We're going to need a lot of solar panels • Hacker News Board

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#211

Post by NikolaNovak » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #205

walrus01 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government owned, government built, government run regional monopoly electricity generators in North America are already the absolute cheapest dollars per kilowatt hour in the continent. It's not communism. I am referring to hydro quebec, and to the hydroelectric dams in central Washington State. Would you claim that if we had let the free market build those hydroelectric dams using private capital instead, that we w…

I would claim that, yes, private capital would generate power more cheaply with those dams, but that isn't the only reason those dams are there. They serve several alternative functions (ie preventing flooding, keeping lakes full) that a free marketeer would not do. However, dams are cheap enough for power generation that even with government inefficiency involved in their construction and operation, the power is so…

I thought that question got empathically answered when Ontario hydro was privatized and split and went to hell together with our electricity prices.

Same with Ontario vs Manitoba or Quebec car insurance etc. Some things just suck when they're privatized - they focus on short term gain and end up with lousy infra and long term preparedness. I think HN has a pretty solid consensus on private telecom monopolies vs municipal fiber as well.

Back to topic, I thought most of usa private power monopolies are basically in dire straits from infra upkeep and maintenance and grid - there's a lot of bright knowledgeable folks on HN so I would genuinely appreciate comment if I'm way off base in my ignorant ways.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#212

Post by pydry » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #209

pydry wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only fictitious if Jeff Bezos is comparing his wealth to your wealth. Try to tax it away and use it for something that would benefit everyone and suddenly it becomes a lot less abstract to him.

It would become a lot less real too. The wealth of people who mostly get it from stock ownership is a complete fiction, driven by the scarcity of shares on the open market. If Jeff Bezos dumped his entire holding in AMZN shares, the whole company would be worth a lot less. Not due to any sort of magical effect of Jeff Bezos, but due to the market being flooded with supply.

I guess this means if a hypothetical Bill Gates sold off the vast majority of the 45% of Microsoft stock he owned then the company would then be worth a lot less?

It really is weird how frequently I see the view you espouse and how nobody who repeats it seems to consider the clearest, most obvious counterexample that so completely disproves it.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#213

Post by ianai » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

“Our process works by using solar power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, concentrating CO2 from the atmosphere, then combining CO2 and hydrogen to form natural gas”

Tell me if this sounds familiar. How about we store that natural gas underground in the same areas we’ve been taking it out? Sounds kinda like a natural for energy storage and a little carbon sequestration.

(Can’t be sure with myself whether I’m serious or sarcastic in this one. But I definitely want carbon out of the air…)

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#214

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:46 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #150

lotharcable wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money != Wealth You can go ahead and force every billionaire to sell off everything they own and hand it to the government and all you end up with is a one time boost to government tax receipts. That's it. One time boost. Next year those billionaires will be gone. There won't be new ones. And it won't create any more food. It won't solve shortages. It won't create more solar panels. It won't create 1 mile of copper l…

The communists have repeatedly done the equivalent, which is nationalizing industries. It never, ever produced better results.

France is buying out the remainder of EDF (France’s commercial nuclear fleet operator) for €10 billion, so we’re going to get another chance to observe the experiment.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/france-to-p...

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#215

Post by nine_k » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #81

walrus01 wrote: post #4

We're going to need a lot of solar panels and an efficient way to transport power from a very sunny place to another location where the loads are. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie The pacific DC intertie right now often ends up being used to transport power from hydroelectric dams in WA/OR to California. But there's nothing to say that something couldn't function the other way if there…

A global grid was my favourite solution until recently. The problem is that it needs the combined cables to have cross section in the order of a few (3?) square meters (at 640 kV), and that in turn is in the order of 52 years of global copper production (we make more aluminium than copper but Al is a worse conductor). Using even higher voltages makes everything much easier, and the cables’ combined cross sections may…

Superconducting power transmission was first implemented back in 2014 [1]. Some progress has been made since then [2].

I bet we'll eventually see more of that, with superconducting materials steadily becoming more pliable and affordable, and liquid nitrogen being pretty cheap. Maybe we'll see hundreds of miles of such lines. It looks to me more realistic than land in Western Europe becoming cheap enough to install a gigawatt of solar panels here and there.

[1]: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182278-the-worlds-first-...

[2]: https://energycentral.com/news/shanghai-opens-world-leading-...

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#216

Post by hackerlight » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #153

The trouble with our current system is that the answer to environmental catastrophe is to make more stuff. And the entities that make the stuff have an incentive to pursue models that see them continue to make that stuff and sell it. Creating a solar panel that never needs to be replaced is a business failure. Selling the same number of electric cars next year, instead of more, is a business failure. Not consuming mo…

You have it backwards. Solar panels are a fungible commodity good with no differentiation besides quality and cost. The financial incentive points strongly in the direction of longevity.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#217

Post by krallja » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #141

jtolmar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a central planning committee trying to solve for the best outcome under physical constraints, nothing beats nuclear power and railroads. If you're living in an economic system where investment is primarily determined by rate of profit, then you need to identify a solution where everyone involved is making more money than they would be without you. So it's very important they're competing with oil on economi…

Maybe if natural gas was in short supply I could understand their angle. But it isn't, so I don't. Seems like a solution in search of a problem. Meanwhile, global warming, the paramount problem, needs fast solutions, not elaborate stopgap workarounds.

> if natural gas was in short supply

You are aware of the situation in western Europe, yes?

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#218

Post by tick_tock_tick » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #153

The trouble with our current system is that the answer to environmental catastrophe is to make more stuff. And the entities that make the stuff have an incentive to pursue models that see them continue to make that stuff and sell it. Creating a solar panel that never needs to be replaced is a business failure. Selling the same number of electric cars next year, instead of more, is a business failure. Not consuming mo…

> Our very existence is the problem, and our insatiable appetites for reproducing and consuming. The sooner we show some humility and realize that we’re the problem, and our system of forever growth is guaranteed to destroy the planet, the better.

Until we find evidence otherwise we are literally the only valuable thing in existence. So yes hyper-growth is the path forward. If it ruins the planet we'll fix it later or come up with enough of a stopgap to get us to the next milestone.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#219

Post by kragen » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #207

kragen wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power plants cannot operate in the Sahara Desert; they need access to cooling water.

They'd have to use dry cooling in that environment. A bit more cost but fully doable. You can reject 375 degreeC core heat even in the Sahara

True! And you might not even have to redesign most of the power plant, just the final stages of cooling. You could even avoid suffering lower Carnot efficiency during the day by using a daily thermal store.

Other problem, even without redesigning significant parts of atomic power plants, they're economically uncompetitive with PV.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#220

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 2:01 AM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #194

WalterBright wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California's oversupply problem is caused by, allow me to guess, fixed 24/7 electricity rates. These fixed rates remove all incentive for load shifting. Make electricity cheap when the sun shines, and expensive at night, and the market will shift demand. There are lots of cheap and easy ways to shift demand, I've outlined several on HN.

In most of California (served by PG&E) it's really expensive during the day, blisteringly expensive in the evening, and really expensive at night.

> really expensive during the day

Doesn't really seem to fit with having surplus power.