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

arstechnica.com

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

#211

Post by margalabargala »

viewtransform wrote: post #206
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…

California power generation profile yesterday showing solar and battery proportion. https://engaging-data.com/california-electricity-generation/...

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

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

#212

Post by dnautics »

ertgbnm wrote: 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…

> still applicable belief that slavery was really ended by industrialization making abolition economically...

not crazy especially as slavery was supplanted by debt, which is in a way fractional slavery (minus the chattel part ofc)

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

#213

Post by roenxi »

legitster wrote: post #29
ertgbnm wrote: 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…

> 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.) More or less. Adam Smith famously wrote that slavery was economically detrimental way back in 1776. It still took nearly 100 years…

> Adam Smith famously wrote that slavery was economically detrimental way back in 1776. It still took nearly 100 years to abolish slavery...

Slavery had basically been a thing for all of human history up to that point, and based on my discussions on HN many smart people don't believe a lot of what Adam Smith said. There are still a lot of basic economic ideas that would make people much wealthier that struggle to get out into the wild. With that perspective the near-total abolition of slavery in a century seems pretty quick. And it can't really be a social thing because it is clear from history that societies tolerate slavery if it makes sense.

And we see what happened to the people who tried to maintain slavery over that century - they ended up poor then economically, socially and historically humiliated.

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

#214

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ceejayoz wrote: post #161
inglor_cz wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aut…

> Slave labor is most efficient when it comes to non-skilled, hard work. And yet, we invent things like the cotton gin, "enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation", patented in 1794.

I’m not entirely sure what point you’re trying to make. The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it.

https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/

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

#215

Post by mullingitover »

ertgbnm wrote: 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…

> belief that slavery was really ended by industrialization making abolition economically advantageous

On the contrary, historians broadly agree that industrialization (particularly the advent of the cotton gin) actually turbocharged the human trafficking industry in the US. The cotton gin moved the bottleneck for textile production onto enslaved people, since there was no automation available for planting, cultivating, or harvesting the cotton.

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

#216

Post by theowaway »

jmyeet wrote: post #117
ertgbnm wrote: 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…

There’s an effort to whitewash the horrors of chattel slavery that is really disgusting. Estimated on the economics of slavery (that I’ve read anyway) seemingly ignore that slaves can make new slaves. This is the dark side of slavery that seems to be rarely discussed. That is, the mass rape of slaves over centuries by their owners. There was even an economic incentive for this because lighter skinned slaves were more…

> the dark side of slavery

oh mate

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

#217

Post by triceratops »

nerdralph wrote: post #203
devin wrote: post #181

Does anyone in these comments have any tips for would-be solar farmers or people who are generally interested in being part of building out the future of our grid? I'd like to get my hands dirty. I'm talking about getting into 5-10 MW projects, not solar on a roof.

Don't start with a 5MW project. Start with a 10-20kW ground-mount project in your back yard. Then build a 100-200kW project before trying MW.

Is there a big overlap in experience building a 5MW project and a 10-20kw project? The former would involve, I imagine, more of a project manager, fund-raiser, and general contractor role for GP. The latter can be a DIY effort if they are handy and licensed. There's no way anyone is single-handedly installing the panels and inverters for a 5MW project in a reasonable timeframe.

Even the hardware, land acquisition, and permitting stories would be different, right?

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

#218

Post by jcims »

triceratops wrote: post #94
paxys wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not 100 sq miles but 100 mile x 100 mile, which is 10,000 sq miles. And that assumes peak efficiency. Factoring in degredation you'd have to multiply this by 2. Not "just" by any stretch of the imagination. This is larger than Rhode Island and Lake Erie combined. Aka a pipe dream. Might as well "just" build a dyson sphere while we are at it.

> This is larger than Rhode Island and Lake Erie combined That isn't a lot. New Mexico alone can fit about 100 Rhode Islands. And NM isn't even the largest thinly-populated sunny state in the union.

White Sands Missile Range alone is ~3200 square miles.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Wh...

If you dedicated a single (average sized) county per state to solar you'd ~3-5x the land you need for current consumption.

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

#219

Post by margalabargala »

bilsbie wrote: post #209

I was curious to try a project: can I charge my car 100 miles per day for under $1000 all in? I’m trying to source a battery power pack and cheap panels.

That would be around 30kwh per day so probably not, but you could get close.

Assuming you're in the US, new solar modules go for about $0.28/watt.

If you dump the entire $1k into just modules, that will get you about 3.5kW of panels. Which will probably hit your target on sunny days during the summer.

But that doesn't include inverters if you want to do a grid tie, or batteries if you don't, or wiring, or whatever you're going to mount the panels on.

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

#220

Post by MengerSponge »

legitster wrote: post #29
ertgbnm wrote: 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…

> 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.) More or less. Adam Smith famously wrote that slavery was economically detrimental way back in 1776. It still took nearly 100 years…

Technology developed after Smith's writing changed the calculus. The cotton gin made wide-scale cotton cultivation far more lucrative, and drove American slavery: https://historyincharts.com/the-impact-of-the-cotton-gin-on-...

Without the cotton gin, chattel slavery would have probably ended at least one generation earlier in the US

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