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US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

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Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#251

Post by danaris »

vlovich123 wrote: post #215
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

Perform better as in more efficient electrically, not necessarily more pleasant or efficient in the cooking process. For example, when cooking an omelette, a recommended technique is to angle the pan so the liquid part flows towards the hot part of the pan touching the flame as you slowly scrape the curds up to rest at the cooler part of the pan. AFAIK an induction cooktop is unable to simulate this technique. Now ma…

I've been cooking eggs on induction cooktops for something like a decade now; while it's true that you can't tilt the pan (the induction won't work, and the cooktop is likely to just say "nope, not operating without a pan on me"), I've had no trouble with getting either scrambled eggs or omelettes to be softly and evenly cooked.

Perhaps it helps that I had never had that particular advice for cooking on gas/electric!

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#252

Post by asdff »

SoftTalker wrote: post #241
laurencerowe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is simply because in most of Europe air conditioning is unnecessary for comfort 95% of the year. Here in San Francisco most homes don't have air conditioning either, but there might be a week or two where it gets very hot and we just put up with the barbaric technological primitiveness. Much of the US is extremely unpleasant without air-conditioning for a substantial portion of the year so of course everyo…

Yes in many parts of the US it's not just the heat but the humidity. One summer I tried going without AC as much as possible to see how much it would change my electric bill. I could handle the temperature most of the time but the humidity especially at night started giving me mold problems in the house. Cleaned that up and went back to using the AC and no more mold. Not sure how people controlled this back in the pr…

My parents still don’t use AC. The windows stay open all summer unless there is a rainstorm. Whole house fan is turned on at night to draw in cooler air. Much time spent in the cooler basement if you are going to be hanging at home. At night you are basically sleeping naked on top of your fitted sheet with one or two window unit fans circulating air. Maybe another fan pointed directly at you. Basement had some dehumidifiers and afaik that was the only problem moisture area.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#253

Post by zer00eyz »

wasabi991011 wrote: post #232
andsoitis wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is what we're using this electricity for, right? Yes, amongst others. > increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation). Over the last 25 years, we've the seen the…

You have a lot of assumptions in your takeaways. > Housing stock outpaced population, reflecting smaller household sizes and more single-person households. Or rich people owning more vacation homes. > Healthcare expanded far faster than population, a structural shift rather than demographic necessity. What? It could easily be the population getting older and/or sicker. Even if it was a structural shift, it could be i…

> Or rich people owning more vacation homes.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S

Home ownership rates have a 6 percent variance over the last ~50 years.

We dont have a housing problem in America, we have a utilization problem:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q... as an example.

There is a conversation that needs to be had about housing, but no one is going to LIKE the medicine that comes with that.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#254

Post by eldaisfish »

spockz wrote: post #178
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

I think NG outperforms in high efficiency heaters when the outside temperature is around 1-4 degrees Celsius with humidity as it causes ice buildup on the external unit which then has to be cleared using resistive heating. Also if only little hot water is required sporadically, heating it just in time with gas is more efficient than keeping a buffer heated for long times. Also, heat pumps do best when the temperature…

Methane has lots of value in colder climates, especially much of Canada. Methane is cheap and does not lose heating capacity as temperature falls. Across most of Canada, the median construction year for a typical house is in the 1980. Half were built before that, meaning insulation standards were lower.

The #1 problem with heat pumps in Canada is low temperature performance. The heat output drops but the rate of heat loss from the house also increases. This is the precise situation where even backup resistive heat cannot keep up. Methane is excellent at filling this gap, especially now when winter temperatures swing more than earlier.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#255

Post by asdff »

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #97
jordanb wrote: post #91

While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation). That is what we're using this electrici…

the US is not a planned economy. if it was, computers would exist only to guide missiles and operate industrial machinery, and you would be mining coal, farming wheat, or manning an assembly line for a living.

The US was a planned economy during wwii fwiw

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#256

Post by asdff »

stevenwoo wrote: post #121
gchamonlive wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a planned economy by the government , because the US is an oligarchy. The billionaires are deciding how the government should plan investments in infrastructure and social policies. They have been able to lower the taxes that affect the richest (big beautiful bill) and cut spending on social programs (Medicaid). So it surely looks to me like the US economy is following a plan, just not the one that's in the b…

The available selection of automobiles available for sale feels like a good example of huge distortion caused by regulatory capture and tariffs imposed for same industries.

Yup take the ford lightning f150. It out sold cybertruck but that wasn’t enough for ford to keep it around. Market makes decisions for you, not the other way around like free market theory posits.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#257

Post by laurencerowe »

evolve2k wrote: post #234
phil21 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd expect most tech people will value the distributed nature of solar over equivilents, that by design require centralisation and commerical/state ownership and control. I do, but I do not find value in rich folks who can afford solar wanting their cake and eating it too. If you get a solar setup, get batteries. Then disconnect from the grid entirely. You should not be able to use the grid as a free backup energy…

While many rich are benefiting, they are still driving demand, that is funding continuous improvements that funding further efficiencies innovation and driving down the cost per kWh. In a very really way this makes solar cheaper and cheaper, the benefits of this one, unlike the debunked economic namesake do infact trickle down.

I think this was the case when solar panels were much more expensive. But home solar in the US has long ceased to be a useful driver of funding efficiencies and innovation. The cost of panels is now tiny and you are mostly paying for extremely overpriced installation and permitting. The 30% federal subsidy alone is enough to pay for an equivalent amount of utility scale solar outright. Australia has similar labor costs to the US but home solar is 1/3rd the cost to install.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#258

Post by diego_moita »

youngtaff wrote: post #217
diego_moita wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is NG good for? Mostly a myth by cooks that think it "heats faster" or "heats with a better distribution of heat". It is foolish, but many still think so. I personally believe that the only kind of cooking that benefits from NG are round-bottom woks. But they can be substituted by flat-bottom pans without problems.

Burning gas also releases a lot of pollutants — we’ve a gas hob but always switch the extractor on when we use it because of this

> Burning gas also releases a lot of pollutants

To be more precise: mostly CO2 and small amounts of CO. But the actual concentration of CO2 in your house can be affected by a lot of other factors (ventilation, urban environment, weather, etc).

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#259

Post by tzs »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153
slashdev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Vancouver, Canada natural gas was completely phased out as of the beginning of 2025 in most new construction.

What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.

Backup generator for power outages. NG usually still works during electric outages. A generator that you do not need to periodically go out to get more fuel for can be very convenient.

Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it

#260

Post by irishcoffee »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #207
rpdillon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sent me to the books because this is such a fascinating stat. It's true! Heat deaths in the US: 5 per million people. Italy: 500+ per million people. I had no idea.

I do think we'll need to change our view on airconditioning, every home should have airconditioning just like it has heating. But I'm very sceptical of those numbers. They are apparently even worse for cold, and you can't attribute that to lack of airconditioning. I still think the huge difference can only be attributed to a difference in reporting.

Which way? For all we know the numbers are much worse and under-reported by Europe. China made the playbook for that a long time ago.

Cuts both ways.

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