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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

#301

Post by helterskelter »

pm90 wrote: post #239
helterskelter wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The south wasn't really situated for industrialization at the time. They didn't have enough rivers that could turn a water wheel effectively. (That's what I've heard anyway)

Hmm, this doesn’t seem to be accurate. The missouri/mississipi rivers come to mind, as do many other river systems.

My impression was that there was a lack of fast moving rivers which were suitable for water wheels. You could make some elevation, or build a larger wheel, but that can become prohibitive for the volume needed for a real factory.

It looks like the south does have some suitable rivers, but you wonder why they exported their crops to the north just to buy them back again in their more processed form...that just doesn't make much sense from an economic standpoint. Clearly slavery wasn't a suitable replacement for the type of production work done in the north. It must have been a mix of social factors, combined with the fact that the north specialized in industry early on and you couldn't compete very well with the lack of expertise and lack of industry which supported the local industry in the south.

Anyway this is all just wild speculation. Take it for what you will.

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

#302

Post by philipallstar »

jacquesm wrote: post #263
roenxi wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Ah, the master of bad takes is at it again. > Slavery had basically been a thing for all of human history up to that point, Except that of course it wasn't. > and based on my discussions on HN many smart people don't believe a lot of what Adam Smith said. And many smart people do. > There are still a lot of basic economic ideas that would make people much wealthier that struggle to get out into the wild. Yes, such as…

> You missed that bit about the war. If not for that who knows where we'd be today.

It's not just a war. The British Empire declared for moral reasons slavery illegal, and slavers could be hunted for bounty like pirates. The only place that remained in the Empire with slavery was India, because the British felt that the Indian culture could not be disentangled from slavery.

Because slavery was everywhere.

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

#303

Post by hunterpayne »

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…

You refuse to understand the difference between capacity and utilization. That mass of solar still only makes about 1/6th the actual number of watts of power delivered to the grid. Anyone who shows you capacity numbers about energy generation is intentionally lying to you. Capacity factor matters. The capacity factor of nuclear is .9. For Hydro and FF, its .6. For solar its .1. That means 9 watts of solar capacity generates the same amount of power as 1 watt of nuclear capacity or 1.5 watts of Hydro capacity. That's why you keep getting shown capacity instead of utilization (the number that matters).

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

#304

Post by helterskelter »

legitster wrote: post #292
helterskelter wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The south wasn't really situated for industrialization at the time. They didn't have enough rivers that could turn a water wheel effectively. (That's what I've heard anyway)

It's true the first mills were in the north because they had some good sites, but there are good mill sites throughout the South as well. More tellingly, when the first steam engines in the US were imported from Europe - they could have been just as easily installed in the South. I think more importantly, steam mills solved for a problem the south did not have. If one was to tell a southerner, I have a technology tha…

You still have to wonder why the south never built factories to compete with the north. They exported most of their cotton to the north just to buy it back again the the form of textiles, so slavery working by hand wasn't able to compete with factories on that level.

I'd venture that the north's earlier industrialization built up experience and supporting infrastructure which made it a dubious business prospect for any southerner that might have considered building a factory, along with the fact that making textiles by manpower alone made less money than picking cotton and exporting it.

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

#305

Post by nerdralph »

Tade0 wrote: post #210
nerdralph wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Manufacturers already reacted and intensified efforts to replace silver in panels with copper: https://finance-commerce.com/2026/02/solar-panels-silver-to-...

I know. AIKO has been using copper in their BC cells, and LONGi is making the transition. Many TOPCon cell manufacturers are using silver-coated copper pastes, but full copper metallization is unlikely to happen in the next year or two.

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

#306

Post by dyauspitr »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #288
dyauspitr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? For a business owner I can’t imagine a better situation than his workers working for free and having to do 16 hours a day under pain of death. This probably wouldn’t work with 80% of the populace enslaved but would work very well with 10-15% enslaved.

> For a business owner I can’t imagine a better situation than his workers working for free and having to do 16 hours a day under pain of death you really can't imagine a better situation than humans owning humans?

Obviously horrible from an ethical and moral perspective. But for a morally decrepit factory owner, free/extremely cheap labor is the dream.

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

#307

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

hunterpayne wrote: post #303
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…

You refuse to understand the difference between capacity and utilization. That mass of solar still only makes about 1/6th the actual number of watts of power delivered to the grid. Anyone who shows you capacity numbers about energy generation is intentionally lying to you. Capacity factor matters. The capacity factor of nuclear is .9. For Hydro and FF, its .6. For solar its .1. That means 9 watts of solar capacity ge…

Capacity factor solar is highly variable. AFAIK in Arizona it's something like 0.3.

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

#308

Post by kllrnohj »

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…

> 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.

No we won't. Even if we waved a magic wand and converted the entire planet to solar today, there would still be new installations tomorrow because energy demand is infinite. There's never enough, we've always used more energy as more energy sources were available.

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

#309

Post by kllrnohj »

margalabargala wrote: post #211
viewtransform wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It doesn't need to. The reality is companies are going to go for whatever the cheapest cost for electricity is, and solar w/ batteries has taken that lead. Capitalism happens to align with a renewable energy green transition, regardless of whatever the US political engine wants. At the end of the day most companies are going to choose profit over political ideology.

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

#310

Post by WhompingWindows »

hunterpayne wrote: post #303
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…

You refuse to understand the difference between capacity and utilization. That mass of solar still only makes about 1/6th the actual number of watts of power delivered to the grid. Anyone who shows you capacity numbers about energy generation is intentionally lying to you. Capacity factor matters. The capacity factor of nuclear is .9. For Hydro and FF, its .6. For solar its .1. That means 9 watts of solar capacity ge…

Parent didn't mention either capacity or utilization? The article itself is mentioning generation. Not sure where you're getting what you're responding to?
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