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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

#271

Post by legitster »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #241
legitster wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Mississippi declaration of secession. "“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world....Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.” Georgia "“The prohibition of slavery in the Territories… is destructive of our rights and interests.”

The full preamble of the Mississippi declaration is fascinating, and further shuts down doubters that the civil war wasn't about slavery and racism:

> Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin

Also, they clearly make the case that cotton was the most important good in the world, perhaps imploring the intercession of foreign powers.

I think it's worth pointing out though that these people were not being honest with themselves - nothing in their argument about the importance of cotton suggests it couldn't have been done with wage labor. They are dancing around the fact that only a very few benefit from slavery.

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

#272

Post by yoyohello13 »

dylan604 wrote: post #248
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…

> The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. I don't think I agree with this as it suggests they are doing it because they can't be bothered about it. Instead, they are doing it specifically because their (and/or their friend's) pockets are getting filled. To me, the latter is much more sinister.

It such obvious corruption. Trump ordered the pentagon to buy coal power specifically.

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

#273

Post by lovich »

thfuran wrote: post #148
triceratops wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we move on to carbon capture at scale.

And have Dubai make a few new islands out of diamonds?

Not diamonds, but olivine. And Dubai isn’t the only one who’d have an interest, anywhere with coastal property that likes to maintain it against erosion is a target for this, admittedly experimental, technique.

https://www.vesta.earth/

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

#274

Post by api »

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…

Re: slavery: I've wondered before if the arrow of causation might go both ways. Slavery has existed throughout history. With slaves, what's the incentive to industrialize? You have "free" and captive human labor. But take that away, and suddenly the idea of machines doing stuff for you seems a lot more compelling.

Slavery also displaces industry in the economy. Slave-driven industries compete with industrial development for investment funds and production driven by slave labor can compete with mechanized production. But if labor is suddenly expensive, mechanized production has an advantage, and if former slaves are now getting paid there are also more customers for the output of that production.

So industrialization may have played some role in abolition, but did abolition also drive industrialization? Slavery was abolished in Britain in the early 19th century and Britain was also the cradle of the industrial revolution, which started to hit very shortly after. America did not explode industrially until after it abolished slavery.

If we'd abolished slavery in Roman times we might have terraformed Mars by now.

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

#275

Post by yoyohello13 »

jandrese wrote: post #226
floatrock wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Seems like renewable maintenance companies will make a killing.

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

#276

Post by iSnow »

triceratops wrote: post #134
thfuran wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if global greenhouse gas emissions immediately and permanently stop, climate change won’t. We have many years of further warming ahead of us due to the greenhouse gases already dumped into the atmosphere.

Then we move on to carbon capture at scale.

And who is going to pay for that? Pretty sure it's going to be neither Russia, China, Saudi Arabia nor the USA.

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

#277

Post by maxerickson »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #195
floatrock wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if the US gets it's shit together it's already lost the solar and battery fight. It will have to win the next one - which it might do with AI.

What does it mean to lose? Like we can, uh, transfer the technology and build at whatever cost we can build at. Good luck to China charging us more than that cost.

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

#278

Post by lovich »

triceratops wrote: post #196
thfuran wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have Dubai make a few new islands out of diamonds?

With enough energy you can do literally anything.

And to that point as well we have tech working on using more energy but less carbon like Boston Metal is doing with carbon less steel.

The current political landscape has me black pilled but on the technology side we have a lot to look forward to.

https://www.bostonmetal.com/

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

#279

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

jandrese wrote: post #242
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things that I've needed to deal with in my off grid setup: I like the MidNite solar controllers. LiFePO4 batteries are great, with a few caveats: - you must use batteries from the same batch, ie you can't upgrade capacity piecemeal, to avoid degrading the new ones - cable lengths are important because even small differences in resistive losses between batteries can mean that one battery is doing more charging /…

Not being able to charge below freezing shouldn't be a problem if you keep the batteries indoors. Is there a reason why you wouldn't? Fire concerns? Or is it just a space issue?

Yes, sorry, I was in a rush and didn't explain enough. For our usage, the cabin isn't occupied during the winter, and can drop below 0*C occasionally. The solar system is turned off though, so we don't worry about it.

If you're permanently there, it shouldn't be a concern. Sounds like modern BMS can disable charging at low temperatures so maybe not a worry for you at all if you're buying new batteries.

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

#280

Post by smoovb »

Wistar wrote: post #11

Related: Alec Watson’s recent, and excellent, Technology Connections YouTube piece on renewable energy. “You are being misled about renewable energy technology” https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=CJ_Tt9DnWSKH8eGC

Biggest take away - 90 million acres in the US go to corn/ethanol production. 31 acres of corn for ethanol to match the energy production of just 1 acre of solar panels. Revenue could be 3-4x that of corn production. Get ready for rise of the photon farmers.
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