Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by wang_li » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #194

wang_li wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should learn to read at a level that you understand what I wrote? Smugness based on an intentional misreading just makes you look dumb.

Plenty of illiterate people manage to stay out of jail, you’re implying that you weren’t suggesting literacy tests for voting, so I’ll just admit to being at a loss as to your point. But if you care to take another whack at how you would suggest “we ban ill educated people”, I’m all ears.

I am not attempting to describe the world. I am trying to define the expectations we should have of the citizens of our polity. It has nothing to do with illiterate people manage not to commit crimes. I am saying that before we decide to get "big money" out of politics or we let people vote for the seven people who promise them the most shit, we should decided to put people who chose not to acquire basic skills that any human within standard deviation of average intelligence can acquire, when given 12 years of free education, into jail. It literally is not a literacy test for voting. It's an "are you a lazy piece of shit who is going to drag all of society down" policy.

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

#222

Post by cyberax » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

hyperman1 wrote: post #162

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've read somewhere how the English people industrialized because they had problems that could not be fixed by human or animal power. Mines became too deep, pumping too hard. The ancient greek knew about steam engines, but had no use for them. The English did, in their mines. Necessity as mother of invention. Then machines freed us from hard labour and gave us free time.

Greeks had toys that couldn't produce meaningful amounts of power. And they had no real ways to improve that.

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

#223

Post by ProllyInfamous » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #190

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #133

It's incredible to me that California's primary generation source is cyclical solar — which it primarily offloads to PNW [0], who offsets any missing California solar with its MASSIVE Columbia River Hydro. Essentially co-dependant renewables, the entirety of West Coast through Colorado balancing primarily between solar and hydro (and natgas peakers). Nothing like Québec (¡hydro!), but still something . [0] https://i.…

> If ERCOT ("Texas") would get over their independant grid "benefits" Currently, even though it pains me to say this, ERCOT has one of the most mature battery systems in the world. Everything else is valid though.

Absolutely: ERCOT's battery storage is worldbest.

As a fifth-generation former Texan, I understand "separatist mentality." ERCOT's buy/sell market is perhaps also the most purely capitalistic marketplace in existance (and among least-regulated, in first-world); for these reasons, winter-proofing funding is terrible and outages likely when the system is stressed (e.g. approximately every decade Texas loses power during winter storms) — which is also when generating profits are maximized (orders of magnitude increases).

Certain deregulated-market Texans are still paying off powerbills from years-old storms, a few cold days of billing often exceeding the rest of the year's usage.

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

#224

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #214

ceejayoz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

> The invention of the cotton gin increased the use of slaves; it didn’t decrease it.

Because the efficiency increase in that part of the process meant we could grow so much more cotton to be processed. It wasn't very profitable before that, because slave labor wasn't very efficient at the process.

(This led, eventually, to more automation of the planting/harvesting process.)

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

#225

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #63

epistasis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had so many arguments with people that think replacing a continual supply of gasoline with solar panels and batteries means that we are just as dependent on the source of solar panels as we are on the source of gasoline. It's hard for people to visualize the massive shift here. It's the difference between needing to eat every single day, to merely needing to buy a 5-year supply and never having to worry about ea…

You also get 30 years of efficiency improvements and 20 years of capacity and reliability improvements when you replace them. In practice: https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0116/1553440-mayo-wind... >> "Each one of the new wind turbines will be capable of supplying more power to the national electricity grid than was generated by the entire Bellacorick wind farm."

Well, in that case they’re also far bigger turbines (bigger than were available when the original project was built, granted).

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

#226

Post by jandrese » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

floatrock wrote: post #153

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…

Chinese also have battery manufacturing, whose rapidly falling cost-curve is what is missing to enable 24/7 solar. American empire ruled with the petrodollar. Chinese will rule with the solaryuan if we don't get our shit together.

You just slightly missed the crux of the issue here.

The big "problem" with renewables like solar is that once you've installed enough for yourself you are done for like 30 years. There is no monthly sun fee you need to keep paying. There is no solardollar, because there's nothing that needs to be extracted, transported, and sold every single day. A lot of billionaires are in an existential crisis over a world where fossil fuels are no longer the driving force of the economy. That's why we have incessant propaganda against renewable energy.

Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. The feedback loop of capitalism means we are likely to reach that point sooner than you would expect.

That said, don't think I'm like the nuclear power guys of the 50s who claimed that electricity would be so abundant that we wouldn't even bother to meter it. There are still costs with maintenance, repair, administration, debt servicing, and profits. If you look at your power bill today it will probably list generation, distribution, and taxes. Renewables only eliminate the generation costs, which are usually about half of the bill.

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

#227

Post by ProllyInfamous » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #202

Lucasoato wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time someone posts a imgur link on HN I get this as response: Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later.

That's what it says when it doesn't like the look of your IP. I get it when I'm on my VPN.

Imgur really doesn't like ad-blockers. This'll get you on their "overloaded" banlist after just a few visits.

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

#228

Post by bokohut » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

Happy to be a 5 year self generation participant contributing to these numbers. Given the very recent winter storms along the East Coast, that still has people without grid power at this very moment, such a residential generate and store system should be an eye opener to those impacted at times of greatest need. My own system was still generating during the storm as many erroneously believe the sun must be fully exposed to move electrons, nope.

I commented here in a recent HN energy post about my surrounding jurisdictions and the exploding utility costs per PJM that literally have governments suing each other. Just today one of those local jurisdictions announced a utility bill financial credit incentive for residents to attend a meeting to learn about what some already know intimately. Link is paywalled of course.

https://www.newarkpostonline.com/news/newarkers-can-earn-40-...

We are witnessing the accelerated adoption of local generation and storage driven by the economic costs of energy that has been directly and indirectly subsidized yet consumption is certainly not equal. As more and more move to self generate and store, per the meetings suggestion, the negative feedback loop is already in motion rising costs even more for those dependent on a centralized system.

For those that can see the light and where it is going; invest accordingly.

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

#229

Post by jandrese » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

nerdralph wrote: post #199

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…

Panels prices bottomed about a year ago below many manufacturer's cash cost, and have gone mostly sideways since. https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index If silver stays above $70/oz, prices will likely go up by 5-10%. Until Perovskite tandem technology matures, there's unlikely to be any significant reduction in PV module prices.

Even if they got stuck at that price point and never went down again it's already over. 30 years of buying natural gas can't compete with that.

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

#230

Post by atleastoptimal » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

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…

Which is funny because we've had an environmentally and economically optimal source of power since the 50s (nuclear) which we deliberately phased out due to panic cycles.