> Solar to be competitive in most of North America requires massive FIT(feed-in-tariff) programs that pay above market rate to even cover the 30yr in cost.
Nope. The VAST majority of PV in the US is based on production tax credits, not FIT.
FIT is used for start-up and small systems, and then generally goes away.
> This is what Ontario did.
Exactly. Once the system was up and running the FIT went away. Now it's standard PPAs and net-metering.
I know, because I had a microFIT and now have net metering.
> The people preaching that slapping giant solar panels on good farmland are just idiots
Yeah, everyone's an idiot - except you, of course, you're the genius.
>that leased the land from the people who own it
Umm,ok...
> But that land which had been making them $20k/year before with various crops, is now costing them $20k/year or more in equipment maintenance.
You start off talking about someone leasing land from an owner to run a plant, and then say the landowner is up for the maint?
Seriously, do you know anything whatsoever about what you're talking about? Like the meaning of "lease"?
> But solar's capacity factor [wikipedia.org] (ratio of actual energy produced to capacity) is abysmal. About 0.145 for the U.S. as a whole, 0.185 for the desert Southwest
> BTW, some say fusion reactors are economically viable now
Yeah, they're wrong.
In fact, it's trivially easy to demonstrate that they will never be commercially viable. People in the power industry are very much aware of this and have been publishing reports on it since the 1960s (actually, 1958).
The fusion guys get these reports and then say "well, we don't have a working reactor so we don't really know" and then stick their fingers in their ears and do the "la la la I CANNOT HEAR YOU" thing.
> In the near term, people charging their electric vehicles overnight is a very, very good thing for utilities.
Here in Ontario when you buy a EV and a charger, you get a deal so night-time power is free.
Right-wing all up in arms over this of course.
Yet, when you examine the numbers, it turns out giving EV owners free power is actually cheaper, because Ontario Power Generation currently *pays* New York to haul away our excess.
> The fossil backup that is necessary to keep society working will be expensive though.
As repeated studies have shown, it is cheaper to supply power through a combination of renewables and fossil than either alone.
That is correct: adding renewables *lowers the cost of fossil fuel electricity*. Mostly through less wear and tear. This is not purely theoretically, many of the studies are in-market, notably California.
> The change for EV's was because batteries are becoming MUCH better.
And the power conversion electronics. Everyone overlooks that, but Telsa would not exist without modern high-power IGBTs and thyristors.They started appearing in the market right around the same time as li-ion.
> which is about the fourth-best renewable energy source overall
Here we go, another "those people are dumb" post by someone that never worked in the industry...
> We don't even use solar heating - a simple black tank sitting in the sun is pretty darn effective water heater nine months out of the year
We tend to use hot water in very peaky patterns, you can't ship it to your neighbour if you're not using it, and heating it with gas costs very little.
Electricity has a much less peaky patterns (look it up), will go into the grid when you're nothing using it, and tends to be more economically interesting.
If you own a laundry service, pool or steam bath, solar hot water makes a lot of sense. Not many other use-cases do. And I say that who has run the numbers for hundreds of prospective customers.
> we're 100% focused on the complex and expensive way
Riiiight.
Solar hot water consists of an insulated tank that also contains a secondary energy source, piping that has to be run in lines and heavily insulated, filled with glycol for anywhere that freezes and thus also includes a heat exchanger, and connected to several pump systems and valves. I know of many systems that overheated in the summer and dumped boiling water or glycol in bad places, or alternately the pumps broke and the system froze.
A PV panel consists of some glass, some fancy glass (the cells), and an aluminum frame around it. The entire balance-of-system consists of some house wiring you can pull with a fish tape, a solid-state inverter, and a breaker. There are no moving parts, no fluids, and they have an operational temperature range well beyond anything seen in Death Valley or Antarctica. The very first panels connected to the grid, in 1982, are still in use today, and the current estimate is a 100 year lifetime.
So sure, PV is the complex one.:rolleyes:
> Compare solar-electric with wind, battery storage with hydro
All of those have moving parts and cost more than PV.
You really have no clue at all, do you?
> This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that a powerful senator
That's right, it doesn't.
You understand that there is an entire planet outside the US, right? And that PV is the fastest growing power source over most of that planet?
And that it has nothing whatsoever to do with your no-name senator in the US? And that it has everything to do with the fact that the price of PV fell *200 times* since 1973 and is now the cheapest form of power in CAPEX terms *ever*?
> exactly the politician is handing a a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money to their friend and largest donor
Thanks for so clearly illustrating that you are part of the problem purely because of politics.
"But then in 2015, the FCC chose a different course and slapped heavy-handed regulations from 1934 -- known as "Title II" -- on the internet. This was the wrong decision."
Really? I have to ask because we did the same thing here in Canada about a decade ago. As a result, I can get my internet from any company over any wire that comes into my house. I have complete flexibility in choosing a provider, and there's actual price competition.
> Classify the implicit optionality of objects purely as a source of bugs
Among other issues, this remains my biggest complaint.
Obj-C generally "did the right thing" with nil in most contexts. Sure, nil-pointer errors are a pain, but declaring them away and just forcing everyone to type ! everywhere does not eliminate them. It does, however, eliminate the simplicity of binding a nil to a text field and just getting a zero, precisely what has to happen in code now.
"By having artists and rights owners register, it solves the problem for everyone. Anyone who wants to have their pre-1972 works brought into the new scheme can easily achieve that, but orphan works will enter the public domain as they ought to."
This.
Give automatic, free protection for a limited period. Make it the same as a patent, for simplicity's sake. After that, you have to register.
I'd add on top that you have to pay to register. If you think your holiday snapshot is worth protecting, but all means, pay $250 for that privilege.
Slashdot Mirror
> Solar to be competitive in most of North America requires massive FIT(feed-in-tariff) programs that pay above market rate to even cover the 30yr in cost.
Nope. The VAST majority of PV in the US is based on production tax credits, not FIT.
FIT is used for start-up and small systems, and then generally goes away.
> This is what Ontario did.
Exactly. Once the system was up and running the FIT went away. Now it's standard PPAs and net-metering.
I know, because I had a microFIT and now have net metering.
> The people preaching that slapping giant solar panels on good farmland are just idiots
Yeah, everyone's an idiot - except you, of course, you're the genius.
>that leased the land from the people who own it
Umm,ok...
> But that land which had been making them $20k/year before with various crops, is now costing them $20k/year or more in equipment maintenance.
You start off talking about someone leasing land from an owner to run a plant, and then say the landowner is up for the maint?
Seriously, do you know anything whatsoever about what you're talking about? Like the meaning of "lease"?
> Those sorts of batteries for overnight and maybe some cloudy days are what we need
No, you don't. You need about 15 to 30 minutes, which is the time it takes to spin up a gas plant.
And if you're worried about even this greatly reduced CO2 output, use the surplus to make a biofuel.
> Think of it as having a car that doesent use fuel but only works midd day.
What, that thing that I pay for 24 hours a day and use for 30 minutes?
Yeah, and in spite of that, everyone still owns one.
Great argument.
> so your costs will increase.
Put panels on your roof. Problem solved.
> Libya if we have to bomb them again
You won't have to, just stop buying their power.
People who are utterly dependant on you for their existence tend not to be enemies.
> Nuclear produces 805 TWh, which makes it hard to be to be excited by 2.5 gigawatts of solar
On a one-axis tracker, one would expect about 1800 kWh/kWp/year. So this 2.5 GW will generate about 4.5 TWh.
That's the amount installed in ONE QUARTER.
Which is important because as you yourself put it...
> after two decades of investment
Nuclear's output reached its current level after *five decades*, and PV's only been utility-scale for *one*.
> but nuclear is clearly the way to produce massive amounts of reliable and clean energy
Yeah, for two to three times the cost. And before you say that's not true:
https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-110.pdf
Page 2.
> where nobody reprocesses nuclear fuel
Reprocessed fuel costs more than fresh fuel, which is why no one uses it until they're forced to.
> not a problem of S.Korea or Canada
Like those countries.
> How do you get to cheaper when wind and solar require FIT payments to be 0.30-1.20kWh
You are quoting data from about 12 years ago. Current 20-year PPAs for PV in the US are running at about 5 cents.
> and a nuclear power plant can pump out power for 20 years before refueling
Yeah, you have no idea how a nuclear power plant works, do you?
> and it cost 0.05kWh
Current PPAs for nuclear are about 12 cents.
12 cents >> 5 cents
And that is why nuclear is dead.
> Nuclear ranks at 0.07 deaths per TWh of production
When that's the measure of your power source, dude, you already lost the argument.
The real issue is that new nuclear ranks at >$11/Wp CAPEX, and new solar is $1/Wp.
That is the only issue.
> But solar's capacity factor [wikipedia.org] (ratio of actual energy produced to capacity) is abysmal. About 0.145 for the U.S. as a whole, 0.185 for the desert Southwest
Google "capacity factor usa solar":
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b
Utility solar PV in 2017 had a 27.0% CF. And before you complain that's unfair, please show me a nuclear reactor on the roof of someone's house.
> I think it's going to double in about 7 Billion years or so.
Nice!
> BTW, some say fusion reactors are economically viable now
Yeah, they're wrong.
In fact, it's trivially easy to demonstrate that they will never be commercially viable. People in the power industry are very much aware of this and have been publishing reports on it since the 1960s (actually, 1958).
The fusion guys get these reports and then say "well, we don't have a working reactor so we don't really know" and then stick their fingers in their ears and do the "la la la I CANNOT HEAR YOU" thing.
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/why-fusion-will-never-happen/
> In the near term, people charging their electric vehicles overnight is a very, very good thing for utilities.
Here in Ontario when you buy a EV and a charger, you get a deal so night-time power is free.
Right-wing all up in arms over this of course.
Yet, when you examine the numbers, it turns out giving EV owners free power is actually cheaper, because Ontario Power Generation currently *pays* New York to haul away our excess.
0 > -ve
> The fossil backup that is necessary to keep society working will be expensive though.
Indeed, and that's when the PV flows back out of your home and goes and powers a factory somewhere.
You understand that wires are bidirectional, right?
> The fossil backup that is necessary to keep society working will be expensive though.
As repeated studies have shown, it is cheaper to supply power through a combination of renewables and fossil than either alone.
That is correct: adding renewables *lowers the cost of fossil fuel electricity*. Mostly through less wear and tear. This is not purely theoretically, many of the studies are in-market, notably California.
> European manufacturers are having to go to China for EV tech
Yeah sure.
The eGolf I just ordered is 100% European built.
Call me when you get your EV, and tell me all about it.
> So a 100% switch to electric cars should increase electrical energy consumption by about 20%.
You may enjoy these further calculations:
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/biofuel-vs-pv-stop-drinkin-the-ethanol/
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/future-grid-energy-in-the-not-so-distance/
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/wells-to-wheels-electric-car-efficiency/
> The change for EV's was because batteries are becoming MUCH better.
And the power conversion electronics. Everyone overlooks that, but Telsa would not exist without modern high-power IGBTs and thyristors.They started appearing in the market right around the same time as li-ion.
> which is about the fourth-best renewable energy source overall
Here we go, another "those people are dumb" post by someone that never worked in the industry...
> We don't even use solar heating - a simple black tank sitting in the sun is pretty darn effective water heater nine months out of the year
We tend to use hot water in very peaky patterns, you can't ship it to your neighbour if you're not using it, and heating it with gas costs very little.
Electricity has a much less peaky patterns (look it up), will go into the grid when you're nothing using it, and tends to be more economically interesting.
If you own a laundry service, pool or steam bath, solar hot water makes a lot of sense. Not many other use-cases do. And I say that who has run the numbers for hundreds of prospective customers.
> we're 100% focused on the complex and expensive way
Riiiight.
Solar hot water consists of an insulated tank that also contains a secondary energy source, piping that has to be run in lines and heavily insulated, filled with glycol for anywhere that freezes and thus also includes a heat exchanger, and connected to several pump systems and valves. I know of many systems that overheated in the summer and dumped boiling water or glycol in bad places, or alternately the pumps broke and the system froze.
A PV panel consists of some glass, some fancy glass (the cells), and an aluminum frame around it. The entire balance-of-system consists of some house wiring you can pull with a fish tape, a solid-state inverter, and a breaker. There are no moving parts, no fluids, and they have an operational temperature range well beyond anything seen in Death Valley or Antarctica. The very first panels connected to the grid, in 1982, are still in use today, and the current estimate is a 100 year lifetime.
So sure, PV is the complex one. :rolleyes:
> Compare solar-electric with wind, battery storage with hydro
All of those have moving parts and cost more than PV.
You really have no clue at all, do you?
> This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that a powerful senator
That's right, it doesn't.
You understand that there is an entire planet outside the US, right? And that PV is the fastest growing power source over most of that planet?
And that it has nothing whatsoever to do with your no-name senator in the US? And that it has everything to do with the fact that the price of PV fell *200 times* since 1973 and is now the cheapest form of power in CAPEX terms *ever*?
> exactly the politician is handing a a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money to their friend and largest donor
Thanks for so clearly illustrating that you are part of the problem purely because of politics.
> People's retirements are heavily vested in them.
Westinghouse, ToyRUs, Sears, Blockbuster, Enron, Kodak, Pan Am.
Lots of people were highly invested in all of these companies. All of these companies failed. World did not end.
From Pai's press release:
"But then in 2015, the FCC chose a different course and slapped heavy-handed regulations from 1934 -- known as "Title II" -- on the internet. This was the wrong decision."
Really? I have to ask because we did the same thing here in Canada about a decade ago. As a result, I can get my internet from any company over any wire that comes into my house. I have complete flexibility in choosing a provider, and there's actual price competition.
So I call BS on that.
> Now compare time and effort spent on languages and toolchains that can't run on the GPU
Hmmm, interesting point.
> Every minute that a developer uses to learn Swift, is a minute not spent on learning a non-Apple technology
And that was true of Obj-C for the last 30 years, so... yeah, solid argument there.
> Classify the implicit optionality of objects purely as a source of bugs
Among other issues, this remains my biggest complaint.
Obj-C generally "did the right thing" with nil in most contexts. Sure, nil-pointer errors are a pain, but declaring them away and just forcing everyone to type ! everywhere does not eliminate them. It does, however, eliminate the simplicity of binding a nil to a text field and just getting a zero, precisely what has to happen in code now.
"By having artists and rights owners register, it solves the problem for everyone. Anyone who wants to have their pre-1972 works brought into the new scheme can easily achieve that, but orphan works will enter the public domain as they ought to."
This.
Give automatic, free protection for a limited period. Make it the same as a patent, for simplicity's sake. After that, you have to register.
I'd add on top that you have to pay to register. If you think your holiday snapshot is worth protecting, but all means, pay $250 for that privilege.
> I have some green paint to sell you, it looks like apples, tastes like apples as well.
It's "apple-like".
> Waste on the grid is the result of poor power quality
Total average losses on the US grid as a whole is about 7%.
This isn't a problem that needs fixing. Sure, getting that down to 5% would be great, but first we really need EVs.