer capability to other grids. Add to that the Texas grid consumes 2x the power of California, so the scales are huge.

Re: Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution

#153

Post by TaLiTr » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

perpetuallunch wrote: post #144

dburkland wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should be looking inward as to why solar isn't more easily deployable in the US. Local zoning, permitting, and community opposition are some of the top road blocks there...

Solar needs to address its dispatchability problem before it becomes viable as anything other than a vanity project. Australia is experiencing this problem now to a limited extent, and is walking in to a disaster scenario with the scheduled shutdown of 5 gigawatts of coal fired electricity generating across three sites over the next three years with nothing in the pipeline to replace that 5GW.

Solar has a problem so it's a vanity project, but coal has a billion problems but it doesn't matter because you can adjust the output?

Like it genuinely sounds like you're suggesting our current terrible system shouldn't even be attempted to be improved unless there's a magic perfect solution to replace it.

Re: Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution

#154

Post by RunSet » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

sfdlkj3jk342a wrote: post #133

RunSet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do we put so much focus on CO2 emissions? Any amount of focus would be "so much". I gather you believe other people pay too much attention to CO2. That the planet is warming suggests to me they do not pay enough.

> I gather you believe other people pay too much attention to CO2. Why would you think that? I care a great deal about the environment.. I've been working on several reforestation projects for the last 5 years. I wish there was 100x more funding for CO2 emission reduction. But it frustrates me far more how little attention pm2.5 pollution gets. I live in Asia and see the effects that pm2.5 pollution has on 100's of m…

If you were writing to say you think people ought to pay more attention to CO2 then I misread your comment.

Re: Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution

#155

Post by rgmerk » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

hocuspocus wrote: post #149

rgmerk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear reactors across the US and Europe have been a complete project management omnishambles and consequently have been massively costly and massively late. SMRs are vapourware and are similarly economically uncompetitive. Just build solar, wind, and batteries, and we'll worry about solving for the last 15% of electricity demand when that is actually a live problem (for which there are solutions that don't involve…

Large-scale offshore wind projects in Europe are now nearly as slow and sometimes more expensive than nuclear. Solar + batteries are still not enough for countries that have long and grey winters.

Cite your sources. While there have been cost increases in offshore wind projects in recent years, they remain well under nuclear costs as far as I’ve been able to find.

I’d add that any new nuclear projects, if anyone is courageous enough to attempt them, are likely to face similar cost increases because many of the same factors apply to them.