Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 481 posts

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

#41

Post by peyton »

legitster wrote: post #29
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…

> 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…

[flagged]

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

#42

Post by ceejayoz »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #33
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

That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our…

> It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil…

That's what happens when the "Leader of the Free World" is 79 with dementia with memories of the 1970s oil crisis.

We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar.

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

#43

Post by richardubright »

jp191919 wrote: post #34

I wonder why existing hydro isn't utilized to it's potential. For instance, the Grand Coulee Dam has the highest capacity of any power station in the US of almost 7 MW but usually puts out about a third of that.

Looking at the data for lake that goes through the dam, it seems like they keep it at the same level. So it probably CAN make 7MW with more flow, but generally only flows at a state that puts out 2.

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

#44

Post by matthewdgreen »

Retric wrote: post #27
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a bit of social pressure we should be able to extinct the fossil fuel industry Taking Europe versus China, California versus Texas, it seems like social pressure is less effective than markets. Let markets build the power source they want to build and lo and behold you get lots of solar and wind and batteries.

That’s true today, it wasn’t true when Germany was heavily subsidizing solar to get economies of scale going. Solar is historically a great example where public / private collaboration actually had a place. Even if today it’s time to let market forces work.

Solar is just one technology. Decarbonizing successfully requires still further huge investments in batteries, modular nuclear reactors, CO2 removal, zero-carbon steel production, aviation e-fuels, non-fossil plastics, etc. But yes, hopefully we've unlocked enough economic advantage with just that one technology to get us 90% of the way there just on the basis of economics. (If the current administration doesn't find some way to sabotage it.)

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

#45

Post by SigmundA »

jp191919 wrote: post #34

I wonder why existing hydro isn't utilized to it's potential. For instance, the Grand Coulee Dam has the highest capacity of any power station in the US of almost 7 MW but usually puts out about a third of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

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

#46

Post by nostrademons »

Zigurd wrote: post #7
bubblewand wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy has unfortunate failure scenarios, make a note for history books and system design lessons. Vote better next time. Major problems with the US system have been known for a long time. It's been regarded as basically obsolete for over a century now, by the kind of people who study this stuff.

How about we try keeping big money out of politics and using ranked preference voting before we declare democracy obsolete? People have been studying that stuff.

FWIW most experts now favor approval voting [1] over ranked choice. Approval voting has similar advantages as ranked choice in allowing 3rd-party candidates and favoring moderate candidates. It avoids the chaotic behavior that RCV can exhibit [2] where shifts in the order of voters' down-ballot preferences can very significantly alter the outcome of the election [3]. And it's also much easier to explain to voters ("It's like voting today, except you vote for everybody you'd find acceptable and the best candidate wins. Sorta like when you're picking a restaurant to go out to with friends - you go to the place that is acceptable to the greatest number of people, not the one that a minority really want to go to"), doesn't require that you reprint ballots (you can re-use normal FPTP ballots, but you just count all votes instead of disqualifying ballots with multiple candidates marked), and is easily adapted to proportional representation and multi-member elections (you just take the top-N best candidates instead of the top-1).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

[2] http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o1byqi/...

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

#47

Post by paxys »

tmellon2 wrote: post #35

Elon Musk mentioned that just a 100 square mile grid of Solar can power the entire USA. I did not believe it; a simple calculation later, I was convinced. The USA of yesteryear would have done this already and more. Sure other sources are required, but honestly we humans have to advance beyond burning dead things for fuel.

Not 100 sq miles but 100 mile x 100 mile, which is 10,000 sq miles. And that assumes peak efficiency. Factoring in degredation you'd have to multiply this by 2.

Not "just" by any stretch of the imagination. This is larger than Rhode Island and Lake Erie combined. Aka a pipe dream. Might as well "just" build a dyson sphere while we are at it.

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

#48

Post by octernion »

peyton wrote: post #41
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…

[flagged]

ah yes the famine was because the people were lazy and did not want to farm. the history understander has logged on for everyone here!

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

#49

Post by thinkingtoilet »

peyton wrote: post #41
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…

[flagged]

What makes you think the newspapers of the day are all telling the truth? Does the media today tell the truth? Did newspapers disclose when the equivalent of a billionaire bought them out and drastically changed the editorial bias?

I'm not saying we shouldn't read historical documents. I'm saying to not apply the same skepticism you would apply to modern media to old media is a mistake.

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

#50

Post by Kye »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #33
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

That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our…

He has a whole video[0] on the difference between energy and electricity, so he understands it. Maybe there's some disconnect between the video and your interpretation.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOK5xkFijPc

Post reply on HN