Earlier quoted context omitted.
farming with desal water is insane. even with abundant power.
why ? at scale desal water via solar looks to be very reasonable thing ?
farming requires a _lot_ of water.
California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
331–340 of 363 posts
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
PG&E is a utility. The amount of profit they make is decided by the state regulators. And the idea that PG&E buys CA politicians is laughable. The state worker's unions pension funds control CA state politics. They are the ones that donate the most money, PG&E doesn't even get a seat at the metaphorical table. PS The largest and 3rd largest holders of US equity are those CA public sector union pension funds. They hav…
> The amount of profit they make is decided by the state regulators Which set things up so the money PG&E makes is a linear function in the money PG&E wastes. -- the regulations set a fixed profit margin, so to make more money PG&E need simply waste more money and pass the cost onto the public which is exactly what they are doing.
The rates that PG&E charges are also decided upon by the regulators. So no, what you say isn't correct. In fact, the people who decided to cut the tree trimming budget, those were appointed state regulators. And that decision led to the increase in fires.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evidence?
Look at the number of planned reactors and the number of reactors likely reaching EOL. France plans to build fewer than fifteen new plants (delivery date tbd). If they started building all of them today half of their fleet would be fifty years old by the time construction was done.
Once again: source? Mycle Schneider by any chance?
Anyway: those numbers are not "reactors likely reaching EOL". Those are reactors reaching the end of their original operating license.
These two things are not the same. At all.
Initial operating licenses were intentionally relatively short, because at the time there was no experience with the longevity of reactors. So you conservatively license towards the short end.
Now that we have that experience, reactor operating licenses are getting extended. A lot. The first reactors in the US have had their licenses extended to 80 years, and the current consensus appears to be that 100 won't be a problem.
So France won't be running low on nuclear power anytime soon. Unless you're Mycle Schneider and/or confuse "current operating license expiry" with "EOL".
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
France? France is increasing its nuclear output. And planning to build new plants. (Expanding nuclear generation was prohibited by law up until March of 2023). The added renewables help to make the nuclear plants more efficient and profitable, by taking up a good amount of the variable demand.
The French are wholly unable to build new nuclear power. Flamanville 3 is 7x over budget and 12 years late on a 5 year construction program. The EPR2 program is in absolute shambles. Currently they can’t even agree on how to fund the absolutely insanely bonkers subsidies. Now targeting investment decision in H2 2026. And the French government just fell and was reformed because they are underwater in debt and have a s…
FV3 was a shambles.
For a number of fairly well-understood reasons:
1. It's a FOAK design.
2. France stopped building reactors, so expertise was sparse
3. The EPR is too complex, partly because it was designed for German safety standards, which in turn were specifically designed to make nuclear reactors economically unviable (they did not succeed with this). Those regulations are also prescriptive instead of requirements-based, so they don't allow simpler+safer passive cooling like the AP-1000s. It's silliness layered on top of silliness.
4. It was built as a single unit, instead of a series of overlapping builds of the same reactor design. This was because until March 2023, expanding French nuclear capacity was forbidden by law. So they couldn't legally build in a way that is efficient and effective.
The EPR2 project addresses this in a number of ways:
1. The EPR2 is dramatically simplified relative to the EPR.
2. The law was rescinded in March 2023, so they will be building six of them initially, in batches of 2, with overlap between all the units. 8 more are planned for later.
3. They are making much more realistic assumptions at the start
I am not sure how you can claim that the EPR2 program is "a shambles" when they haven't begun building in earnest yet and are explicitly addressing most if not all the issues with FV3. Seems a tad premature.
Of course nuclear is one of the things that is financing the French state and industry, with EDF returning massive profits to its owner (the state) and the ARENH program subsidizing industry.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Too much on the line to shut down nuclear for France. It will get subsidized and it provides energy independence. If the goal is energy independence, renewables will provide that more cheaply. If the goals are the other side effects of nuclear power: isotopes, national pride (Curie!), workforce augmentation for nuclear submarines and nuclear weapons, then these goals also require far fewer reactors than enough to p…
>If the goal is energy independence, renewables will provide that more cheaply The only cheap renewable infrastructure comes from an enemy country and PV solar panels start degrading the moment you install them. If you think "energy independence" means "be completely and utterly dependent on Chinese manufacturing" then sure, solar and wind offer a quick path to that. But that's not what the term means, it means "don'…
> The only cheap renewable infrastructure comes from an enemy country and PV solar panels start degrading the moment you install them.
This is false on both counts. The US is (was?) making panels that were only about $0.18/W more expensive than the cheapest panels. India is also standing up quite a bit of manufacturing. France could also make their own panels, Germany had some experience with that too...
Also, panels last 30 years, there's no continuous fueling like there is with fossil fuels and nuclear.
> If you think "energy independence" means "be completely and utterly dependent on Chinese manufacturing" then sure, solar and wind offer a quick path to that.
The idea that using solar somehow makes us in any way dependent on China is so ludicrous that I'm amazed you type it out! Please try to justify that in any way. More nuclear in the US would make us more dependent on Russia than a 100% solar electricity system could ever make us dependent on China.
> If you think nuclear is too expensive, just wait until you see the bill for the the continual refusal to develop indigenous electric capability the minute things start going sideways.
First, actually look at the numbers. Nuclear is more expensive. Second, look at where the US is getting its nuclear fuel as late as 2024, Russia, accounting for a large part of our trade with a country that we're not supposed to be trading with at all:
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64444
And Russia is far more hostile to the US on all fronts that China is.
We have solar panel manufacturing capacity in the US, we can build it on our own for cheap enough to replace all our dependence on global fossil fuel markets and their volatility, and yet people are for some reason fabricating complete fantasies to say that solar and wind are somehow not the most independent of all power generation forms.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
If openness equals trolling you're absolutely right but if that is the case it does raise the question whether the site name covers the site content.
Making a claim without evidence is akin to trolling
If observing a trend and finding behaviour which fits the trend is enough to base a hypothesis on [1] it is certainly enough to mention it here. That 'claim without evidence' is quite silly and can be disproven by anyone by doing a few web searches. Here's what I get as the first 10 results on the query 'site:www.latimes.com Elon Musk', using SearXNG pointed at the usual gaggle of search engines. There are thousands of results like these, #11 on the list was 'Elon Musk is an anti-semite' but it did not make the mark. Do you notice a trend in these first 10 results? If you don't trust my results you can repeat the experiment using whatever search engine you prefer. Take the first X results and mark them as 'positive'/'neutral'/'negative' with regard to their impact on Musk. You can do the same experiment with whatever 'famous person' or 'famous company' or 'popular subject' you want and judge the results. If you're into that newfangled 'AI' thing and trust the results returned by those models you could leave this task to one of those, something the LA Times itself experimented with for a while.
1: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-04-28 › elon-musks-companies-face-at-least-2-37-billion-in-potential-federal-penalties-trump-doge-tesla-spacex-blumenthal
Musk's conflicts: $2.37 billion in possible federal penalties, report says
Elon Musk and his companies faced at least $2.37 billion in potential federal fines and penalties the day President Trump took office.
2: https://www.latimes.com › entertainment-arts › books › story › 2023-09-12 › interview-with-walter-isaacson-about-his-biography-elon-musk
Inside 'Elon Musk,' Walter Isaacson's billionaire biography
12 Sept 2023 ... The 688-page opus details Musk's brutal treatment of workers and colleagues, his impulsive business moves and his chaotic romantic life.
3: https://www.latimes.com › entertainment-arts › story › 2022-11-02 › column-elon-musks-twitter-and-the-con-of-online-media
Column: Elon Musk, Twitter and the con of online media
Elon Musk (pictured after testifying in a Delaware court in 2021) is coming to a realization those who work in traditional media reached years ...
4: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-03-27 › elon-musk-trump-doge-conflicts-of-interest
These departments investigating Elon Musk have been cut by DOGE ...
Reuters reported that DOGE cuts eliminated the jobs of employees overseeing Elon Musk's Neuralink company, which is testing a brain implant ...
5: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2022-11-14 › elon-musk-toxic-boss-timeline
Is Elon Musk a bad boss? Ask Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter workers
Elon Musk's track record as a boss is an endless scroll of impulse firings, retribution, tone-deafness on race — and the impregnation of a ...
6: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-03-13 › i-bought-my-tesla-years-before-elon-musk-went-maga-dont-judge-me
I bought my Tesla years before Elon Musk went MAGA. Don't judge me
"When did the brand of car I drive become a political statement?" asks a reader who drives a Tesla with 112000 miles on it.
7: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-02-11 › americans-want-fiscal-responsibility-but-no-one-elected-elon-musk
Americans want fiscal responsibility, but no one elected Elon Musk
There are legal ways to enact fiscal responsibility. Having an unelected billionaire target federal agencies isn't one of them.
8: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-02-25 › elon-musk-is-any-private-business-nightmare-of-a-ceo
Elon Musk is any private business' nightmare of a CEO
Indiscriminately firing nuclear safety workers is the kind of recklessness that would get a CEO fired — but not Elon Musk.
9: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-01-14 › elon-musk-sued-by-sec-over-late-disclosure-of-twitter-stake-in-2022
Elon Musk sued by SEC over late 2022 disclosure of Twitter stake
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Elon Musk on Tuesday, alleging failure to timely disclose that he bought more than 5% of ...
10: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2022-05-18 › how-does-elon-musk-get-away-with-it
Hiltzik: How does Elon Musk get away with breaking the law?
In his takeover adventure with Twitter, it seems more likely than not that Elon Musk has broken the law. In some respects, his lawbreaking ...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testRe: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
The French are wholly unable to build new nuclear power. Flamanville 3 is 7x over budget and 12 years late on a 5 year construction program. The EPR2 program is in absolute shambles. Currently they can’t even agree on how to fund the absolutely insanely bonkers subsidies. Now targeting investment decision in H2 2026. And the French government just fell and was reformed because they are underwater in debt and have a s…
FV3 was a shambles. For a number of fairly well-understood reasons: 1. It's a FOAK design. 2. France stopped building reactors, so expertise was sparse 3. The EPR is too complex, partly because it was designed for German safety standards, which in turn were specifically designed to make nuclear reactors economically unviable (they did not succeed with this). Those regulations are also prescriptive instead of requirem…
Which is of course why all recent western proejcts have equal outcomes to FV3.
And the ones recently started, like the Darlington SMR also have near equal costs before they have even started building.
I love the blind belief. Just another aboslutely bonkers handout of tax money and it will be solved!
Which is why the EPR2 project is getting more delayed and more costly by every update released.
Existing nuclear power might be cost neutral. The problem is building new.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#338One of my biggest pet peeves is when outlets talk about energy storage exclusively in terms of output and neglect to mention capacity. Does 15.7 gigawatts of storage mean 15.7 GWh? Capacity is as important, if not more important, than output.
Based on the following sentences from the article, it's probably 4 to 6 times more than 15.7 GWh (60 to 90 GWh, apparently): "Battery energy storage is not without challenges, however. Lithium-ion batteries — the most common type used for energy storage — typically have about four to six hours of capacity. It’s enough to support the grid during peak hours as the sun sets, but can still leave some gaps to be filled by…
90 GWh would be something like 10% of global annual battery production.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
dumping doesn't depend on profit or loss. Also the legal definition of dumping is less-than-the-"normal value." (see Article VI ANTI-DUMPING AND COUNTERVAILING DUTIES of GATT 1994). But then China is a non-market-economy, so none of these rules apply in a hypothetical anti-dumping case -- ie, China's local price, or "normal value" doesn't matter.
A normal value for a highly competitive commodity part like a battery is about 3% above cost. CATL charges over 20% above cost. So you might have an argument that CATL has monopoly pricing power and is gouging its customers. IOW that they're illegally charging too much, not that they are illegally charging too little.
Sure, that's not what a normal value is.
As explained, the price level or the cost of manufacture in China, the exporting country, is completely irrelevant as their local price/cost of manufacturer is artificially propped up by illegal state subsidies or other anti-market tactics to cripple foreign competition past 15 years. Again, China is a non-market-economy.
In those cases, trade regulators can use "undistorted" prices without gov't interference or use a market price in a similarly situated 3rd country as benchmark.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh yeah I get what you’re saying but is that a thing? Like CATL has had lines before that aren’t making a profit?
It's not a thing; people are just stuck in the 2000s and think that China can't beat the West technologically and therefore must be cheating.
> people are just stuck in the 2000s and think that China can't beat the West technologically and therefore must be cheating.
We are talking since early 2010 and on. And it's pretty much what everyone says they are: China has been breaking every trade/IP laws/agreements -- forced IP transfer/IP theft, ban foreign competition, illegal state subsidies to overcapacity, etc to get to where they are in the EV battery market.