Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first • Hacker News Board

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#81

Post by Manuel_D » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:19 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

epistasis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful, the tradeoff is solar cost versus storage cost. Pumped hydro and gravity are waaaaaaaay too expensive compared to excess solar panels. Pumped hydro takes massive construction projects, which are very very expensive these days. Gravity storage (non-water, meaning non-hydro) never made any sense at all, the material costs are just way too high. Iron-air storage is still being proven out, but it still requires…

Lithium is the way, almost as cheap as sodium for a superior capability profile. Like solar, it just got cheap enough incredibly fast. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/07/27/global-battery-storag... https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

Cost is influenced by demand. To put this in perspective about 60 TWh of electricity is used globally per day. About 1 TWh of lithium batteries were produced last year.

Even if every country tried to provision just one day of storage, that would cause a massive spike in demand that would inevitably drive up prices. Not to mention it would make EVs more expensive which would have its own negative consequences for emissions reductions.

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#82

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:25 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #81

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium is the way, almost as cheap as sodium for a superior capability profile. Like solar, it just got cheap enough incredibly fast. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/07/27/global-battery-storag... https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

Cost is influenced by demand. To put this in perspective about 60 TWh of electricity is used globally per day. About 1 TWh of lithium batteries were produced last year. Even if every country tried to provision just one day of storage, that would cause a massive spike in demand that would inevitably drive up prices. Not to mention it would make EVs more expensive which would have its own negative consequences for emis…

If necessary, we’ll switch to sodium chemistry for stationary storage if needed based on commodity input prices. With that said, incredible amounts of both lithium and sodium are cost effectively available today to achieve net zero.

https://www.rethinkx.com/faq-and-mythbusting/myth-there-is-n...

https://x.com/mzjacobson/status/2046604942203658512

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKBTnj1nTWo

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#83

Post by crote » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #43

epistasis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the challenges for heavy industry aren't as much the cost of energy, as it is the capital cost, and a workforce that has lots of options for higher paying jobs. Heavy industries are usually pretty low on the value chain in economies. They do not provide much return on capital, compared to the high tech options and service options that are available in the US, but not available anywhere else in the world. The…

Well, manufacturing capacity was the basis of US military dominance, which was the underpinning of the post WW2 US-led world order. That's pretty clearly eroded, and we're not sure we could win in a war against China, especially not a full-on war of attrition, and they're not sure about that either, and so they're steadily getting more willing to throw their weight around geopolitically, trying to get a setup that's…

> we're not sure we could win in a war against China

The USA couldn't even win a war against Afghanistan - which had basically no army and is the second-poorest country in the world. It couldn't win in Iraq, Niger, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Cuba, Korea, Laos, Tibet, and of course Vietnam. It is currently very much not winning in Iran either.

The main power of the US was its ability to bomb anyone they want to, due to a worldwide network of military outposts and a huge fleet of aircraft carriers. Prior to the drone era, this meant it was able to bully most countries into doing whatever the US wants it to do. As is now becoming painfully clear, it is no longer viable to maintain air superiority with a few dozen super-expensive toys, and hosting a US base is rapidly becoming a serious liability.

The USA is absolutely not going to win any kind of direct war. About the best possible outcome these days is maintaining its sphere of influence without either politically or economically ruining itself.

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#84

Post by crote » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #81

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium is the way, almost as cheap as sodium for a superior capability profile. Like solar, it just got cheap enough incredibly fast. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/07/27/global-battery-storag... https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

Cost is influenced by demand. To put this in perspective about 60 TWh of electricity is used globally per day. About 1 TWh of lithium batteries were produced last year. Even if every country tried to provision just one day of storage, that would cause a massive spike in demand that would inevitably drive up prices. Not to mention it would make EVs more expensive which would have its own negative consequences for emis…

Alternatively: the spike in demand will result in a similar spike in production capacity, leading to overall lower prices due to better economies of scale.

Battery costs have declined by 99% in three decades. Solar isn't much different. Demand for both have exploded during that time period.

Besides, the current battery storage tech is just a side-product of the EV revolution. If grid battery storage becomes the main solution we'll undoubtedly see cheaper and easier-to-scale alternative tech like iron redox flow batteries be adopted. Bulky, lossy, impossible to transport? Don't care - it's cheap!

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#85

Post by crote » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #63

bluGill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to have something to keep the water contained between the two.

But those aren't dams. Dams are something that stops the flow of water. And it's this stoppage that causes the environmental problems. Reservoir walls might look like dams, but they're not dams.

The main enviromental complaint is in flooding huge areas of land, which is the case with both dams and reservoir walls.

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#86

Post by crote » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:09 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #35

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pumped storage is still significantly cheaper for seasonal storage. The cut off is about 2 weeks now -- if you need to pull from storage more than twice a month batteries are cheaper. If you need to pull from storage less than twice a month pumped storage is cheaper.

In most practical cases, the cheapest way to provide carbon-neutral seasonal storage is to use the existing natural gas generators and feed them with carbon neutral synthetic gas. That synthetic gas is super expensive, but when you're only running it a couple times a year the gas is a tiny percentage of the cost.

This is such a painfully obvious solution that it is almost embarrassing that it even needs to be mentioned.

The "but sometimes..." crowd is obsessed with the few hours a year when it is dark, windless, battery storage is empty, hydro isn't available, and all neighbors have the same situation. Who cares, just use gas peaker plants! We already have them!

Our goal is not and has never been to get a 100% solar grid. Our goal is to reduce CO2 emissions as soon as possible, and as fast as possible. If that means running gas generators for a few days every year, then that is totally fine.

Want to feed it with synthetic gas, or use carbon capture on the exhaust? Even better. Running cost is irrelevant, it is more than compensated by the basically-free electricity during the summer, do whatever is cheapest to build.

On top of that, you could perhaps even leave the turbines running without being fired the rest of the year. It would provide a nice source of inertia, after all - why build a standalone flywheel when you could just repurpose an emergency generator?

Re: Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May, a new first

#87

Post by rainsford » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:40 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #20

good thing the President is pouring billions into restarting coal plants what a freaking horror show we are living in

While the politicization of renewable energy isn't great, the interesting and positive thing to me is that it's entirely possible we're past the tipping point where the politics really matter.

Republican politicians in the US publicly rail against renewable energy because it's red meat for the Fox News crowd, but in reality you see even very Republican states like Utah investing in renewables because economic reality ultimately beats political ideology on stuff like this.

Maybe the worst aspect of renewable energy being turned into yet another political culture war issue is that while renewable energy resources themselves are probably inevitable, the political nonsense surrounding them has helped limit US investment in their development relative to places like China. As a result, the US and the West as a whole is likely to be far more reliant on Chinese technology in renewables than we otherwise might have been.