Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect • Hacker News Board

konschubert wrote: post #235

ericd wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points, all. But you'd still need to overbuild solar by quite a bit in order to make a reasonable amount in winter, in many areas.

In Northern Europe, you definitely need Wind power and probably some natural gas dispatchable capacity. In most other places, you can overbuild the PV panels. Which isn't too bad, since you do not have to overbuild inverters or grid connections.

Or hydrogen. On windy days (or sunny in the southern US) you use the excess electricity to generate hydrogen, and then when there's a shortfall you convert it back to electricity.