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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

#91

Post by ceejayoz »

ggggffggggg wrote: post #36
danans wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One nice thing about what’s happening is that politics are losing to reality. I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) No, the right isn't meant to be pro free-market. It's meant to protect the interests, longevity, and demand-capture of its donor industries, primarily fossil fuels extraction, processing, and distribution, but increas…

At scale no group is against its own personal interests . It sucks and it’s hypocritical and annoying, but that’s humans.

> At scale no group is against its own personal interests.

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

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

#92

Post by shagie »

jp191919 wrote: post #61
richardubright wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I looked into this more, and there is quite a bit of seasonal variability to contend with as well.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonbruner/2011/10/20/the-high-s... has some interesting data on the Columbia River and its dams.

From that https://youtu.be/jvnaiHFT6nQ is a visualization of the water releases for the river to allow the water to get to the right dam for the anticipated power use.

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

#93

Post by eYrKEC2 »

jeffbee wrote: post #70
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.

It bothers me that you attribute this to Elon Musk. This has been obvious to everyone for 75 years or more. The lecturer in my freshman thermodynamics class mentioned it, 35 years ago. In 1999, NREL scientists writing in the journal Science under the title "A Realizable Renewable Energy Future" made the specific claim about 10000 square miles.

> Elon Musk mentioned [...]

He didn't say Elon was the origin.

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

#94

Post by triceratops »

paxys wrote: post #47
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.

> This is larger than Rhode Island and Lake Erie combined

That isn't a lot. New Mexico alone can fit about 100 Rhode Islands. And NM isn't even the largest thinly-populated sunny state in the union.

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

#95

Post by tmellon2 »

jeffbee wrote: post #70
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.

It bothers me that you attribute this to Elon Musk. This has been obvious to everyone for 75 years or more. The lecturer in my freshman thermodynamics class mentioned it, 35 years ago. In 1999, NREL scientists writing in the journal Science under the title "A Realizable Renewable Energy Future" made the specific claim about 10000 square miles.

Thank you. I was not aware of prior references especially that it could be done with 10K square miles, until media reports of Elon's speech at Davos recently.

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

#96

Post by miltonlost »

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.)

I also never found the economic argument entirely convincing. If slavery were so economically disadvantageous in an industrialized society, why are there still slave labor in industrialized countries around the world today?

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

#97

Post by JuniperMesos »

rootusrootus wrote: post #67
Braxton1980 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask most voters they'll say big money in politics is bad but if they know that why aren't they voting the issue? What is the money doing that the voter can't overcome?

They all think it's big money on the other side. Everything they learn themselves isn't the result of a big money campaign, it's honest truthful information that they were smart enough to find on their own.

This is precisely why I don't care very much about accusations that there's big money in politics. Of course there is - there's huge numbers of people and institutions with money, using that money to advocate for the political change they want to see, and an important strategy for doing this involves promulgating information that they think is favorable to their cause. Everyone is doing this all the time.

Nonetheless, an individual citizen still has to support some political cause (even if you are completely politically disinterested, there are multiple factions claiming that your inaction is tantamount to support for their opponents). Whatever information about the world you think is true, or whatever political cause you think is in your interests, someone else can point to a monied interest who supports similar things. There's no way to use the absence of big money as a heuristic for what political causes are good or bad for you to support.

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

#98

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

miltonlost wrote: post #96
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.) I also never found the economic argument entirely convincing. If slavery were so economically disadvantageous in an industrialized…

Optimizing on an individual vs societal level.

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

#99

Post by colechristensen »

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…

What will come with the approaching boom of guilt-free energy is public support for doing more things with more energy, and instead of stagnated per-capita energy use a return to more-than-linear energy usage growth.

With that you get flying cars, space tourism, AI, cities in deserts with free water through desalination, better indoor climates with freer ventilation with the outside, cities skies free of ICE smog and probably a whole lot of things which are hard to imagine.

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

#100

Post by tootie »

paxys wrote: post #47
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.

What is the volume of fossil fuel we extract from the ground every year and try to imagine getting there from zero. Fact is we have easily 100K sq miles of useless desert as-is. We can fit a Rhode Island-sized solar farm in Nevada and nobody would notice. China built a solar farm of 162 sq mi in Tibet and are still expanding it. But realistically we will also be building wind, hydro and enhanced geothermal along too. It will be a lot of work, but it's absolutely achievable in a matter of decades with enough popular and political will.
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